MiVideo: Managing Channels in Mediaspace

What is a Channel?

Sometimes referred to as “mini-portals”, channels are personally managed, user generated media collections in Mediaspace. They can be configured in a variety of ways from fully open collaborative collections to private collections locked down to specific groups.

Channel Types

MediaSpace provides five types of channels:

Public
Anyone, including anonymous visitors, can view content, but only specific users can add content
Open
Authenticated users can view and add content
Restricted
Authenticated users can view content, but only specific users can add content
Private
Only specific users can view and add content
Shared Repository
Only specific users (members) can access a shared repository. Members can publish content from this channel to any other channel according to their entitlements, but only specific users can add content

The ability to create channels is based on a combination of Mediaspace configuration settings and the user’s Mediaspace role. Not all channel types may be available in your Mediaspace.

Where to Find Channels

Depending on your site’s configuration, channels can be found from several different locations:

  • My Channels under the user drop-down list in the site header.
  • In the main site navigation (individual and/or all channels) as configured by the site administrator.
  • Inside a gallery category as configured by the site administrator

Mediaspace Roles & Channel User Management

Roles determine what an authenticated user can do in Mediaspace. They work in conjunction with channel member types and the channel configuration settings made by the site administrator. Site roles take precedence over channel roles.

Channels provide four roles (all include the ability to view content):

Managers
can manage channel members, moderate content (if moderation is enabled), and add content.
Moderators
can approve and add their own content.
Contributors
can add content
Members
can view content

Example of a site role taking precedence over channel role:

A site administrator configured a site so users with a viewerOnly role can create Open channels, giving them the Manager role for that channel. Remember that all authenticated users can add content to open channels.

User SuzyQ has a viewerOnly site role when she authenticates. SuzyQ creates an open channel “Suzy’s Original Flicks” but cannot find a way to upload her videos. This is because SuzyQ’s viewerOnly site role cannot add media. This takes precedence over the channel’s open type and SuzyQ’s channel role of Manager.

Even though SuzyQ cannot upload her own media, as a channel creator she is automatically the channel’s manager, so she can still manage her channel’s users.

Remember that any authenticated user who is a member of a Shared Repository channel can publish content from the Repository to their channels. SuzyQ could add content from a Shared Repository she’s a member of to her channel. SuzyQ, however, cannot add her own uploaded media unless the site admin changes her site role to privateOnly or higher so she has access to My Media.

As you can see, Channel and site roles can be straightforward or very complicated based on site configuration. For assistance with mapping out channel roles, contact the MiVideo Support team by submitting a request to the ITS Service Center.

"My Channels" Views

Select My Channels from the user name drop-down list in the top-right of the header.

The default view is Channels I manage. Other views in the drop-down list:

  • Channels I am a member of
  • Channels I am subscribed to
  • Shared Repositories I am a member of

 

Channel Topics

Topics, when configured by the site admin, allow views to be filtered by pre-defined topics.

For assistance with configuring channel topics, contact the MiVideo Support team by submitting a request to the ITS Service Center.

Creating and Managing Channels

Note:The following examples assume that your site role is at or higher than the role the site administrator configured for each channel type and that you are a channel owner/manager. If your site role does not meet the configuration requirements, the ability to create that type of channel will not be available to you.

Create a Channel

  1. Select My Channels from the user name drop-down list.
  2. Click Create Channel.

    Note: This is the Edit Channel page, used for managing membership and channel settings. To manage media in the channel, use the Channel View page, which is covered in Adding Media to a Channel.

  3. Enter a name for your channel (the system prevents duplicates).
  4. Enter an optional description.
    • This information displays at the top of the channel page for anyone who can view it.
    • Description display is truncated at 500 characters followed by a “Read more” link. Truncated text will not display as formatted until the read more link is clicked.
  5. Enter tags as desired to assist in search results
  6. Choose your channel type. See channel types
  7. Set desired options:
    Note: options are based on site configuration and may vary from this example.
    Moderate content
    a channel manager or moderator must approve added media.
    Enable comments in channel
    enables the comments tab on media. Block comments on a single media item with the Options tab on the Edit Media page
    Keep comments private to channel
    keeps media comments, when enabled, private to the channel. This is useful when media is published in more than one channel or category in the site and you do not want to share channel members’ comments with the wider site audience.
    Enable subscription to channel
    allows channel members and managers a choice to receive email notifications when new content is added.
  8. Assign Categories (optional) - ability to associate channel with existing gallery categories. This is an advanced feature that the MiVideo Tier3 support team can assist with. Submit an request to the ITS Service Center.
    • When a channel is associated with a category, a “browse channels” link displays in the gallery category view.
    • Gallery category viewers still see only the channels they are entitled to see.
  9. Select Topics (optional) - if enabled, associate the channel with predefined topics to aid in channel filtering. See Channel Topics for more information.
  10. Click Save.

