Opencast Media Archive

NOTE: This policy is being newly introduced from Feb 1st 2026. From that date, unused course videos captured inside SS20/21 and SS21/22 semester dates will be unpublished but not deleted.  No content will considered for deletion until Feb 2027. Full details are below.

Opencast Media Archive Lifecycle Policy

All past and future videos added to the Media archive via recording or AV Portal upload are subject to a lifecycle policy. This is done in the interests of data minimisation and data protection. The policy currently states a video lifecycle of three stages for each video. These stages are Published, Unpublished and Deleted. The life-cycling policy is applied after each semester end. At this date, each opencast video is reviewed, matched to a lifecycle stage, and any actions queued.

What videos are considered for lifecycling?
Videos placed inside OLAT or publicly shared in av-portal are not life-cycled. Only videos not used in OLAT or publicly shared in av-portal are considered for lifecycling. Such videos are termed unused.

The typical lifecycle of a video

• Published: The default state. video is listed in https://av-admin.uibk.ac.at and is also playable in OpenOLAT if added to a course, or can added to an OLAT https://lms.uibk.ac.at course by the owner. The video is available in https://av-portal.uibk.ac.at and can shared or embedded publicly by the video owner.
• Unpublished: The video is listed in https://av-admin.uibk.ac.at but is not available in OLAT or AV Portal. The raw video can be downloaded for personal archival over a one-year period.
• Deleted: The video has been removed from https://av-admin.uibk.ac.at and cannot be retrieved.

Lifecycle checks are performed at end semester end. This is termed lifecycling. These checks are:

1. Skip any type of video that is in-use. Any published video that exists in a live OLAT course OR is publicly shared with world-viewable permissions will be assumed to be in-use and will remain published.
2. life-cycle any unused teaching videos. Any published video not in-use that includes a course LV code will be unpublished after 36 months (3 years) from the containing semester's end date.
3. life-cycle any unused non-teaching videos. Any published video not in-use and without a course LV code will be unpublished after 48 months (4 years) from the recording start date. These are typically meetings, team sessions, learning aid uploads, marketing videos or research data recordings.
4. Delete 12-month expired unpublished videos. Unpublished videos that have been unpublished in a prior life cycle will be permanently deleted 12 months after the date the video was unpublished. This gives the owner the opportunity to download their recordings for personal use. 

An example for lecture recordings:

• Course X was run in summer semester 2021/22 (SS21/22).
• The semester for this course started 01.10.21.
• A video was recorded 23.11.21.
• The end of the semester for this course was 01.02.22.
• Videos that are titled with the course X LV code are unpublished from 01.02.25 i.e. 36 months (6 semesters) after the end date of the semester they were recorded in.
• 12 months after being unpublished, the video is deleted, i.e. on 01.02.26.

Long term (10yr) archival 

The matter of long-term archival will be addressed over the 2025/2026 semester period. An additional stage, Archived, will be implemented once a new university-wide archive system is implemented.  No video deletion will take place until the archival system implementation is complete. When implemented, users will be introduced to a method to nominate media for 10-year archival.

Housekeeping

Users are invited to undertake the following at regular intervals:

• Familiarise yourself with your videos listed at av-admin.uibk.ac.at and apply consideration to your old recordings.
• Familiarise yourself with how to download videos from the Opencast media archive from the helpcard
• Delete any videos that you no longer require

If, for good reason, videos should be available for longer than planned in the lifecycle, you can apply for an extension at Service Desk.

Your videos are listed in date order from the landing page after logging in.  To preview any video in your listing, click on "Yes" in the "Published" column, then on "Play video". You will see your camera recording and the recorded screen content next to each other. Viewers can customise their view according to their preferences.

Downloading videos

Videos can be downloaded from either the AV-Portal page or from the AV-Admin page. We recommend users use av-portal for published media (often available in multiple resolutions) and that users use av-admin for unpublished raw videos. 

To download videos using av-admin:

1. Use the folder icon in the Actions column to access the media files and download them. 
   Note: In av-admin, it is only possible to download your camera recording and the recorded presentation separately. "presenter/source" refers to your camera recording and "presentation/source" to the recorded content.
2. Click directly on the media ID to download the video.

Embedding videos into OpenOlat

With the OLAT Recordings module, you can easily integrate recordings/series from Opencast into your OpenOlat course. You can find step-by-step instructions on how to do this in HelpCard 32-040.

