Did you know that students can use YuJa, too? In fact, YuJa is available to all COD faculty, staff, and students. When students are assigned video presentations in a course, they can use YuJa to record a video and then embed it directly into their class assignments, keeping things streamlined and their video content secure. The process is pretty simple but since YuJa is a new tool for many students, we’ll go through the steps they’ll need to know to make it easy to use YuJa in your courses.
We also have a Knowledge Base post on student use of YuJa if you’d like to reference that.
Getting Started
The first step to using YuJa is to sign in. The login page for YuJa is located at http://cod.yuja.com. Students will use their same username and password that they use to access their COD email, Blackboard and MyACCESS.
It’s usually easiest to access YuJa directly through the YuJa website, but there is also a mobile app for both Android and iOS that students can use if they would like.
Once logged in, students will be able to choose to either record a video or upload a video from their computer or device. We’ll cover both of these scenarios below.
Recording a Video
Students can use YuJa as a video recording tool. First, they’ll need to click on Create Recording. If this is a student’s first time using YuJa and they are accessing it on a personal computer, they will likely need to install the YuJa Software Capture program.
Once this program is downloaded and installed, it’s easy to start recording a video. They can record directly from a webcam or create a narrated presentation, which can be useful for those using PowerPoint or other presentation software tools. You can find instructions on that process in our Knowledge Base article Creating a Narrated Presentation.
Learn more about Creating a Recording for students.
Uploading a Video
For those who don’t want to use YuJa to create a video, there’s also the option of uploading an existing video to YuJa for storage and sharing within the course.
Once logged into YuJa, the student will need to select Upload from the menu at the top of the page. Then click Browse to find the file stored on the device. Once the file is selected, hit Open and then Start Upload. Depending on the size of the file, it could take a few seconds or a few minutes to complete uploading.
Learn more about uploading a video to YuJa.
Editing a Video
Students have access to limited editing tools in YuJa.
- Trim Start and Trim End This removes unwanted content at the beginning or end of a video
- Cut This tool to removes unwanted content from the middle of a video
- Undo Use the Undo button to undo and remove your editing changes
- Insert Slide This will replace a portion of the video with a single PPT slide or another file, like a PDF or Word document
- Insert Video This inserts a video clip into the video
- Save Save allows you to save a video under a new name or replace the existing video
- CC The CC button is where you can open and edit the captions for your video
Students do not need to worry about accidentally destroying their video content in YuJa. Any time edits are made a new file is created–no changes are made to the original file.
Learn more about cutting segments of a video in YuJa.
Embedding a Video
Once a video has been uploaded or created in YuJa, students can then embed the video into Blackboard. Students can only do this within assignments and in the discussion board. Here are the steps:
- From any Text Submission box, click the ellipsis, or More.
- Click the plus sign or Add Content.
- Click YuJa Media Chooser. Find more information on the YuJa Media Chooser.
The content should then be embedded and ready to go.
If students do not want to embed the video and just want to share a direct link, that is possible as well. In YuJa, first locate your video. Then put hover your mouse over the video and select More. In the More menu, choose Links. Select the code beneath Direct Link and copy the link. Finally, paste the link in an assignment dropbox, a discussion forum, an email, website, or wherever else you need it.
If you have any questions about these processes, please let us know! While we don’t provide direct support for students (that’s the Student Helpdesk) we can help you ensure that students have the resources they need to get started with YuJa.
