Tech Tip: Kaltura —Tagging media best practice and tips

Name: Ryan Johnson

katura tags screen shot

When you first upload a video to My Media in Canvas or Penn State’s MediaSpace, Kaltura gives you the opportunity to add tags to your video so you and your viewers may easily find it. You can also add tags to your media after you upload it.

A tag is a label attached to something, in this case a video or media file. Tagging something classifies it to make it easier to find. Kaltura uses metadata, like tags, to classify and describe items, making browsing and searching easier. Tags are a great way to navigate and find your content in Kaltura. You should make tags as meaningful and relevant to the media as possible so that they can provide useful search results.

Unlike hashtags, which omit spaces, tags in Kaltura allow spaces between words. For example, a hashtag like #libraries in social media could just be libraries in Kaltura. You don’t have to worry about capitalizing your tags either. You can capitalize if you choose, without changing the search results.

Whenever you upload a media file to Kaltura, you can add your tags in the Tags field. You can also add tags later by editing the media details page.

Here are a few more tips:

  • Tags can be a useful way to group media. Using Kaltura in Canvas, instructors may want to choose tags related to their course syllabus. For example, if you want your students to watch a reading of The Tell-Tale Heart in your section on Edgar Allen Poe, an appropriate tag might be poe. Your students can search the course Media Gallery for poe and find all the media files with that tag attached.
  • If you have several pieces of media for one course, it is a good idea to tag them with the same course title/code and semester so that they can be located together in a search. This allows you to quickly locate specific course media on your My Media page. For example,ENG30 Fall 2018.
  • You can also tag media by topic. Some examples of topics include “weekly summaries,” “lab demonstrations,” “lesson number,” and “lectures.”
  • If you are collaborating on media with others, consider establishing a common tagging system with your development team to ensure that tags are consistently created and applied to your group’s media. Having a tagging system in place makes finding your content faster and easier.
  • If you are creating content for faculty, a good method of tagging is to use the course number, the instructor’s last name, and a subject area. Using this method, an appropriate tag for course EE200 taught by James Murphy, may look like this:
    ee200 murphy electrical engineering.
  • If you have content that is captioned for accessibility, you can add the tag “ADA” to your regular tags so people know it is accessible to viewers with disabilities.