Lecture recording

Vacancy: Learning Technology Systems Support Specialist

LSE’s Learning Technology and Innovation team are recruiting a Learning Technology Systems Support Specialist, with a focus on managing our lecture recording system, Echo360 Active Learning Platform.

We offer a salary in the range £35,999 to £43,360, with the potential to progress to £46,617 pa (inclusive of London allowance)

The School is undertaking a programme of expansion by making the system available in more teaching rooms, and moving to an opt-out (record by default) model.

The post-holder will help to manage the integration between Echo360 and the School’s timetable system, Scientia Syllabus Plus.  The successful candidate will have an opportunity to champion lecture recording at LSE, working with teaching, learning technology, audio-visual and systems integration colleagues to make lecture recording and video-on-demand a core component of the student experience.

The successful candidate will have experience of managing Echo360 Active Learning Platform (or a similar enterprise-grade lecture recording system), and excellent planning, organisation and communication skills. Experience with SQL and the use of Talend OpenStudio for Data Integration, or a similar ETL tool, would be an advantage, but training will be available for the successful candidate.

For more information, and to apply, please visit http://lti.lse.ac.uk/ltsss2019, and for informal enquiries, please contact Chris Fryer, c.j.fryer@lse.ac.uk.

The closing date for receipt of applications is Sunday, 17th February 2019 (23.59 UTC). Regrettably, we are unable to accept any late applications.

Improvements to the lecture recording service for Lent Term 2019

We are pleased to announce that our colleagues in Estates Division and Data and Technology Services (formerly IMT) have worked over the Christmas break to improve the lecture recording system.  Recording facilities are newly installed in the following rooms:
  • CLM.2.04
  • CLM.2.05
  • CLM.2.06
If you are scheduled to teach in these rooms and would like to have your lectures recorded, please let us know by completing the form in LSE for You
The following rooms now have High Definition video, in addition to audio and display recording facilities:
  • 32L.LG.03
  • 32L.LG.18
  • NAB – Alumni Theatre
  • NAB – Wolfson Theatre
  • NAB.1.07
  • NAB.1.09
  • NAB.1.10
  • NAB.1.14
  • NAB.1.15
  • NAB.1.17
  • NAB.1.18
  • NAB.1.19
  • NAB.2.06
  • NAB.2.08
  • NAB.2.09
  • NAB.2.13
  • NAB.2.14
  • NAB.2.16
  • OLD.3.21
  • OLD.4.10
  • PAR.1.02
  • PAR.2.03
  • PAR.LG.03
  • TW2.2.04

“On air” lights

Lights have been installed to help you determine when a recording is taking place.  The lights change colour according to the state of the recording system.  When the light is a steady green, no recording is taking place, but the system is operational.  When the light is a steady yellow, a recording is due to start in the next five minutes.  When the light is a steady red, a recording is in progress.
The light also doubles as a push-button control system.  When the light is a steady red (meaning a recording is in progress) you can push down on the light to pause the recording.  You may wish to do this when there is a break in your lecture, or when you otherwise feel that continuing to record is not appropriate.  When the recording is paused, the light will blink yellow.  Push down on the light to resume recording.  Wait for the light to return to a steady red before continuing with your teaching.
Please note that the light will only function while the PC in the room is switched on.

Opt in, or opt out?

Lecture recording remains opt in pending the ratification of the policy document by Academic Board. Some lecturers expressed concern about paragraph 2, which governs intellectual property. We will be sending a revised draft to the departments and the UCU branch for comment before final submission to Academic Board.
So the procedure for Lent Term continues to be as outlined in this post:

Lecture recording for 2018/19

Lecturers will need to opt-in for their lectures to be recorded. Please visit LSE for You and complete the form so that we can record your lectures. Please note that this task cannot be delegated to anyone else.  There are detailed instructions available on our website.

If your lectures do not appear on that form, please check the timetable to ensure your lectures have been allocated to you correctly. Contact timetables@lse.ac.uk to correct any errors.

Once the first recording is complete you will receive an email informing you that the lecture is ready to view. Please see our guidance on how to publish your recordings in Moodle.

If you already have a link to lecture recordings in your Moodle course, it is likely that this is to last academic year’s recordings. Unless you want 2018/19 students to watch those recordings, please remove or hide that link.

