In February 2021, TechSmith announced the retirement of its Knowmia lecture capture services. In response to this change, MSU began transitioning lecture capture providers from TechSmith Knowmia to Panopto in January 2022. Since the 2022 summer semester, Panopto has been used to create new content.    

Why are we switching lecture capture providers? 

In February 2021, TechSmith announced it would retire its Knowmia enterprise video hosting services. MSU has leveraged TechSmith Knowmia as its institutionally supported lecture capture platform since 2017.  

With TechSmith Knowmia’s retirement announced, Academic Technology and Outreach staff began reaching out to peers and exploring options for replacing its video hosting and lecture capture capabilities. Following conversations with OCHE and other MUS campuses, MUS entered into a system-level licensing agreement with Panopto – TechSmith’s preferred partner for migration and an industry leader in lecture capture.  

What will happen to my TechSmith videos? 

All TechSmith videos were automatically migrated to user profiles in Panopto over the summer of 2022. Once the migration was complete, a third-party vendor assisted in automatically converting any existing TechSmith Knowmia links in D2L course shells before the start of the 2022 fall semester. For more details, see the migration timeline presented below. 

What is the timeline for changing providers? 

January 2022

Panopto became available for use by faculty, staff, and students. At this time, no TechSmith Knowmia content was available in Panopto. Existing TechSmith Knowmia users were able to continue using the platform through all of the 2022 spring semester.  

January-May 2022

Academic Technology and Outreach began offering regular training and workshops on using Panopto. 

May 2022

Once classes ended in May, MSU shut off TechSmith Knowmia recording capabilities to migrate content from TechSmith Knowmia to Panopto. Links to TechSmith Knowmia content remained active for viewing through the summer of 2022. However, users could not upload new content to TechSmith Knowmia. Instead, Panopto was used to create new recordings. 

August 2022

The migration to Panopto was completed. All pre-existing TechSmith Knowmia content became available in Panopto. D2L link migration was completed. 

September 2022

MSU has switched all TechSmith links within the D2L/Brightspace learning management system to the new Panopto platform.

Please note that TechSmith links in locations outside of D2L/Brightspace, such as those existing in webpages on the montana.edu website, will need to be manually updated to Panopto links. These changes will need to be made by webpage managers before September 30, as TechSmith links will become inactive on this date.

To help facilitate this process, you can use the TechSmith-Panopto Migration Links Spreadsheet to find the new Panopto URLs for expiring TechSmith URLs. 

Please note that you must enter TechSmith URLs in their standard format. For example: https://montana.techsmithrelay.com/####

Once you enter the TechSmith URL into the spreadsheet, you will see the corresponding Panopto URL. Please replace your TechSmith links with the new Panopto links on your webpages.

Download the Migration Links Spreadsheet (accessible .xlsx)

What can I do with Panopto? 

Transitioning to Panopto will be an overall benefit to MSU. The platform includes many of the most popular features of TechSmith Knowmia, such as quizzing, analytics, captioning, video editing,  and Brightspace integration. Panopto adds several highly desired features, including: 

  • Adaptive streaming capabilities to better serve viewers with low-bandwidth conditions 
  • Automatic video captioning  
  • Searchable video content, including all captions and any words that show on screen 
  • Web-based screen recorder that does not require any local installation and supports more operating systems 
  • Ability to record and view multiple camera streams in a single video 

Faculty, staff, and students have had access to Panopto since early January 2022 to begin learning the platform.