Panopto Course Content Retention Policy

Introduction

All Panopto recordings stored in residential Canvas course folders will be subject to the following policy: content uploaded over two years ago will be archived, and archived content uploaded over four years ago will be deleted. Please see the definitions below for archived and deleted, and more information on the upload date for a recording.

“Residential Canvas course folders” refers to Panopto folders associated with courses hosted on canvas.harvard.edu. This policy currently does not affect videos in folders associated with courses hosted on other Canvas instances, such as exed.canvas.harvard.edu.

Purpose

This policy will reduce University security risk, limit liability exposure to legacy content, and make it easier to find recent content.

Another catalyst for implementing the policy is that Panopto is changing its pricing model to charge for stored content rather than created and viewed content. This means we are considering the growth of content stored in Panopto as we anticipate future storage costs.

Schedule

HUIT will run this policy twice per year: once in January and once in June.

Example: 

1. A course recording is uploaded December 2022.
2. In January 2025, this recording will be archived because it was uploaded over two years ago.
3. In June 2027, this now-archived recording will be deleted because it is over four years old and in an archived state.

Video recording states

• Archived: the video’s thumbnail is visible, but it is not playable and meta information is not accessible (aside from the title). The video needs to be manually restored by anyone with viewing access to the video in order to queue it up to come back from cold storage — a process that may take up to 48 hours.
• Deleted: this retention policy will permanently delete the content, rather than place it in the recycle bin.

Upload date for a recording

This policy uses Panopto’s Creation Date attribute, which is the date the video was recorded or uploaded to Panopto. You may view this in the Overview section of the video settings. For a copy of a video, this date will be when the copy was created rather than the creation date for the source video. Editing a video will not adjust its creation date.

Notifications for archiving and deletion

Currently, you will not receive a notification in Panopto when your recordings are going to be archived or deleted by this retention policy. Please make sure to take one of the actions noted below to reuse a recording or store it long-term if needed.

Reusing recordings

Some recordings will need to be kept in Panopto to be reused (e.g. a course video trailer that is reused each time a specific course is taught). These recordings should be moved from the course folder to either your “My Folder” or a Department folder in Panopto, outside of the residential course folder hierarchy. Once the recording has been moved, you may make a reference copy in your course folder, or include the video in your Canvas site, so the copy may be easily accessible by your course. 

If you don’t have access to a recording or a Department folder, please contact your local academic technology support staff for assistance.

Reference Copies

A reference copy of a recording will be included in the archival/deletion actions in this policy as long as it meets the criteria and exists in the residential Canvas course folder. The original source video will be exempt from archival and deletion as long as it has an active reference copy. 

Restoring an Archived Video

If a video in a residential course folder has been restored from the archive but not moved outside of the course folder, it will continue to be included in future archival/deletion actions. If this video is intended to be reused, it should be moved outside of the course folder structure to avoid being included in the next round of archivals/deletions.

Storing recordings long-term

Moving a video out of a residential course folder and into a personal “My Folder” or Department folder will exempt that video from this policy. However, we plan on expanding this retention policy in the future to target content in those folders as well. Please keep this in mind as you manage your videos. If a video should be held onto long-term (more than four years), you may consider keeping a local copy on your computer or external hard drive.

Videos embedded in Canvas

Active Courses

If a course member views an archived video embedded in an active course, they will see a message, “This video has been archived and must be restored from the archive before it can be viewed. Restoring the video may take up to 48 hours”. They will be able to initiate the restoration process.  

Concluded Courses

For courses that are concluded, students will no longer see any Panopto videos, whether they are in an archived state or active. 

Teaching staff will be considered “Creators” in concluded courses and will see the previously mentioned message, “This video has been archived and must be restored from the archive before it can be viewed. Restoring the video may take up to 48 hours”. They will continue to have the option to restore archived videos. 

Get help

Please contact your school’s academic support staff or join HUIT’s Panopto office hours with questions.

Changes to this Policy Statement

This Policy Statement may be amended from time to time. Any such changes will be posted on this page. This Policy Statement was last updated on September 25, 2023.