Recording seminars

LTI are aware that some departments classify their teaching as “seminars” so that they benefit from a register, and can schedule more than one session in a week. Unfortunately, these sessions do not appear for selection in LSE for You. We are working with the Law, Finance and Management departments (who are most affected by this problem) to collate sessions that must be recorded. Nevertheless, if you are not in one of those departments and wish to have teaching sessions not classified as “Lectures” recorded, please email lti.lecturerecording@lse.ac.uk and give details of the sessions.

Guest lecturers

Lecturers who are not members of LSE will not be able to complete the form in LSE for You. Please ensure you have their consent to be recorded by asking them to complete the release form.  Email this, with details of the session to be recorded, to lti.lecturerecording@lse.ac.uk.

Further advice

Before making an enquiry not covered above, please see our Frequently Asked Questions about lecture recording

September 28th, 2018|Lecture recording|0 Comments|

Secondment opportunity in LTI

LSE Learning Technology and Innovation are offering a 12 month secondment opportunity for the role of Learning Technology Systems Support Specialist, looking after our lecture recording system, Echo360.

This role is a secondment opportunity to enable existing employees to broaden their knowledge, experience and skills by transferring to a different team/department. Existing employees wishing to apply for this role as a secondment opportunity should discuss the role and seek agreement from their line manager in advance of their application.

Please see the full details in LSE Jobs.

The closing date for receipt of applications is 28th August 2018

Lecture Recording – How did we do?

Most of you will be aware that the Lecture Recording service went through some major changes this year. We moved from an on-premises installation to one hosted in the cloud, re-wrote our integration with the timetable to make scheduling more accurate, and introduced more rigorous governance procedures to ensure your rights were respected.

 

So amidst all this change how did we do?

Before we get into the stats, lets just make a few things clear – these numbers describe teaching classified as ‘Lectures’ in our timetable, and do not include seminars, workshops or classes. Some sessions that were classified as “seminars” were recorded, but these are excluded from the stats below.

Now, lets begin. At the start of the year, we set ourselves a target of successfully recording 99.5% of lectures, which is about 20% higher than last year. We managed to achieve 99.4%. Although 0.1% lower than our target, we are very pleased with this. Such a high success rate would not have been possible without IMT AV’s involvement and the help from student Media Assistants that worked for us; editing recordings to improve audio quality, and uploading slides when they were not successfully captured, and reporting issues so they could be rectified in time for the next teaching day. A big thank you to all of them.

Although we managed to record 99.4% of lectures that we were asked to record, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. We still seem to have a problem with the number of courses that opt in for lecture recording. Unfortunately, this percentage stayed the same as last year – 42% of 1309 timetabled courses.

This highlights our focus for the next academic year – we’ve achieved a great success rating but lets see if we can get more courses to record! Even though the LSE, currently, only has 43 lecture recording capable rooms (LRCRs) – these rooms are nowhere near capacity. The LSE had 13170 timetabled lectures in 17/18 of which 11612 were in LRCRs and just over 60% (~7222 lectures) were recorded. This indicates that even without expanding the service to more rooms, there is room for improvement.

I don’t want this post to come across as negative but rather as motivational, a bit of tough love, if you will. We managed to record over 740,430 minutes of lectures this year but we know this can be higher by around 40% – Shall we see if we can hit the 1,000,000 minutes mark next year?

Let’s get more courses opting in and lets help our students do the best they can.

Active lectures

So as per last week’s blog post, recording your lectures is beneficial to students and should not negatively impact on lecture attendance but what will help increase lecture attendance?

Between MT 2015 and LT 2017, academic developers from the Teaching and Learning Centre co-convened and reported on a series of focus groups with students in 8 departments across the School to learn more about students’ experiences. These focus groups found that LSE students value:

Lectures that are inspiring and motivating

‘…I’m listening to him and he’s showing his enthusiasm for the topic and his research, and I’m sitting there thinking this is stimulating me and I want to know more about this’.


Lectures that are well structured

‘A good lecture is structured and I see the structure from the start.’


Lectures in which students understanding is checked

‘every lecturer that I have, they just talk at you, and there is no chance to make sure that you know what you need to know, or that you understand stuff.’

‘…  Because sometimes a lecturer is in flow and you don’t want to just disrupt it … But when he just pauses and asks ‘This is good time now to ask your question’ – I think that’s very valuable.’

‘…  something he does that I really like is that when he’s concluding a bit of material he’s trying to get through, he does say ‘Do you have any questions on this?’ and nearly every time there isn’t anything, but you know it gives me an opportunity to think ‘Actually have I understood that properly?’ and ‘This would be an appropriate time.’  


