ACTAC LT&I Director’s Report, October 28, 2021

Kaltura video platform changes

Kaltura is our video platform that is integrated with Moodle (“My Media”) and externally at: https://media.tru.ca/ It hosts videos and has basic editing and screen capture tools. All TRU users have access. It is managed as a BCNet Shared service, hosted in the province by UBC.

  • As of today: 35737 videos. In this academic year, we are averaging ~50 new videos per day, and 3000 – 5000 unique views per day.
  • (Last year, it was 300 uploaded videos per day, and up to 20,000 views per day.)

BCNet recently announced it is discontinuing the on-prem hosting, and that beginning next summer the Kaltura shared service will be hosted by the vendor on an AWS cloud server in Montreal. Key dates:

  • Jan 2022: deadline to indicate if continuing with cloud service or opting out.
  • April 2022: cloud service begins. Migration of videos can begin shortly after for those continuing.
  • September 2022: hosted service ends for those opting out.

A scoping call with BCNet is scheduled for November 8.

Some considerations:

  • SIF funding for Kaltura launch has ended. The cloud service will likely be more expensive ($3.57/seat), hope to have solid figures after scoping meeting. Additional products such as “virtual classroom” and lecture capture would increase that amount. Budget will need to be secured for ongoing service.
  • Migration is “supported” by the vendor, but extent of that support service and how involved the process will be is still to be determined.
  • If TRU discontinues Kaltura shared service, alternative commercial products or self-hosting a robust platform will likely be significantly more costly.
  • If approvals and support are forthcoming, a migration is likely for summer 2022.

Moodle course archiving

Moodle system demands growing rapidly. Particularly with regards to storage footprint. Regular archiving and backups are increasingly costly and we have been warned system stability may soon be at risk. There are some completed courses on Moodle that are more than 60 gigabytes. With regular backups we may have many as ten copies of an old course that is not actively being delivered. That means more than half a terabyte of storage for a single past iteration of a course.

We can improve the efficiency of our backups by automatically “hiding” old courses. (Before Jan 1, 2015.) These courses will not be deleted, and instructors will still be able to access them. But hidden courses will not be repeatedly copied for backups.

Letter outlining this proposed change sent to chairs and coordinators in April 2021. We asked they consult with their instructors and advised that courses could be identified to be exempt from the “hiding” process. 36+ courses and course groupings have been identified for this exemption. Open Learning courses, which are often continuous, will also be exempt.

Data Stewardship and Analytics for Learning and Teaching (DSALT)  – Working Group of the Teaching and Learning Committee  

September 21 Meeting – Marina Sparks, Privacy and Access Officer

Significant changes to BC legislation seem certain. Key change is the removal of data residency requirements which encourage the use of Canadian hosting.