In this article we will show you how you can record a Zoom meeting and share the recording with your students in a Moodle course.
Important: When recording a Zoom meeting you need to make sure that participants have been made aware that the meeting is being recorded and have been shown the Classroom Agreement. See the section Classroom Agreement and Recording Disclaimer on the CTLR website for details on how to do this.
You can view this article online or download a PDF version of the article by following the link under Attachments to the right of (or below) this article.
The simplest method is to record to the Zoom Cloud (explained below) and to give your students a link to the recording. That’s what we’ll cover first. However, we can only store Zoom cloud recordings for a maximum of 30 days, after which they will no longer be viewable by your students. We have included a second method – downloading the recordings and uploading them into your Moodle course – so you can make Zoom recordings available after the 30-day limit.
Method 1: Making a Zoom Cloud Recording available to your students
The Zoom Cloud is the place where Zoom will automatically store recordings of Zoom meetings, depending on your settings. Files are stored on computers managed by Zoom (not on your own computer) and may be deleted by Zoom after 30 days. However, it’s easy to download these files to your own computer, and we’ll show you how to do that in Method 2.
Step 1: Enable recording to the cloud in your Zoom settings
Log in to your VCC Zoom account (vcc.zoom.us) and select Settings from the side menu.
Select the Recording tab at the top of the page.
We strongly recommend you turn on the automatic audio transcribing feature (see below) – this will allow you to create and download a text transcript of your Zoom meeting and add this to your Moodle course for students who cannot access the video or the audio components of the video. To do this, make sure you put a check mark next to Audio transcript under the Cloud recording section.
Note: Further down the Settings page you will see an option called Auto delete cloud recordings after days. VCC IT will automatically delete cloud recordings after 30 days, so if you disable this setting, or set it to longer than 30 days, your cloud recordings will be deleted after 30 days regardless.
The settings on this page are auto-saved when you close the window. You’re now ready to deliver your Zoom class.
Note: You don’t need to repeat this step for every class – unless you change settings between classes. That’s because Zoom remembers the most recent settings and applies them to all future meetings until you change them again.
Step 2: Record the Zoom meeting
When you host a Zoom meeting you have the option of recording the meeting in two ways – Record on this Computer or Record to the Cloud. You’ll see these two options when you select the Record button in the Zoom toolbar.
If you want to auto-generate a text transcript (and we strongly recommend this), choose Record to the Cloud.
When your Zoom meeting has ended, the video of the meeting (and the transcript and audio-only version, if you enabled them in Step 1) will be available for you to share and/or download.
Step 3: Make the recording shareable
You can share recordings from the Zoom Cloud for up to 30 days. To do this in a Moodle course, you need to add a link to the recording. But first you need to make the recording shareable.
Log in to your VCC Zoom account (vcc.zoom.us) and select Recordings from the side menu.
Find the recording you’d like to share and select the Share button beside it.
A popup window appears. Make sure Share this recording is enabled (as below).
For the other settings, we recommend the following:
Share publicly – if we choose Only authenticated users can view, your students would need to be logged in to their own Zoom accounts to review the video – we don’t want them to have to take that extra step.
Viewers can see transcript – this will enable a text transcript to be displayed (if you recorded one based on your settings in Step 1) while students watch the video. A copy of the transcript will also be available to download and add to your Moodle course.
Passcode protection – choose this if you want to password-protect the recording – your students will be prompted to enter the password before they can view the video. If you choose this, you’ll need to share the password with your students – e.g. via the Moodle course. You can now copy the sharing information to add it to your Moodle course:
Step 4: Add the link to your Moodle course
Now you’re ready to add the link to your Moodle course. Navigate back to the course where you want to display the video/audio file(s) and turn editing on for the course.
In this example we will be adding the link as a URL on the main course page. The same process is followed if you wish to add the link into a Moodle Page, or as part of the instructions for a Moodle Assignment. You can use this method with any Moodle activity or Resource that allows you to enter a link that students can follow.
Navigate to where you want to add the URL (or other activity/resource that you are using) and select Add an activity or resource.
In this example we’ll choose URL from the options. In the configuration page for the new link, give it a meaningful name (this is the text students will select to go to the recording). Then add the link (the part highlighted in the Sharing Information above):
Note that we've also added a text description, including the password to view the video. We’ve made this description visible on the course main page alongside the link itself.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Save and return to course.