Lectures that are interactive and not too long

‘You go there and you sit: it’s a very passive process. I think lectures need to be more active. Not in the sense of asking questions but in the sense of doing … I’m fed up with being talked to for hours.’

Rethinking the lecture  

As many institutions shift towards opt out lecture recording (see post from last week) there also appears to be a move away from the standard model of lecturing and a move towards an active blended learning approach.


Technology can often help facilitate this for example:

This interactive model will present some issues that institutions need to consider including:

  • Gaining consent from students to be recorded or ways to edit or stop and start recordings easily.
  • Rethinking learning spaces

LTI have been working with Estates, AV and TLC to renovate learning spaces and have been working on various projects to evaluate the type of learning spaces (furniture, technology and layout) best suited for collaborative or flexible teaching approaches.  We have also been working with estates to create signage to inform staff and students that recording is taking place and will be working with AV to investigate more agile recording systems that allow lecturers to stop and start recording in the room.

If you would like some advice and support on how to use technology in your teaching contact LTI.  Calls are currently open for LTI grant projects including those that have themes of innovative use of space and transforming your teaching with technology.  See the LTI website for more information.

References

Armellini, A (2018, Jan 11) ‘The large lecture theatre is dead’

retrieved from https://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/the-large-lecture-theatre-is-dead-11-jan-2018

Bates, S.P., Howie, K. & Murphy, A. St J. (2006) The use of electronic voting systems in large group lectures: challenges and opportunities. New Directions 2 (Dec) 1-8.

Cornish, A (2017, August 3) ‘Vermont Medical School Says Goodbye To Lectures’ 

retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/08/03/541411275/vermont-medical-school-says-goodbye-to-lectures

Huxham, M. (2005) Learning in lectures: do ‘interactive windows’ help? Active Learning in Higher Education 6 (1) 17-31.

Revell, A. & Wainwright, E (2009) What makes lectures ‘unmissable’? Insights into teaching excellence and active learning.
Journal of Geography in Higher Education 33 (2) 209-223.

Roger, K., Ney, S & Liote, L. (2016) Teaching spaces design and development at LSE: an evaluation of impact on teaching and learning. London: The London School of Economics and Political Science.

 

Impact and student use of lecture recording

Lecture recording is becoming more established in Higher Education with 71% of institutions reporting using it in 2016 (UCISA, 2016) and many moving towards an opt out system.

At LSE an increasing number of courses are using lecture recording to support students.  In 2016/17, 6445 lectures were recorded (a 12.7% rise in recordings from 2015/6) and with over 5000 recordings already completed this academic year we are on track to record an additional 25% more content for 2017/18.

Despite the expansion in the use of lecture recording there is still a concern amongst some academic staff that recording lectures will lead to a decrease in lecture attendance.  These Academics should be relieved to hear about the results of a recent study at the University of Aberdeen by Emily Nordmann, Colin Calder, Paul Bishop, Amy Irwin and Darren Comber, published in January 2018 the team found “no evidence for a negative effect of recording use, or that attendance and recording use were related”.   The study spanned four years of an Undergraduate programme in order to review the impact of attendance, lecture recording and student attainment.  They concluded that lecture recordings were the most beneficial for first year undergraduates, particularly non native speakers.  Weaker students gained from supplementary use of recordings but only the stronger students were able to use the recordings to overcome the impact of low attendance.  These differences were not present in the second year onwards as “attendance and recording use were positively correlated with, but no longer predictive of, achievement”.

Students’ use of lecture capture
These findings have been reinforced by recent analysis of LSE lecture recording statistics and interviews and surveys with LSE students for five core first year undergraduate courses.

The study carried out by student research assistants for LTI found that:

  • the majority of students watch the whole lecture once and then repeat and re-watch at points of difficulty with the number of views for this purpose being significantly higher for quantitative subjects
  • Very few students used lecture recordings as a replacement for attendance, preferring to use it as a revision tool or where they had valid reasons to miss the lecture (such as a clash). This complementary role for lecture recording came through very strongly in the quantitative data;

This [lecture recording] is still far more useful than merely having the lecture to depend on – I’ve literally watched certain parts of a lecture 6-8 times just to make sure I absolutely understand the content of the lecture. I usually watch each lecture at least twice as well”.

(Comment from EC102 student, EC102, is the most watched course in the School, with students watching each lecture on average seven times over the academic year.  The most watched lecture was Week 11 of EC210 which was watched just over 5000 times.)

