Private Podcasting in PodBean

Podcast distribution isn’t just limited to fully public and searchable feeds. PodBean offers several options for a controlled feed to ensure content intended for a more limited audience isn’t made available more widely.

Private Distribution through PodBean

PodBean supports private channels that offer the same core features and listening options as the standard public channel. Like with a commercial podcast having a Patreon stream that’s ad-free or has bonus content, a private channel is limited to just named users.
Our PodBean licence has a limited number of these private listener seats so may not be appropriate for larger audiences such as a full School or large module. Contact the Digital Education Systems team through the IT Service Desk to discuss these options further.

University-Only Podcasts in Sharepoint

Embedding content from private channels is available within Sharepoint, but requires additional steps to be made available. See our companion guidance on private podcasts in Sharepoint before following the below steps.

University-Only Podcasts with PodBean and CampusPress

When all your audience has access to a University login, creating an embedded feed to your podcast episodes through a custom CampusPress blog opens up many options for customising your audience’s experience, as well as the audience itself. With our institutional CampusPress licence, there is no limit to the number of University of Leeds users who can access your content, or it can be limited to specific named individuals. A page can also be accessed openly but blocked from appearing on search engines, so can only be accessed by a shared (but still public) link. See our CampusPress guide for more info on privacy settings.

These embedding options are also available with many other blogging and hosting services. However this is not currently available within Minerva or Sharepoint due to additional security restrictions and site limitations.

Please note this option doesn’t allow for episodes to be played through distribution services or companion apps. For those options, please contact the Digital Education Systems team to arrange for the above private distribution option.

Creating the Embeddable Code

Embeddable code, also referred to as iframe or widget code, allows you to insert interactable content into other sites or pages through HTML. PodBean provides a player that can allow your hosted content to be added to another site.

Individual Episodes

Each episode can be hosted individually. This offers flexibility to insert the player alongside episode show notes, transcripts and additional reference materials. The embed settings can be found by going to Episodes in the menu side panel, then Episodes List. Hover your mouse over the episode you would like to share to reveal and select the Share & Embed button (a folder and arrow icon).

Embedded code for private channels is only available on specific named websites, for which you’ll need to provide a Reference URL. Podbean will verify a request is originating from this URL before permitting access, so a password or login isn’t required. Only the top-level domain is required, for example for CampusPress, you only need to input campuspress.leeds.ac.uk .

From this menu, you can customise the look and size of the player. Once to your liking, copy the Widget Code and move to the next step.

Full Episode List

This version of the player includes a list of multiple episodes from your channel. In addition to the above settings, you can modify the display order, number of episodes shown, or limit to a specific tag. In this way, you can host multiple private ‘streams’ with one channel via tagging.

This is accessed by selecting Distribution from the menu side panel, then Embeddable Player, then following the same steps as above.

Adding Embedded Content to CampusPress

CampusPress offers several options for inserting media and code on their pages. When adding embedded content, make sure to select Custom HTML when pasting in your embed code from PodBean.

Further guidance on developing and customising your pages is available in our CampusPress Guides.