• In general, only the person who recorded the videos can embed them. If other people (e.g. tutors) should integrate your videos in OpenOlat, they must first be given access to the recordings.
• To do this, video owners can grant permissions to other users using the AV Portal tool. See the Listing and access rights item in the AV-Portal help page.

Attention: This person can then edit the videos for you and integrate them into OpenOlat, but also delete them.

Videos listing and access rights are changed using the av-portal tool. Help on the procedure is available under the AV-Portal help section.

Through either the Opencast media archive (av-admin) or the AV Portal services, you can access the Opencast Studio tool to record a video from your display and/or your camera. Instructions on how to do this on the av-portal are available on the AV-Portal help pages.

Access opencast studio from av-admin

1. Click on the camera symbol found at the top-right of the main av-admin page
2. Follow the instructions for Opencast Studio.

Videos can be edited using either av-admin or the av-portal tool. Help on the procedure using av-portal is available under the AV-Portal help section.

How to edit a video recording in av-admin

To edit a video recording:

1. Click on the scissors symbol in the Actions column of a particular video in your listings.
   The video editor will then open.
2. In the timeline, you will see the soundtrack waveform and video preview. Navigate to the point you want to cut and separate the track with the Cut button.
3. You can delete the segment created from the cuts made by selecting the segment and clicking Delete. 
4. Once you have deleted a segment, that removed segment will be coloured red. This red part will now not be played during playback.
   Note: the segment is not actually deleted, but instead skipped with a fade transition. It can be restored using the Restore button if needed.
5. To check the transition, select a time position on an earlier segment and select play.  The video with then preview with the edits you made.
6. You can use the Metadata tab of the editor If you want to edit the title or change the series of a recording to any that you have access to.
   Note: Each video can only belong to one series at a time.
7. If you want to delete a complete video track, for example the whole recording made via your camera, switch to the track tab and select Delete Track on the track to remove.
8. You can select a thumbnail from video timeline using the thumbnail tab. 
9. To cut and finalise the video, select the Finish tab and click Start Processing.

As soon as the av-admin status of the recording is back to stating 'processed', your video is cut and available again. Please note that editing overwrites the old version of the video.

Note on editing availability: The editing availability of any given recording is guaranteed for two-years (four semesters) after the host semester's end date. Beyond this age milestone, the editing availability may be deactivated in the interest of system performance (e.g. no scissor icon in av-admin). Please email the support helpdesk for reactivation of editing a specific video, quoting the video name and series. 

Thumbnails

Users can set thumbnails using the editor tool (see above, available in both av-admin and av-portal) or via an attachments upload on the details page of any given video on av-admin. Adding thumbnails via the editor is generally preferred, however the mandatory reprocessing of the video results in the video becoming unavailable whilst the processing is taking place. Adding a thumbnail via av-admin is preferred when a quick thumbnail change is needed without editing.

To upload a thumbnail using av-admin:

1. Click the folder icon on the actions icons menu of the recording in your listing
2. Click Add asset
3. Click Choose file and select the image file you wish to use
4. Click Add Asset 

Note: Using the editor after a thumbnail has been added via the av-admin attachments upload will overwrite that original thumbnail. Thumbnails added via attachments upload need to readded after the editor is used to process the recording. 

The deletion of videos from the media archive can be done using either the opencast media archive (via the av-admin tool) or via the av-portal tool. Help on the av-portal procedure is available under the AV-Portal help section. 

Delete videos using av-admin

1. Open Opencast.
2. Search for the video you want to delete.
   • Tip: Videos that you have uploaded via the AV Portal are marked in Opencast with the Location: Tobira Upload. You can use the search and filter function to further reduce the results displayed.
3. Under Actions, click on the red X: Delete event.
4. Confirm the deletion.
   The video will no longer be available on referenced pages.

Videos are uploaded using the av-portal tool. Help on this tool is available under the AV-Portal help section.

The sharing of videos from the Opencast media archive is done using the av-portal tool. Help on the procedure is available under the AV-Portal help section.

The terms of use are available directly on the AV Portal website.

Below you will find alternative downloadable PDF files of the terms of use, valid from April 24, 2025.

• UIBK AV Portal Nutzungsbedingungen (PDF 92kb)
• UIBK AV Portal Terms of Service (PDF 80kb)