Panopto FAQs

Panopto is the new lecture capture and Media Enhanced Learning platform (MEL) for Leeds and will replace Mediasite by September 2026.

Panopto offers high-quality lecture capture and provides media creation, curation, interactivity and assessment functionality across the University community.

An extensive evaluation and tender process took place in 2024 to review the University's requirements for lecture capture technology and Media Enhanced Learning. Staff and students from across the institution evaluated systems from five leading suppliers, including the Mediasite platform, which has been in place at the University since 2014.

Panopto, which is used by 22 of the world's top 25 universities, scored highly during our evaluation and tender process, including in functionality, configurability, accessibility, sustainability and value for money.

Panopto offers more than just lecture capture; it also provides media creation, curation, interactivity, and assessment capabilities, all on one platform, allowing our University Community to experiment and innovate with Digital Media in education. This is why we're calling this approach 'Media Enhanced Learning' (MEL).

Our vision for MEL is to provide a sector-leading media capture and creation system, by empowering staff and students to produce and share engaging, accessible and innovative content that enhances learning and teaching.

Panopto will be fully introduced for use across the University from Summer 2026.

Staff can get early access to Panopto by signing up for the Panopto Early Adopter Groups, which will be testing and providing feedback to the Media Enhanced Learning Project Team.

Some student groups will access Panopto lecture recordings via Minerva as part of the early adopter process.

Staff who are members of the Panopto Early Adopter Groups will be fully supported by the Media Enhanced Learning Project Team from September 2025.

By signing up, you'll gain first-hand experience of using the Panopto platform to record, create, edit and embed video content. You will provide direct input into creating cross-disciplinary guidance and training for Panopto, as well as having opportunities to take part in case studies and present at different forums.

To register your interest in becoming an early adopter for Panopto, please fill out this Microsoft Form.

The Panopto early adopter scheme is currently available to University of Leeds staff only.

There are 38 Panopto-enabled teaching spaces for the academic year 2025/26. If you use these rooms you may see posters and door signs indicating their status a Panopto enabled.  If you are teaching in these spaces, view the Panopto for Lecture Capture Guide for more information. 

Ad-hoc recordings in Panopto enabled rooms are possible but the process is slightly different than in Media Site rooms. To initiate an ad-hoc recording in a Panopto Enabled room, follow the guidance here while using the in room Lectern PC. 

We want staff to have the best possible experience in Panopto enabled rooms and recognise this is a more complex process than staff may be familiar with.

The Panopto project team is developing a custom solution that will mimic existing Record Now functionility in time for full roll out in September 2026.

We will be communicating with students throughout 2025/26 to introduce Panopto.

In the meantime, students should be advised that Panopto will be fully introduced in Summer 2026 and that advice and guidance will be signposted through communication channels such as the student newsletter, Staff and Student Forums and the Digital Education Systems Help website.

The Digital Education Service provides Panopto support and guidance through guides, events and faculty-based support teams.

Panopto guides for staff and student Panopto guides are available on the Digital Education Systems Help website.

You can also access video and written guidance on the Panopto support website.

The main use for Panopto is the sharing of video content, but audio and podcasts can also be uploaded and shared.  There is a comprehensive list of file formats compatible with the platform on Panopto’s Website.  

Please note that use of Panopto should be limited to university related content.  

Personal Content, not related to your work or study at the University should not be uploaded to Panopto.  

Only staff and students enrolled on a Minerva module have access to the Panopto Video (Lecture Capture) folder for that module.

Staff members with instructor access to a module can view, edit, share videos, and move videos across folders. Students can only view videos uploaded to the Panopto Video (Lecture Capture) folder.

For the current academic year (2025/26), only modules timetabled for teaching in the 22 Panopto-enabled teaching spaces have access to Panopto content. All modules at the University will access Panopto content and Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) items from summer 2026.

If your module has teaching sessions timetabled in one of these 22 rooms, you can add Panopto items via the Content Market:

1. Click on the + icon and select Content Market.
2. In the Content Market menu, scroll down until you see the Panopto Items.
3. Select the item you need and follow the instructions that appear on the screen to add it to your module.

Your scheduled lecture recordings will automatically be uploaded to the Panopto Video (Lecture Capture) folder on your Minerva module page.

Please note that lecture recordings will be available to students in the same folder 48 hours after the session took place.

We wrote a guide on how scheduled lecture capture works with Panopto.

You can also edit your lecture recordings in your Panopto Video folder on Minerva.

You can embed videos you recorded with or uploaded to Panopto to your Minerva module page by using the Panopto Video embed tool.

1. On your Minerva module page, click on the + icon and select Content Market.
2. In the Content Market menu, scroll down until you see the Panopto Items.
3. Click on the Panopto Video embed item.
4. Choose a Panopto video to upload and click insert.
5. Your video will appear in your Minerva module page.

Active Mediasite content  will be moved into Panopto ready for the Start of Academic year 2026/27. Mediasite content will be re-processed on Panopto so staff and students can take advantage of features like auto captioning and key word search.

A retention policy for content is being agreed and will be published here.

All Mediasite links created using the Mediasite tool in Minerva will work in Panopto, however, personal links, such as those sent over email or linked in word documents, will not and will need to be re-shared from the Panopto version of the video.

Active Mediasite content will be migrated and re-linked to become Panopto videos by September 2026. This includes videos in personal Media Site folders and module folders.

The University will apply a retention policy to older content once it is migrated but there will be opportunities to recover and restore older content.