Students will see a link on the course homepage that looks like this:
Following the link, they will see the video, alongside a transcript (if you enabled one in Step 1).
Method 2: Using Kaltura to Add a Zoom recording to your Moodle course
This guide will show you how to add Zoom class recordings to your Moodle courses. You’ll need to do this if you want recorded Zoom classes to be available for more than 30 days after the initial class date.
Step 1: Enable recording to the cloud in your Zoom settings
Step 2: Record the Zoom class
Complete Steps 1 and 2 as above in Method 1.
Step 3: Download the file(s)
Log in to your VCC Zoom account (vcc.zoom.us) and select Recordings from the side menu.
Select the Cloud Recordings tab at the top of the page.
You’ll see a list of cloud recordings you’ve made. For each recording you’ll see the Start time, File Size (number of files), and when the file is scheduled to auto-delete. Remember that VCC IT will auto-delete all files 30 days after their recording date.
Beside the recording that you want to download, select More > Download.
In the example above there are 3 files. Selecting Download causes a popup window to appear where you can choose where to save the first of these – in this case the audio version of the class.
Then you’ll be prompted for a place to save the transcript file.
And lastly the video file.
Note: Depending on your Zoom settings you may see a different number of files to download.
Now you have the file(s) you need for your course saved to your own computer.
You may wish to create a directory in a shared drive where you can organize recorded Zoom classes so that they are available to others in your department, and so you can access them from any VCC network connection where you log in.
Step 4: Upload files to My Media
Kaltura My Media is where we add videos to include them in Moodle courses. Log in to Moodle and navigate to the course where you want to add the recording of the Zoom class. Select My Media from the Nav Drawer on the left.
If you can’t see the Nav Drawer, select the Nav Drawer button to show it in your course.
Select Add New from the options at the top-right of the page and choose Media Upload.
You can drag and drop the video file from your PC into the space provided or select Choose a file to upload to navigate to the video file.
The file is uploaded to My Media. You will see a progress bar and will have the opportunity to rename the video file.
Select Save to save the details…
… and then select Go To Media where you can preview the video if desired. We’re ready for the final step – adding the video to your Moodle course.
Note: You can add audio-only files to My Media in the same way.
Step 5: Add the video into your course
Navigate back to the course where you want to display the video/audio file(s) and turn editing on for the course.
In this example we will be adding the video in a Label. The same process is followed if you wish to add the video into a Moodle Page, or as part of the instructions for a Moodle Assignment. You can use this method with any Moodle activity or Resource that allows you to enter text that the student will see.
Navigate to where you want to add the Label (or other activity/resource that you are using) and select Add an activity or resource.
In the edit page for the activity/resource you are using, you will see the Moodle text entry tool. Select the downward-pointing arrow to reveal all the tools, and then select the Kaltura ‘snowflake’ icon:
A new window will open displaying the media that you can add to this page from your My Media repository. Find the video or audio file you want to embed and select the Embed button beside it.
The My Media window closes, and you are returned to the edit page in your Moodle course. You’ll see something like this:
Make whatever additional configuration settings you need for the activity or resource, and then select Save and return to course.
The video is embedded in your Moodle course page!
Step 6: Adding a Transcript
If you have auto-generated a text transcript of the Zoom class, you can add this to your Moodle course by selecting the File resource type.
Drag and drop the transcript file you downloaded from the Zoom Cloud. Add a description to explain that the link will open in a new window, and make sure this is visible on the Moodle course page (see below).
Lastly, choose In pop-up under the Appearance section. We need students to be able to view the transcript alongside the video, so we want it to pen in a separate window.
Select Save and return to course.
Students will see the link to view the transcript:
Selecting the link, they will open a pop-up window that they can read alongside the video while it plays in the Moodle page.
Why not simply upload the video to Moodle?
Video and audio files can be very large, especially if they are lengthy. You may not be able to upload large files to Moodle because of the file size limitation for uploads. Even if your videos are small enough to upload, they will dramatically increase the overall size of your course and will cause problems when backing-up and restoring the course. They will also cause problems for students, especially students on low bandwidth connections.
Uploading to Kaltura means that the files are not stored in Moodle and don’t contribute to the overall size of the course.
For these reasons we request that *all* media files are uploaded to Kaltura and embedded into your courses as described above.