Adding a Video File to a Canvas Discussion Thread

Approach 1: Post video hyperlink to Canvas discussion using Box

(1) Access your course’s discussions page by clicking on the “Discussions” menu item in your course’s left-hand sidebar.

(2) Click the “Reply” button in your discussion thread. You’ll see an editing menu for your post. This menu will include a number of additional app icons.

Within this menu is a blue “V”-shaped icon that will display more external tools. “BOX” will show up as an option for you to click on.

(3) When you click on the Box extension in Canvas, you’ll be directed to log in using your NetID.

(4) Once you’ve logged into BOX in Canvas, you’ll be able to click on the “Select from Box” button that appears in your popup window.

(5) Unless you’ve already hosted your video on your UW-Madison BOX account, your next step will be to do so. You can use the Canvas popup to connect directly to your account and insert your file there.

Clicking the “Add File” button should open up your Box account in another browser window.

From there, you’ll see the option to click an “Upload” button and insert your video file into your personal Campus BOX folder:

When your file has uploaded successfully, you’ll see a banner appear as well as an icon for your file:

(6) Next, return to the internet browser tab that held your Canvas discussion post. 

Your “Choose items to share with Canvas” dialog box should still be up and open, but you won’t yet see your video file appear as an upload option. This is because the page doesn’t yet realize that you’ve added something to Box.

You’ll need to close the “Choose items to share with Canvas” window by clicking the “X” icon in the top corner of that dialog box.

Click on the “More External Tools” icon again and select BOX just as you did before:

The resulting file-picker popup should now contain the file you added to BOX. 

(7) Click on the video you want to include in your Canvas discussion post. 

In order for others to be able to see your video, you’ll need to set your video’s access type to “People with the link” can access. 

To do so, click the dropdown next to “Choose Access Type” then click “People with the link.”

(8) Click “Choose.” Your video should now appear as a hyperlink within your discussion post.