Session Recordings

Shortly after a session has ended (and if the relevant recording options were enabled for it), a recording will be available so that students can review the lesson. Recordings can be disabled on an organisation level under the Organisation Settings of your dashboard.

Recordings can be accessed either via the Lessonspace dashboard or via API calls.

About Playbacks

In Lessonspace, a recording is not just a video of the previous session. Instead, a link is provided where you are taken to the Space as a playback user. A recording is a series of captured events synced up with recorded AV. You can download images and resources, move freely within the Space, and even switch to different users' perspectives.

Accessing Recordings from the Lessonspace dashboard

If your users have access to the Lessonspace dashboard, they can access recordings for a session from the Sessions page. By default, access is controlled using the relevant recording access policy that you have defined, such as Participant, Student, or Public. But, if you have Require API authentication to retrieve recordings enabled, then access will be blocked to all recordings regardless of the roles defined for access.

Accessing Recordings with the Lessonspace API

In the context of the Lessonspace API, the terms "playback URL" and "recording URL" mean different things, but have similar names for historical reasons.

A playback URL points to the Lessonspace API (eg. https://api.thelessonspace.com/...) and is not itself a link to a recording, but merely returns a link to a recording when called via HTTP GET. Playback URLs may perform additional verification, depending on your organisation settings.

A recording URL is the URL returned by calling a playback URL successfully. A recording URL points directly to a recording itself and is hosted on room.sh (eg. https://go.room.sh/...). This link is by default not authenticated: anyone that has this URL can access it and view the recording for as long as the recording continues to exist. If you wish this link to also be authenticated, you will both need to fetch it from the API directly, and will need to pass additional values when calling the playback URL.

Dedicated Endpoint

The easiest way to get a recording for a session is to call the dedicated playback endpoint with your API key. This endpoint returns a JSON structure that contains a recording_url property that can be used directly.

Other Endpoints

Several other endpoints, such as the Organisation Session List endpoint, include a playback_url property for each session. Exactly which playback URL is returned by these endpoints is dependent on your organisation settings:

If you have enabled Require API authentication to retrieve recordings, you will get back a playback URL identical to the dedicated playback endpoint.
If you don't have Require API authentication to retrieve recordings enabled, then a legacy playback URL will be returned instead. Legacy playback URLs perform no authentication. They have no payload and return an HTTP 302 code, with the recording URL as the Location header in the response.

Embedding Playbacks

Recordings support being embedded in an iframe much like Spaces.

Be sure to set the allow attribute so that all features of the Space work correctly. You can copy and paste the snippet below and replace the src of the iframe tag with the relevant recording URL.

<iframe
  src="RECORDING_URL_GOES_HERE"
  allow="camera; microphone; display-capture; fullscreen;"
  frameborder="0">
</iframe>