Method Lecture capture
Introduction
Lecture capture has been around for several years and involves the recording of lectures on video and making them available to students. It is a method often linked to the ‘Flipped Classroom’ approach and is usually part of a cross campus ICT-based strategy whereby lecture capture equipment is installed in different parts of the campus. There are a range of commercial technologies available and equipment can be either fixed in a lecture theatre or available in a portable set-up. In some university settings, lecture capture is operated by the academic themselves, in others it is supported technically by a technician of student. The functionality related to the application of lecture capture varies considerably. Some equipment allows simply for the recording and basic editing of lectures while in other technical set-ups, videos can be annotated, used to generate multilingual scripts, book-marked and searched. Some offer the opportunity to introduce elements like quizzes while others facilitate tracking and generate data on how the lectures are watched which can be very useful.
Aim To make more efficient use of university lectures by capturing them and making them available to students to watch in their own time which also includes making them available for revision.
Target group Lecture capture can be applied in any discipline and at any level.
Intended learning outcomes
More efficient use of academic resources the argument basically being that by making a good quality recording of a lecture once, this recording can be used and re-used as and when the lecturer and student requires freeing up the academic to use his or her time in a more efficient and pedagogically valuable way.
Description
Introducing lecture capture on any campus raises a considerable number of organisational questions to do with ownership of content, access to recordings and whether academics should be obliged to use such equipment. It also raises many technical issues related to storage and access as well as requiring course designers to re-consider how the overall course design needs to be adapted to make the most of lecture capture. There are also issues to do with quality of the content and presentation style which also need to be considered.

Lectures need to be prepared carefully first taking into account the functional specifications of the specific lecture capture technology that is available. The recording is then carried out and the results are made available to the targeted students.

Normally the student doesn’t have to do anything in particular apart from ensuring they have a suitable place in which to watch the lectures with good sound and light conditions.

Preparation Careful preparation is required which may include coaching on the part of the production services of the college or university.
Required Resources and equipment Video conferencing equipment, suitable (adapted) lecture theatre)
Success factors The presentation skills and preparation on the part of the lecturer play a part in the overall success of this method as does the functionality of the chosen video conferencing platform or service.
Advantages For the student, having easy access to lecture recordings can help considerably in revision. For the academic, lecture capture offers quite some advantages in terms of avoiding lecture repetition.
Disadvantages Requiring students to watch passive recordings of lectures has the disadvantage that it lacks opportunities for interaction so it is important to include opportunities for such interaction where possible through, for example, quizzes.
Additional information There are many resources available on lecture capture and also a considerable body of research information available as to what works and what doesn’t when introducing lecture capture. You will also find a lot of discussion online and elsewhere as to what effect lecture capture has on both attendance and attainment. See for example this article from Times Higher Education in November 2018.

This simple guide from supplier Panopto provides a short introduction to different models: /

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