Quick Start Guide

This guide shows you the basics of the WeVu interface.

Our Getting Started Guide starts just below, but if you want to watch a video first…

Getting Started

Login and Account Creation

1. If you do not have a WeVu account, you will have to sign up for one.
   Your Site Owner / Manager should have given you a link to follow to create an account.
2. When you use that link and reach the login screen, click Sign Up at the bottom. If you get Guest Sign Up, continue. (it depends on cookies in your browser!). You should get a screen like this.
   
3. Fill in all the required fields and click REGISTER.
   
4. You should see a success message after you have successfully registered for a WeVu account.
   Click on LOGIN to enroll yourself into the WeVu course that you were given the link for.
   To access your WeVu site in the future: If your school or organization has a dedicated WeVu instance you log in at http://app.wevu.video/[your organization name goes here] 
   (find yours from http://wevu.video/login-to-wevu)Users who signed up before June 2019 will be on http://app.wevu.video/pilot Users who got a site after June 1, 2019 will be on http://app.wevu.video/sites unless your organization has a dedicated multi-site/course instance.

Getting Started on the Watch and Discuss Screen

When you first log in you’ll get a walkthrough tour of WeVu. We strongly encourage you to take five minutes to go through carefully, step-by-step. 

The Watch & Discuss Screen

When you log in, you’ll land at the video Watch & Discuss page, which will look like this.

Your page may not show all of these features, depending on what your Site Owner has turned on for your site.
The screenshot here shows a video file. Features are different if you view a pdf or image or audio file.

1. SITE – Choose the WeVu site you want to use. If you have multiple classes, they’ll be separate sites.
2. PLAYLIST – GROUP – ASSIGNMENT – Choose the set of media items (video, audio, pdf, image) you want to see.
3. MEDIA – Choose the file you want to see or hear. If there are many in the list, you can search.
4. COMMENT ENTRY BOX – Click in here and then type to leave a comment at that point. If it’s a video, it’ll stop when you click in the box and then resume when you click the post triangle or use shift-enter to post the comment.
5. COMMENT PANE HEADER – You can toggle the visibility of your own comments (Mine), the instructor’s comments, and other people’s comments. Click the search icon to search all comments for words or names or tags. 
6. COMMENT DISPLAY – Displays comments chronologically along the video from top (start of video) to the bottom). Scroll in this area with your trackpad or mouse wheel. The colours along the right edge indicate your own comments (Blue), Instructors’ comments (Black), and Other People’s comments (Orange).
7. COMMENT MAP – Shows where along the video there are comments. If you click the little down arrow the map opens to show individal triangles that can be clicked on to highlight that comment on the right.
8. ADD GENERAL COMMENTS – Add a general comment on the video, without a time-stamp (Like YouTube Comments).
9. PRIVATE POST, AUDIO OR VIDEO COMMENT – The ‘eye’ icon posts the comment privately (your eyes only), the microphone and file paperclip let you record or attach an audio or video comment.
10. MENU –  Visible on every page to get you to video sharing, group creation, and site management. Site members may not see certain elements of this menu, depending on their role.

At the top right: move to previous or next media, download media, share media, and export usage data and comments.

UPLOAD, IMPORT, SHARE, or SUBMIT VIDEOS

Note: This is for desktop users. For submitting videos and other files from a phone, see our Submitting Videos help page.

To share a media file (video, audio, image, or pdf) with other site members, a group, or hand it in to an assignment, you start by recording (or by getting a media file) on your phone, camera, or computer webcam according to our Best Practices for Recording for WeVu.On your phone, we strongly recommend you set the recording resultion to 720p or lower. The default for most phones is 1080p, which produces a very large file with unnecessarily high quality.

Once you have the file on any device, you can login to WeVu on that device to upload the media file.

Alternatively, you can Import a video from YouTube or from a site like Dropbox (if it is an .mp4 file, link shared).

Users with only a Free WeVu plan will have to upload video files to YouTube or Dropbox, get the sharing link, and then import the video WeVu.

Then you share it as you want to. Follow these steps.

Step 1: Upload Media to WeVu

1. Click on UPLOAD from the left menu bar.  
2. Click on CHOOSE FILE and browse for the file in your computer.
3. Choose which sharing option you would like.
4. Give it a title and a description if you wish.
5. Click UPLOAD
   A spinning wheel and a yellow bar will appear indicating that the media file is uploading. Do not to close the browser or press the back button. You may use another browser window or go to another application in another window to do other things while this is uploading, as long as your computer doesn’t go to sleep. Once the file is finished uploading, it will appear in the list of media, but as it is being processed, it will not be viewable for a minute or two.
6. Once the upload is complete, you should get a message with a green bar and see your media file listed in the My Private Media tab.

Step 2: Assign Media 

1. Once the file is uploaded, it will be shared according to how you set the sharing on the upload page. You can change the sharing any time.
2. If the file is private, you will see it in your “My Private Media” tab on the Upload page. If it’s already shared, you’ll see it in your “Shared Media” tab.
   By default, the file(s) you upload will only be visible to yourself until you assign it to a Site (Course), Group, user, or hand it in to an Assignment.
3. To share it, click on the sharing status button-box in the middle of that media object’s row and select a site and a group, playlist, assignment, or user from the list to share it the way you wish to share it. If you want to share it to everyone in the site choose the “Everyone in [site name]” group (playlist). (This can be changed by you at any time later).
   
   
4. Check to ensure your media file is uploaded and shared properly. Click on Watch & Discuss from the menu. See that the video, audio, image, or pdf appears in the correct Playlist – Group – Assignment. If not, go back to Shared Media and change the sharing setting.

See other entries in our knowledge base for setting up groups, playlists, and assignments; creating sites and choosing options; and adding and managing users. Just type what you want to know about in the search bar or browse the help categories.