Reviewed: 02/01/2020

Box of Broadcasts is a off-air recording service, available to Universities holding an ERA+ licence. It can be used to embed programmes within Blackboard courses for teaching purposes.

Accessing BOB

To access BOB, you can login via the Media Center pages, or you can go directly to http://bobnational.net/ clickthe log in button – enter “University of Manchester”, and you will then be redirected to a local login page.

Using BOB: Recording and Creating Clips

You can set a programme to record, search for previously recorded programmes and make clips of your chosen programmes to embed in your course.

BOB National maintain their own set of help guides on how to record/search/make clips here.

Embedding a Recording in Blackboard

Having scheduled a recording or found a pre-recorded programme you can now embed it (or a clip generated from it) within a course. Search and find the programme or clip, and click the Share button underneath the Clip or Programme.

After clicking this button, you can obtain:
  • Universal Link, useful if you require users outside the University to view the link (note that these users will also need to belong to organisations who have subscribed to BoB).
  • WAYFless URL – a link which will automatically direct users to login using University of Manchester credentials
  • Embed as code – to have the programme appear as if naturally within a webpage such as Blackboard.

 

We will be embedding the programme. Select Embed and copy the code by highlighting it all (you can also use Ctrl/Option + A) and then Ctrl/Option + C.

Locate the course you wish to embed the code within and edit the item you wish to add the programme/clip to. Click on the HTML button.

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Copy the embed code into the html box. You must also add a statement to the effect that the video is used under non-commercial educational purposes under the ERA licence; adding the following below the embed code will accomplish this.

<p>This recording is to be used only for non-commercial educational purposes under the terms of an <a target="_blank" href="http://www.era.org.uk/>ERA Licence</a>.</p>

 

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Then click submit. The programme should now be embedded. It will appear in similar fashion to what is seen below:

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Embedding television recordings within your course: Box of Broadcasts (BOB)