Information Technology Services (ITS) announced changes to LATTE, Brandeis’ online learning platform and the cornerstone of the university’s system of remote and hybrid classes during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an email sent to the Brandeis community on Sept. 16. The most significant effect of the changes was to substantially reduce the maximum file size that can be uploaded, in order to improve performance.
The email, written by Ivan Nieves, the associate director of the university’s Learning Management System and a member of ITS’s LATTE team, says that beginning on Sept. 17, the maximum size for uploaded files in discussion forums and assignments will be reduced from its current limit of two gigabytes (2048 megabytes) to 20 megabytes. Nieves notes that the new maximum is “on par with Gmail attachment file size limits.” Nieves writes that since the transition to primarily remote learning, users have been uploading large video files to LATTE, which has caused course LATTE pages to exponentially grow. Nieves said that this “led to technical challenges and placed system performance at risk,” thus necessitating changes like the ones being introduced. He also noted that high-resolution pictures taken with smartphone cameras are likely to exceed the maximum size.
On the same day as the file size limits are reduced, ITS added instructions indicating how students and professors can upload files without taking up as much space. They also contain instruction for cases when a larger file is necessary. These instructions will automatically be shown to students when they attempt to upload a larger file than the limits permit.
Additionally, the email outlines further changes which will take place on Thursday, Sept. 24 and will entail the removal of the “Add Media” and “Record Video” buttons from the LATTE text editing toolbar. Nieves said that these changes are being made in order to prevent them from being used to record or upload a video as part of a text response, which he says is not consistent with best practices.
Nieves recommends that users use the program Echo360 to upload videos to LATTE through the text editing toolbar. Echo360 must be installed on the user’s computer.
