VIUTube Cleanup Process

Over the last few years we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of media items uploaded to VIUTube. Many of these videos are single purpose videos for a specific course, assignment, or event that do not have a long term use but may need to be kept for a one year period to ensure they are available in the case of a grade dispute or other scenario where the media may be needed. However, these media items often contain personally identifiable information not just of the person who owns the media but of other employees, students, or community members and should not be retained indefinitely.

The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning is implementing an annual cleanup process for the VIUTube platform that will help minimize the amount of unnecessary personal information that is stored on VIUTube and help students and employees clear up media that is no longer needed, while still allowing for media that may have long term applications to be retained year after year.

This cleanup process will happen every July starting in 2023. Media that meets the cleanup criteria will be archived for a period of one year after which, if the content owner has not contacted CIEL to request that media be restored to their collection, it will be permanently deleted from VUTube. While media is archived, any links or embedded copies of the media will be unavailable and the media will not appear in the owner’s media collection. Once media has been deleted, it cannot be restored.

What Media Will Be Cleaned Up?

Separating media that has long term use from media that is single use and should be removed from VIUTube is a complex process. In order to minimize the chance that we remove content that should be kept, we have set up ways for you to opt in and opt out of the cleanup process for specific media items using Tags.

Videos that have not been given either the opt in or opt out tag will be cleaned up if they meet the following criteria:

1. Media created/uploaded two or more years prior to the cleanup.

2. Media has a last played date >12 months ago.

   1. Note: As the owner of a media item, you playing the media does not update the last played statistic. This measures only others viewing your media.

Opt In Tag

This option is meant to assist with managing media items that you know you don’t need to keep beyond their current semester. Rather than going into your media collection and manually deleting this content after the semester ends, you can add a tag to your media that tells CIEL to include that media in the next annual cleanup. Video tagged in this manner will be archived along with all other media identified for cleanup and then deleted.

The Opt In tag is Include_in_Cleanup

Opt Out Tag

This option is meant to assist instructors who may have video resources on VIUTube for courses that do not run every year as well as non-instructional employees whose videos do not contain personal information and do not need to be cleaned up. This tag should not be used on media that contains personal information for students such as recorded course sessions.

Media that had this tag attached to it will not be archived or deleted during the cleanup process regardless of the media age and last played date. However, CIEL staff may reach out to specific VIUTube users if we see large amounts of unplayed media with this tag. VIUTube is meant to serve as a platform for sharing media within the VIU community and is not the right platform for long term storage of media that is not actively in use.

The Opt Out tag is Exempt_from_Cleanup

Add a Tag to VIUTube Media

Tags can be added to individual media items or be added in bulk to a selection of media in your collection.