WHO CAN DO THIS?
Group Owners and any group member who has been given Add & Upload permissions in the group. Echo360 Admins can also add media to any group.
There are three ways to add media to your group:
- Enter the group and click Add Media. These are the instructions provided below.
This provides a list of items in your Echo360 library to choose from. It also provides the option to upload a file to the group from your local machine or a shared drive. - From the Media Tile button in your library, click Share then select the Groups tab.
- Share to the group from the Media Details page (the bottom of the Info tab).
One thing to note is that the media in the group can be set to appear in the order in which it is ADDED to the group, with the newest additions shown first. Keep this in mind if you want group members to view the media in a certain order. Members can change the displayed order of the media if necessary, but it appears, by default, in the order it is added.
Finally, understand that group media is "shared" media, meaning it is linked to from within the group. The original media file resides in someone's content library; if you or another user deletes that content, it is also removed from the group. If you do not own the media and deletion is a concern, consider making a copy that YOU own (if that option is available to you), and adding the copy to the group instead.
NOTE: If an Administrator has disabled the Library for students, students can still participate fully in groups but cannot add or upload media to the group, as doing so requires access to their Library (anything a user uploads goes to their library; Echo360 accesses it from there). If a student is an owner, the add/upload permission is assumed and is checked in the members list, but the student will NOT see the Add Media button used in the below procedure.
To add media to a group
- Click Groups on the top navigation panel.
- Click on the Group tile to open the group you want to add content to.
The group page opens, with the Content tab active as shown in the below figure.
- Click Add Media from the top of the page.
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In the dialog box that appears, select one or more pieces of media to add to this group. The list includes all media from your library that you own and are permitted to add to the group. You can add up to 30 items at a time.
Alternately, you can upload new media to the group, using the instructions included later on this page.
- If necessary, use the Search Content text box and/or Filters options to find the media file you want to add.
- When the media you want to add is selected, click Done at the bottom of the dialog box.
The Content tab of the group appears, with the added media appearing. Click Add Media and repeat these steps to add more items to the group.
Uploading Media to the Group
The steps below are for uploading a media file (video or presentation) to Echo360 and adding it to the group as a single process. The media is uploaded to your content library, processed, and shared to the Group Content tab for viewing by other group members. NOTE that just like all uploaded media, the media must complete processing before users can view it.
To upload media for sharing in a group
- Enter the group and click Add Media, as described in the above procedure.
- From the media selection dialog box that appears, select the Upload New Media tab, as shown in the below figure.
- Click Select Media.
The dialog box changes to allow you to upload from your local machine (this is the default).
- To select to upload from a shared drive location (such as Dropbox or Google Drive), click the appropriate icon from the list on the left side of the dialog box.
- Follow the options to find and select the media file to upload to the Group.
Remember: The media is actually uploaded to your content library; media is then automatically shared to the group for viewing by group members.
- Click Upload.
Once the file is uploaded, you are returned to the content list in the group and you should see a confirmation message of a successful upload. If an error occurs on upload, you will receive an appropriate message box.
Remember that the newly uploaded media will not have a preview thumbnail; the tile will read Processing while the item is being processed by Echo360. How long this takes is partially dependent on the size of the media file. Once processing is complete, group members will be able to view the media.