Canvas Course Storage

Courses in Canvas have a storage limit of 1GB (1000MB) at WCU. More information about course file quotas in Canvas can be found on the Canvas File Quota Guide.  It is advised to store all media within a media library outside of the Canvas LMS in Panopto, OneDrive or other media repository space. Media files in your Blackboard course will need to be backed up for Canvas. Review the available guide to help you learn how to export media from Blackboard and upload to Panopto here. 

You might be wondering; do I have to use Panopto to record or store media? No, however Panopto is supported at WCU providing greater security and there is no additional cost.  With Panopto you can also be assured that the vendor has a retention policy for your videos that is quite different than the user agreement you agree to by clicking through to use a free service like YouTube. More information is highlighted on the media & screen capture options page.  

An important thing to note: Anything stored in Panopto will be available in your Canvas course in a similar way to Blackboard. You will need to double check that the Panopto links still point to the correct video (URL). Watch a video to learn about moving and using Panopto in Canvas. (2:21min)  

Storage in Panopto for instructors is currently unlimited.  Instructors also have up to 1 Terabyte of storage available in their personal OneDrive which can also be linked to Canvas through the Canvas Microsoft 365 integration. 

Panopto is used at WCU to give unlimited storage and streaming through the learning management system for media content. These issues not only include size limits but a range of other issues like the full capture of content, student engagement with media content, and quality. An article published by Panopto highlights these and many more in “10 Reasons You Shouldn’t Rely On Your LMS to Manage Videos” 

In the Priming with Canvas Course, there is an exploration of the reason the current research-backed pedagogy recommends short “one point” videos as an alternative to a long “lecture-type” video.  The Panopto editing tool is sufficient for short videos, but long videos (20+ minutes) will probably require using a video editor that is not loaded as a browser tool.