Where and how you should include media like videos in your coursework — questions, assignments, or announcements — depends on the content of the media and how you want your students to use it.
Linking to Media or Embedding It in WebAssign
When you use media such as videos, you can usually choose whether to give your students a link to the media or to display the media in WebAssign on the student’s home page or in an assignment.
- Linking to Media
- Linking displays a link on the student's page which they click to open
the media in a new browser window or tab.
On some platforms, students might find it difficult or annoying to switch between the media and an assignment if they need to answer questions based on the media.
- Embedding Media in WebAssign
- Embedding displays the media and its player in WebAssign. The student usually clicks a play button to start the media, and can
watch it in the context of the course or assignment.
Pages with multiple videos can load slowly, depending on how many videos are embedded.
Where to Include Linked or Embedded Media
| Media Content | Where to Include It | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Recording of a class lecture | Resources or Announcement | This is especially valuable for flipped or online classes.
Consider linking to the video. |
| Instructions for an assignment | Assignment Instructions | Consider embedding the video rather than linking to it. |
| Learning material that applies to an entire assignment | Assignment Instructions | Consider embedding the video rather than linking to it. |
| Short demo that your students will use to answer no more than a few questions | Question (Question box) | |
| Explanation that you want your students to watch after attempting a question | Question (Solution box) | Turn on Answer Key display. |
| Short video about which you won't be asking questions directly | Resources or Announcement | |
| Video that your students need to watch before completing an assignment, but which should not be available to view while completing the assignment | Resources or Announcement | Consider using the following assignment settings:
|
| One of several videos students should watch while completing an assignment | Question |
Use one question at a time display for your assignment. |
Resources or Announcements
For media that does not need to be displayed as part of an assignment, you have two choices: you can include the media in a class announcement, or you can upload it as a class resource. Either way, the media are linked or displayed on your students' home page in WebAssign. However, there are some implementation differences between the two.
| Resources | Announcements | |
|---|---|---|
| Media hosting | You must upload the media file to WebAssign. | You can either upload a media file to WebAssign or share media hosted externally, such as on YouTube or your school's Web servers. |
| Context for students | Can be organized on the student's home page by textbook chapter or section, but you can't add other information or instructions. | You can add your own information, description, or instructions for using the media in the announcement. You can change the order of each class' announcements list as needed. |
| Difficulty to implement | After uploading, select a check box to make media available to students. | After uploading or obtaining link to media, create an announcement and add code to link to or embed media. |
| Time-based availability | You must make resource available or unavailable manually. | You can schedule when announcements become available to your students and when they become unavailable . |
| Reuse for other classes | Can be reused across your classes over time. | Can be reused across your classes over time. |