Best Practices for Canvas Discussions

Your professor may ask for your to record and share a video on a discussion, then reply to other classmates' videos.

The best way to create and share a video is through a tool called YuJa. You can access it through your reply screen and even record through your browser, so long as you have a webcam connected to your computer.

Note that YuJa only works with physical computers (such as laptops). The mobile version of Chrome and the Canvas app will not work with YuJa.

There is another way to record in Canvas, but YuJa is preferred because you can request auto-captions. This is important to make sure that everyone in class has access to what you're saying, from English-language learners to people who process audio slowly or not at all.

1. On your course, go to the discussion and click the Reply button.
2. Just above the text box, you’ll find several buttons for font size, bold, italics, and so on.
3. You are looking for the YuJa button: 
4. If the button is not visible, click on the three dots to the right to expand the menu.
5. Click on the YuJa button (a rainbow swirl icon).
6. You will see a YuJa pop-up appear on your browser.

7. Click the tab that reads “Create Recording” at the top of the pop-up.
8. You can download YuJa if you’d like, but recording in your browser is easiest. Click

on the “Launch Browser Capture” button.

9. When you launch the recorder, your browser will request access to your camera and microphone. Allow access to each so that you can use your webcam to record video and audio.
10. Your picture from your webcam should appear in the window.

11. Before you record, be sure to check your microphone and camera are working! Your picture appearing shows the camera is active, but you can tell if the microphone works by speaking and watching the bars at the top right: []
12. If they move, your microphone is active. If not, you may need to click on the arrow beside the Microphone button to confirm which microphone it’s accessing.
13. Click “Start Recording.”  You’ll see a countdown before your recording begins.
14. When you click stop, you’ll see a pop-up showing that you Successfully Uploaded Recording.
15. Scroll down and click either Watch Video (to review), New Recording (to start over), or Use this Video (to embed in the discussion).
16. After clicking “Use This Video,” you’ll see the video processing. Look for the “Insert Content” button to add it to your Canvas discussion.
17. Don’t forget to click “Reply” on Canvas! This finishes your discussion post.

Want a guide with more step-by-step pictures and instructions? Download here!

If your captions aren't appearing, follow this guide to generate auto-captions for your YuJa video.