Panopto is the DIT-provided solution for media management and lecture capture. In Spring 2025 alone, 185,537 hours of content were viewed (which equates to 21 years’ worth of content). The system also houses hundreds of thousands of hours of unused content dating back to 2010. Managing content stored in our systems is an important part of service management and ensures that we comply with requirements related to privacy and accessibility. In addition, vendors continue to increase costs related to data storage, and this impacts how we provide services to campus.
- Currently, content in Panopto that has not been viewed for 13 months is automatically moved into an Archive and no longer viewable without being restored. On December 30, 2025, the Retention and Deletion Settings in UMD’s Panopto service will be updated to check for archived content that hasn’t been viewed for three years. This content will be automatically permanently deleted. This update is based on usage data observed over the past two years and ensures that content from the six most recent spring and fall academic semesters is still available for restoration in the event it has not been viewed.
Content that continues to be viewed will not be archived or deleted, and content owners may restore archived content at any time so that it is viewable and to avoid deletion. It may take up to 48 hours for content to be unarchived and viewable.
Note: Content that has been used as a reference for a Reference Copy will remain active and be exempt from the retention settings as long as the copies themselves are active and viewed.
As a reminder, per the UMD Records Retention Schedule, UMD community members should “Screen regularly and destroy that material for which no further reference is required.” Content that needs to be retained for extended periods, for example content related to research studies, should be retained in separate designated locations for long-term storage.
DIT will begin communicating the new settings directly with people who use Panopto beginning in mid-September 2025. Please contact itsupport@umd.edu if you have any questions and include the complete details of the content relevant to the inquiry.