This use of lecture recordings to supplement lecture attendance is not restricted to the Social Sciences.  In 2013 Peter Reed conducted a survey on lecture recording with 840 students at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at the University of Liverpool.  He found 92% of respondents wanted to be able to access recordings to clarify aspects they didn’t understand in class, and 87% would use them to prepare for summative assessment. Accessing recordings instead of going to lectures was of interest to only a small proportion of students (7%).

Additionaly an LTI literature review in 2013 illustrated that students in most studies preferred access to live lectures, with most preferring a blended format incorporating lecture recordings, live lectures, course materials and additional classes.


Lecture recording at LSE

At LSE the Echo360 lecture recording system is currently installed in 43 rooms.  Teachers that are timetabled to lecture in a room with recording devices installed are able to schedule lecture recording on LSEForYou, if the teacher opts in the recordings are automatically recorded and can be made available to students on Moodle using the Echo360 Activity.

The recording displays the audio and video of the screen/visualiser in classrooms and the projector and presenter in larger lecture theatres.  See the LTI website for a list of room with lecture capture devices.


Next steps for lecture recording at LSE

LTI are working with AV and IMT to improve the quality of lecture recordings and are currently working on creating various resources to help lecturers to use lecture recording facilities.

IMT AV recently upgraded the hardware in Clements House lecture rooms in order to improve audio and video quality.  There are further development plans for lecture recording capable rooms starting with 32LIF which is due for an upgrade over the easter break.  Longer term the new LSE buildings should increase the capacity for lecture recording.

LTI are also working with various teams around the school such as timetables and LFY to solve the inability to automatically schedule seminars that are taught in a lecture style. We are hopeful to have this resolved for the next Michaelmas term.

Alongside making constant improvements to the system we are also looking to innovate lecture recording and encourage lecturers to think about how they could use recordings in different ways inclusing using personal capture to produce online resources to support face to face activities.  Part two of this post will look at how technology can be used to rethink your lectures and make them more engaging and interactive.

If you are interested in using lecture recording see our website for guides and FAQ’s and if you have any queries please email: IMT.Lecturerecording@lse.ac.uk

 

References

Bond, Steve and Grussendorf, Sonja (2013), Staff Attitudes to Lecture Capture. The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

Grummett, D and Appleby-Donald, E (2016, June 1) ‘Does lecture capture enhance learning?’

retrieved from University of Edinburgh http://www.teaching-matters-blog.ed.ac.uk/?p=526

Karnad, Arun (2013) Student use of recorded lectures: a report reviewing recent research, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

Kuepper-Tetzel, C (2017, December 07) ‘Lecture attendance, lecture recordings and student performance; A complex, but noteworthy relationship’  [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.learningscientists.org/blog/2017/12/07-1

Nanfeldt, K (2017, September 7) ‘Lecture Recording: What does research say about its effect on attendance?’ [Blog post]. Retrieved from Teaching matters-blog, University of Edinburgh http://www.teaching-matters-blog.ed.ac.uk/?p=1972

Nordmann, E., Calder, C., Bishop, P., Irwin, A., & Comber, D. (2017, November 10) ‘Turn up, tune in, don‘t drop out: The relationship between lecture attendance, use of lecture recordings, and achievement at different levels of study.’ Retrieved from psyarxiv.com/fd3yj

Rana, Y (2017) ‘All Edinburgh lectures to be recorded from September 2017’ (blog post) retrieved from https://thetab.com/uk/Edinburgh/2016/10/03/lectures-recorded-September-2017-26019

Reed, P ‘What do students want out of lecture capture?’ 2013, November 15) (blog post) retrieved from http://thereeddiaries.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/what-do-students-want-out-of-lecture.html

Rios-Amaya, J.. Secker, J. and Morrison, C. (2016) Lecture recording in higher education: risky business or evolving open practice LSE / University of Kent.

Von Konsky, B.R., Ivins, J. and Gribble, S.J. (2009) Lecture attendance and web based lecture technologies: A comparison of student perceptions and usage patterns Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 2009, 25(4), 581-595.

Lecture recording now available in KSW.1.04

If you are timetabled to deliver lectures in KSW.1.04 during Lent Term 2018, you can now choose to have your lectures recorded.  See our guide to setting your lecture recording preferences. Note that your sessions will need to be classified as “Lectures” in the timetable for you to be able to book them in LSE for You.