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Adding an Echo360 Embed Option to Sakai Content Windows

Echo360
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Upgrading the Sakai Plugin: Upgrading the Echo360 plugin for Sakai involves simply replacing the existing plugin with a new one. PRIOR to following the Download and Install steps below, move the existing echo360-tool.war file in the webapps directory to another location for backup. 
Example: mv /webapps/echo360-tool.war /tmp/echo360-tool.war
The Sakai Tomcat application server will then automatically uninstall the echo360-ool.war deployment, and log it in the catalina.out log file:

e.g.
INFO [ContainerBackgroundProcessor[StandardEngine[Catalina]]] org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.undeploy Undeploying context [/echo360-tool]

INFO ContainerBackgroundProcessor[StandardEngine[Catalina]] org.sakaiproject.util.SakaiContextLoaderListener - Destroying Components in echo360.tool

At this point you can follow the instructions below to install the new version of the plugin.

Echo360 provides a plugin for Sakai that once installed, generates an Echo360 button in the content editor for easy-access to embedding Echo360 videos. This plugin allows instructors, teaching assistants, or students to embed videos (or upload and then embed) from Echo360 directly into a Sakai page or content window. 

Administrators can use the Echo360 embed button to embed any video in the system to which they have access.

The plugin supports Sakai 12.6 and higher.

Content area of Assignment page added to Sakai course with Echo embed video button identified

IMPORTANT: For any user to use the Echo360 embed toolbar button, you MUST enable Public Links for instructors in Echo360. Otherwise instructors, teaching assistants, and/or students will not be authorized to generate public links or the embed code necessary for this button to embed videos into Sakai. LMS-Embedded videos provide view data such as view counts and heatmap data, as shown in the Analytics tab of the media details page of the video. Furthermore, as long as the user is logged into the LMS, and you have at least version 1.0.5 of the Sakai plugin, the views can be attributed to unique viewers and as such are counted as Unique Views in the analytics data provided.

The LMS Configuration information (Key, Secret, and URL) can be the same as they are for the External Tool you may already have configured in Sakai for Echo360.

These procedures must be performed by the Sakai/Echo360 Administrator. NOTE please that the steps below for the Sakai Administrator are provided as a guide; please refer to the Sakai documentation for further details if necessary.

Download and Install the Echo360 Plugin for Sakai

For convenience this plugin is packaged and distributed as Echo360SakaiPlugin-.zip file, and contains of two separate pieces of software to install in the Sakai LMS:

  • echo360 CKEditor plugin folder the handling the user-interface logic
  • echo360-tool.war Java Servlet WAR package handling the business logic regarding LTI launch requests and responses

The contents of the Echo360SakaiPlugin-.zip is structured as below to support easy installation:

.                                               # Sakai installation root location
├── ECHO360_README.md                           # README file
├── ECHO360_VERSION.info                        # Release Version file
├── sakai
│       └── echo360.properties                  # Example echo360.properties file
├── webapps
│       ├── echo360-tool.war                    # Echo360 Tool Java Servlet WAR package
│       └── library
│               └── editor
│                       └── ckextraplugins
│                               └── echo360     # Echo360 CKEditor plugin folder
│                                       ├── plugin.js
│                                       └── icons
│                                               └── echo360.png
└── ...


To download and install the Echo360 Plugin for Sakai

  1. Log into Echo360 as an Administrator and navigate to  the Downloads page (Settings > Downloads).
    Downloads page with Settings menu open showing navigation as described
     
  2. Scroll to the bottom and click the Download link for the Sakai Plugin, and save the Echo360SakaiPlugin-.zip onto the Sakai application host server.
    Atto plugin for Sakai section of downloads page with download link as described
     

  3. Unzip the Echo360SakaiPlugin-.zip into the Sakai installation root location.

    e.g.    unzip -o Echo360SakaiPlugin-.zip -d


    Once unzipped, the Sakai Tomcat application server will automatically deploy the echo360-tool.war file, and log it in the catalina.out log file:

    e.g.
     INFO [localhost-startStop-8] org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR Deploying web application archive /opt/tomcat/webapps/echo360-tool.war
     INFO localhost-startStop-8 org.sakaiproject.util.ToolListener - registering tools from resource: /tools/echo360.tool.xml
     INFO [localhost-startStop-8] org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR Deployment of web application archive /opt/tomcat/webapps/echo360-tool.war has finished in 3,849 ms

  4. Check the following files have been unzipped into the equivalent paths within Sakai.

    1. /ECHO360_README.md
2. /ECHO360_VERSION.info 3. /sakai/echo360.properties 4. /webapps/echo360-tool.war 5. /webapps/library/editor/ckextraplugins/echo360/plugin.js 6. /webapps/library/editor/ckextraplugins/echo360/icons/echo360.png
  5. Locate and edit the /webapps/library/editor/ckeditor.launch.js file to register the echo360 CKEditor plugin.
  6. Find the toolbar_Full variable declaration, and the line ['Link','Unlink','Anchor'], and add the following line below it: 
        ['echo360'],
  7. Find lines declaring CKEDITOR.plugins.addExternal(...); and add the following line: 
        CKEDITOR.plugins.addExternal('echo360',basePath+'echo360/', 'plugin.js');
  8. Find the line declaring ckconfig.extraPlugins+="..."; and add ,echo360 to the comma separated value. 
        ckconfig.extraPlugins+="sakaipreview,image2,audiorecorder,contentitem,movieplayer,wordcount,notification,autosave,echo360";
  9. Save the changes above to /webapps/library/editor/ckeditor.launch.js file.

Once completed, the Sakai LMS rich-text editor will display the echo360 CKEditor button to users (no restart is required). In order for the plugin to display the user's content library to select from, complete the below steps to configure the plugin for your Echo360 institution.

Configure the Echo360 Sakai Tool

Configuring the Sakai plugin involves simply entering the LMS Configuration values for your existing Sakai configuration. The Key, Secret, and URL tell the plugin which Echo360 institution to point to, and provides secure communication between the plugin and your Echo360 institution. 

The LMS Configuration values to use are found on the Settings Icon > Configuration > LMS Configurations page of Echo360. You must be an Echo360 Administrator to access these values. You must be a Sakai administrator to enter them into the settings on the Sakai server.  As with the above procedures, the below steps are provided as guidelines. Please refer to your Sakai documentation for further instructions if necessary.

To configure the Echo360 plugin for Sakai

  1. Log into Echo360 as an administrator and click the Settings icon in the upper right corner of the screen.
  2. Select Configurations. The LMS Configurations page appears by default.
  3. Find your Sakai configuration profile; these are the values you will copy and paste into the properties file on the Sakai server.
    • Host URL
    • Consumer Key
    • Shared Secret
  4. Edit the /sakai/sakai.properties file and add the following properties (refer to example echo360.properties): 
         echo360.launch.url=
     echo360.launch.key=
     echo360.launch.secret=
     echo360.iframe.default.width=640
     echo360.iframe.default.height=360
  5. Edit the /sakai/sakai.properties file and add the following to enable Sakai's Anti-Samy security to allow embedding Echo360 content. 
        content.cleaner.default.low.security=true
  6. Restart Sakai Tomcat application server.

The Content window toolbar should now provide the Echo360 button for embedding Echo360 videos. Instructors, teaching assistants, and students can embed any videos they own (appear in their My Content library) or upload a video then embed it. Administrators can embed any video they have access to in the system. Remember that the Public Links feature in Echo360 must be enabled for the institution in order for users to embed links to their videos.