Over the last few years we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of media items uploaded to VIUTube. Many of these videos are single purpose videos for a specific course, assignment, or event and don't need to be kept long term. If you use a video to grade a student or make other decisions, you must keep your media for a year. Media items often contain personally identifiable information and should not be retained indefinitely.
The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning is implementing an annual cleanup process for the VIUTube platform. This process helps us minimize the amount of unnecessary personal information stored on VIUTube. It alsohelps students and employees clear up media that is no longer needed.
This cleanup process will happen every July. Media that meets the cleanup criteria will be archived for a period of one year after which, if the content owner has not contacted CIEL to request that media be restored to their collection, it will be permanently deleted from VUTube. While media is archived, any links or embedded copies of the media will be unavailable and the media will not appear in the owner’s media collection. Once media has been deleted, it cannot be restored.
What media will be cleaned up?
Separating media that has long term use from media that is single use and should be removed from VIUTube is a complex process. We have set up ways for you to opt in and opt out of the cleanup process for specific media items using Tags.
Videos that have not been given either the opt in or opt out tag will be cleaned up if they meet the following criteria:
- Media created/uploaded two or more years prior to the cleanup.
- Media has a last played date >12 months ago.
- Note: As the owner of a media item, you playing the media does not update the last played statistic. This measures only others viewing your media.
Opt-in tag
If you have media that you don't need to keep beyond the current semester, you can use this tag. Media tagged with the opt-in tag will be archived in the next annual cleanup.
The opt-in tag is include_in_cleanup
Opt-out tag
If you have media that you don't use every year but need to keep, use this tag. Media tagged with the opt-out tag will not be archived during the clean up. This tag should not be used on media that contains personal information for students such as recorded course sessions. If you are unsure if your media contains personal information that should not be retained indefinitely, please contact the VIU privacy office.
Media that had this tag attached to it will not be archived or deleted during the cleanup process regardless of the media age and last played date. However, CIEL staff may reach out to specific VIUTube users if we see large amounts of unplayed media with this tag. VIUTube is meant to serve as a platform for sharing media within the VIU community and is not the right platform for long term storage of media that is not actively in use.
The opt-out tag is exempt_from_cleanup
Add a tag to VIUTube media
Tags can be added to individual media items or be added in bulk to a selection of media in your collection.
- Go to VIUTube and navigate to the media you want to tag.
- Hover your mouse over the media and select More…
- In the general section, enter the tag text in the Tags field.
- Click Save General to save your changes.
- Navigate to the folder in VIUTube where your media is located.
- Select the media you want to add a tag to by holding down the ctrl (command on Mac) key and clicking the media you want to select.
- To select all media, click More Actions and choose Select All.
- Please note: if you have folders selected you will not see the bulk tag option. You can hold down ctrl or command on your keyboard and click on selected folders to unselect them.
- Click More Actions and then choose Bulk Tag.
- Enter the tag(s) in the field provided and then click Save.