What is Avalon?
Avalon is a locally managed online service that provides round-the-clock access to streaming audio and video content to designated users. This content includes library-owned items and locally created content from campus departments.
Publicly available content can be accessed via the search bar and browsing options. BGSU users will need to sign in to access content that is restricted to the campus community or specific classes.
If you have questions about Avalon or if there's a video you'd like the library to add to the collection, email bzwayer@bgsu.edu or avalon@bgsu.edu.
Access Avalon here: https://avalon.bgsu.edu/
Instructions for adding Avalon content to Canvas
In order to make Avalon content available to your students, please follow the instructions below.
1. On the Home screen in Canvas, in the main navigation panel on the left below the Home heading, select the Assignments option.
2. The Assignments page will open. To create a new assignment, select the Assignment button at the top of the page, on the right.
3. A new window will open. Choose a name and enter it in the Assignment Name field. This is a requirement but it doesn’t matter what the name is. The name will be displayed to students and it will link them to all the Avalon material you’ve assigned to them, so “Avalon Videos” might be a good choice for a name.
4. In the Submission Type section, select External Tool from the dropdown menu.
5. In the field labelled “Enter or find an External Tool URL”, click the Find button. A new window will open, with the heading Configure External Tool and a list of options. Select Avalon from the list, then click the Select button.
6. In the Submission Type section, make sure that the checkbox “Load This Tool In A New Tab” is checked.
7. Click the Save and Publish button at the bottom of the page to finish. Note: the assignment won’t be visible to students unless the assignment is published.
8. The assignment will now be active, but the process is not yet complete. Select the assignment. On the assignment page, you should see the text, "This tool needs to be loaded in a new browser window", followed by a button labelled "Load [name of assignment] in a new window." Click the button.
9. A new tab will open, which will look something like this:
10. Copy the URL from the page (in this example, https://avalon.bgsu.edu/catalog?f%5Bread_access_virtual_group_ssim%5D%5B%5D=LIBR+1010+1001) and paste it into an email to Brenda Zwayer at bzwayer@bgsu.edu or avalon@bgsu.edu along with your course code/s and information about the videos you'd like to make available to your students.
Note: If you don't see "No results found for your search" but instead see a list of videos, please send the URL just as described above. We can remove any unrequired videos from the list once we have the URL.
11. Library staff will reply to let you know when set up has been completed. At that point, you can confirm the videos are available by revisiting the assignment you've made in Canvas. This time, when you click the button labelled "Load [name of assignment] in a new window", you should see all the assigned videos listed in the new tab.
If you have any problems or questions, please email bzwayer@bgsu.edu or avalon@bgsu.edu.