Organize Your Kaltura Media Using Tags

Learn how to create searchable tags so you can easily find the media you are looking for. Kaltura does not organize files into folders. This means that to find media you have uploaded, you need to search for it. Searches apply to the media title and other fields, but the most useful way to make media findable is to use tags.

What are tags?

Tags are terms that describe. They tend to be single words or short phrases. They are precise.

How to Tag Media in Kaltura

This process will work whether you are editing your media through Blackboard or the MediaSpace site.

1. Enter the Edit area for the media you want to tag.
2. Select the Details tab (this is the default tab you will land on)
3. Below the Name and Description find the field called Tags
4. Begin typing tags. Existing tags that match what you type will appear as autocomplete options. Separate each tag (tags can be more than one word) with a comma.

Kaltura Search Logic

• Will not return partial match
  • ex: A search for "black" will not return results that are tagged "Blackboard."
• Not case-sensitive
  • ex: a search for "BLACKBOARD" will return results that are tagged "Blackboard."
• Uses "AND" logic, so all search terms must be present in a single media entry for it to return in search results.
  • ex: A search for "COMM111", "Lecture", "Lesson1" will show all entries tagged with all three of the search terms, but will not show any entries that are tagged with only one or two of the search terms.
• Uses exact search
  • ex: a search for "Lesson 1" will not return results tagged "Lesson1" or "Lesson_1"
• Search uses live updates, so as you add new terms to your search, Kaltura will apply the terms and adjust the results preview.

Best Practices for Tagging Media

Develop a simple, consistent system of tags to apply to all of your media uniformly. A best practice is to use a combination of tags. For example, if you have lectures, it's fine to tag them all as "lecture." But to be able to search more accurately, more tags should be added. For example, you might add the topic as a tag, like "forensics."

Suggestions

• Star general by tagging the purpose of the media. Lecture, assignment, example, case study, discussion topic, and course overview are examples of purposes. These are also general terms. They will return multiple pieces of media, such as each week's lecture video.
• Move toward specifics by adding the topic of the media. This will narrow down search results. For example, "Scientific Method" or "argumentation." Adding the topic will yield more relevant search results than if you tag your media with lesson numbers. After all, content contained in Lesson 4 one term may be in lesson 3 or 5 the next.
• The course ID (prefix and number, but not section number) can also be used as a tag. This is especially helpful when you teach multiple courses. However, if you use the same media in different courses (such as a video regarding how to format papers for your class), course ID tags may be less useful.
• A fingerprint tag. This can be anything unique that will help you locate specific media, but not so specific that you will forget the tag, rendering it useless. If you develop a shorthand for your own files, like Wk1Ex1 to represent "Week 1, Example 1", then adding these fingerprint tags will allow you to search for very specific media, excluding everything that does not have the fingerprint tag.

Unnecessary Tags

• You do not need to create tags related to the academic term in which content is taught. Your Kaltura media will not be located in any one course or one term: It will be available in all of your courses, perpetually.
• You do not need to tag the type of media. For example, there is no need to tag a video file as "video." Kaltura can filter your media by media type.

Remember, the title, description, and text of the captions for your video are also searchable. This means you have search capability beyond the tags. However, it does not mean you should neglect to use tags. The text of these other fields is difficult to manage. Failing to use specific tags may make your media collection difficult to manage.

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