Do not click the “back to channel” link that appears after saving is done.

Scroll back to the top of the page to see that a Members tab has been added. Click the tab to see that you are currently the only member, and your channel role is Manager. To add managers, contributors, moderators, or members, see Managing Members.

Setting the Channel Thumbnail

The system will create a channel thumbnail based off the media thumbnails in your channel. You can add your own thumbnail from the channel’s view page.

  1. Navigate to your channel page. See Where to Find Channels
  2. Click Upload thumbnail just below the current thumbnail in the Channel information block in the right-hand column.

    Note: To reset the thumbnail to an auto-generated one, click the reset thumbnail link.

Channel Analytics

Channel analytics are visible to channel managers.

  1. From the channel view page, select Actions > Analytics.
  2. Change the date range with the drop-down list between the channel heading and the report tabs.

    The reports are exported as CSV files and contain links to drill down into the data.

  3. Trendlines in reports indicate the last 7 days of activity, regardless of the reporting time frame.

Adding Media to a Channel

Note: site and channel roles are needed to add media to a channel.

Adding Media From Within the Channel

  1. Go to your channel. See Where to Find Channels
  2. Click Add Media.
  3. Use the tools at the top of the page to locate the media.

    Note: you may need to change “Media I Own” to “Media I Can Publish”.

  4. Check the box(es) next to the media and click Publish, or click Add New to upload new media. See Uploading Media

Tip: uploading new media from within the add Media to channel process automatically publishes the media to the channel when the upload and all required metadata is complete.

Adding Media From "My Media"

When saving is done a confirmation message is displayed at the bottom of the page

  1. Go to My Media and check the boxes for the media you want to add.
  2. Click Actions and select Publish.
  3. Click the Published radio button.
  4. Click the Publish in Channels tab.
  5. Check the boxes next to the channel(s) to which you want to publish.
  6. Click Save.

Editing Channels

There are two ways to get back to the channel edit mode to make setting changes and/or manage membership:

  • From My Channels, click the edit link on the channel thumbnail
  • When viewing the channel page (where the media thumbnails are displayed), click Actions at the top of the screen, and then click Edit.

Deleting Channels

Deleting a channel does not delete its content, however, the following data will be removed:

  • channel comments if they were marked to be kept private to the channel
  • all membership data and channel analytics

To delete a channel, click delete on the Edit Channel page.

Managing Channel Members

Member management depends on the type of channel.

Open channels
require no member or contributor membership management because all authenticated users are automatically contributors and therefore members. You could add users as additional managers in order to transfer ownership of the channel and/or share edit privileges.
Public channels
are viewable by anyone including anonymous visitors, and Restricted channels are viewable by any logged in user, but only contributors, moderators, or managers can add content to them. If you want others to contribute to your public or restricted channels, you must add them as members with the appropriate entitlement.
Private and Shared Repository
channel access is by “invitation only” which means you must add members in order for them to view or contribute to the channel.

Notes about User Accounts:

  • Only users who have logged in at least once to your site or who have been manually added by the site admin in Manage Users function can be added to channel.
  • If you have a large number of users to add to your site and/or channel, the MiVideo Tier3 support team can assist with bulk uploading users and setting their channel entitlements. Email the ITS Service Center for assistance.

Adding Members

  1. From the Channel Edit mode page, click the Members tab
  2. Click Add Member
  3. Type in the person’s username. If the person is in the database, the system will pop their account up in a pick list for you. If they are not in the database, they need to login once to the site, or the site admin can add their account manually so you can try adding them again.

Managing Members

Unless your site is configured to block channel member management, which is an unusual circumstance, you can edit member permissions, transfer channel ownership, and remove members using the icons and links in the Actions column next to each user’s name on the members list.

Changing a user’s role - When you click the pencil icon to edit a role, the pencil changes to a save icon that you must click to confirm your changes.

Removing a channel member - click the X to remove a channel member. You will be prompted to confirm the removal. Removing a member does not delete their account, and you can add them back at any time.

Transfer channel ownership - Click the Set As Owner link to make someone else the channel owner and manager. You will still be a channel manager until another manager changes your permissions.

Tags: 
MiVideo
MiVideo Mediaspace
ITS.umich page: 
its.umich.edu/communication/television-video/mivideo/support