If your content is not visible on your Panopto home page after September 2026:

1. Raise an IT ticket. 

2. Include the name or original Mediasite link of the content.

3. A team member will locate the file and move it to the correct folder for you.

No content will be deleted during this migration. All files are being preserved while a long-term retention and recovery policy is being established.

No, these platforms are out of scope of the Panopto rollout and Media Enhanced Learning Project. However, it is possible to download Microsoft Teams meeting recordings and other videos,  and upload them to Panopto manually to take advantage of Panopto’s features.  

For more information, follow the guide on uploading videos to Panopto.

Yes, videos created in Blackboard Collaborate Virtual Classroom will be moved over to Panopto as part of the rollout. 

Collaborate videos will be placed in an archive status, and a process will be in place to request access to these videos in Panopto.  

Collaborate videos in Panopto will not be re-linked, so any content will need to be re-shared once requested from archive status in Panopto. 

It will be possible to request retrieval of archive videos and a process for this will be made available in 2026.

Embedding restrictions for Microsoft products such as  Sway & Powerpoint are based on Microsoft’s whitelist of supported embed sources. Panopto is unfortunately not on this list yet, which means those apps won’t allow direct embedded content from Panopto. 

Many Universities and organisations are requesting this feature via Microsoft’s feedback channels, but as of now, it is still on a feature request list rather than fully supported.

Panopto content can be accessed vis Sway and other Microsoft products by sharing direct organisational or public links. Please see our sharing in Panopto guide for more information.

There are many features in the Panopto Platform that promote and support accessible education practice. You can read more about them on the Panopto Accessibility Page.

Yes, if the language shown in your Panopto Video captions and subtitles are incorrect, you can change them from the individual settings menu for any video you can edit.

The guide on changing the language of Panopto videos shows the steps in detail.

Panopto uses established machine learning and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technologies to transcribe spoken and written content in videos and produces an editable transcript. 

This transcript underpins Panopto’s search & accessibility functionality, allowing users to search across all of their Panopto content. 

More information about captions and transcriptions in Panopto is available on Panopto’s website. 

By default, Panopto will attempt to transcribe any content into UK English. If the content is not in English, the transcript will still be in English and is likely to be largely unreadable. 

However, it is possible to change the transcript language at any point, including after the video has processed. This is a quick process and Panopto has a short guide here.

Both language translation (turning spoken content from one language into written text in another) and human transcription (captions created or checked by people as a service) are specialist services that Panopto offers at additional cost to the University. 

If you think you may require these services, and would like to start an initial conversation about your use case, please contact: 

 [email protected] 

To change the automatic language detection setting for a folder in Panopto: 

• Open the Panopto web interface and go to the folder you want to update.
• Click the three dots (…) menu in the top right.
• Click Settings.
• Scroll down to the Content Language / Captions section. 

To disable automatic language detection:

• untick the box labelled “Auto Detect Language”. 

To enable automatic language detection:

• tick the box labelled “Auto Detect Language”. 

This change affects new recordings in that folder. Existing recordings keep their current captions. 

The University has a comprehensive AV recording policy that sets out how and why we record timetabled teaching. This policy is ratified by University Senate.

Click here to read the policy document in full. 

All teaching content in central teaching spaces at the University is recorded automatically unless staff choose to opt out of recording at the point of timetabling.

This policy includes seminar and other taught content.

If you do not wish for a timetabled session to be recorded. Please complete a timetabling change request form in advance of the session date.

If you are in a teaching space see a red recording light but do not wish for the session to be recorded, press and hold the desk top button for 5-10 seconds until the light turns off.  See our guide on in room use of Panopto here. 

The University’s policy on AV recording of taught activities includes a two working-day delay between when a recording is processed and when it is released for students to view. This approach ensures consistency and quality of content and applies to Panopto in exactly the same way it did to the former MediaSite service.

If no action is taken by the recording owner (i.e., the teaching staff present at the event), the Panopto Platform will automatically publish the video in Minerva in accordance with the AV policy after the two working-day processing period.

If you would like a recording to be available sooner than the standard two working-day delay, you can do so manually. Please follow this guide on publishing Panopto videos to release your recording earlier.

If after 2 days students can still not see their lecture capture content, please raise an IT Ticket and a member of the Digital Education Systems team will help.

Yes, if you wish to publish a video recorded in a Panopto enabled room before the end of the 2 day waiting period, you can do so in the Panopto interface or via the Minerva Panotpo Video folder.

Hover over the video you wish to publish, click on the 'Eye' icon. This will make the video viewable to students in your module immediately.

For more advanced availably settings, use the availability workflow as set out in this Panopto guide.

All content on Panopto from the University is subject to UK and EU GDPR regulations and legislation. This aligns with the practices of other University education and IT systems.  For more information, please visit The Panopto Trust and Compliance Website .  

If you have a particular question about the use of data on Panopto, please submit an IT query  

Yes, a comprehensive Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) has taken place as part of the Platform tender and implementation process. More information on the work of the Univeristy Secretariat and Data Protection can be viewed here. (Staff login required). 

Yes, Panopto uses large language models to facilitate features such as smart video summaries and in the creation of automatic chapters in content as part of its Access AI feature set.  Panopto has a AI Pledge regarding the ethical and responsible use of AI models and as a Panopto customer, the University and its content is included in this policy.  

Panopto will not use any data from the University to train AI models.  

For more information on the use of AI and Panopto, access the AI Pledge here.  

If you have a particular question about the use of AI or LLMs use in Panopto, please submit an IT query