Lecture Capture

Lecture Capture

Michael Crocker, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Definitions and background

Lecture capture, also referred to as lecture recording, is a general term for a wide variety of techniques to maintain artifacts of classroom activity and distribute them to students (Nashash & Gunn, 2013). Stolzenberg and Pforte (2007) identified three potential streams of capture: audio of the lecture and class discussions; visual resources including slides and screen captures; and video of the actual classroom. Audio recordings form the simplest version of lecture capture, but these are often paired with the presentation slideshow (Larkin, 2010). Increasingly, screen capture software such as Camtasia Studio (McGrann, 2006) and Echo360 (Danielson, Preast, Bender, & Hassall, 2014) are used, which may also enable live webcasting of the lecture. Future links between lecture capture and wearable recording technology is possible (Odhabi & Nicks-McCaleb, 2011).

The raw recordings may or may not be edited for length and content before being made available to students (Germany, 2012). In order to allow students to access the recordings, the files or streaming links to the files may be placed on the institution’s Learning Management System (Vajockzi, Watt, Marquis, Liao, & Vine, 2011), a course website (Euzent, Martin, Moskal, & Moskal, 2011), or even an external video resource system such as YouTube or iTunesU (Spaeth-Hilbert, Seufert, & Wesner, 2013).

Affordances

Controlled via play, pause, and replay controls, recording playback allows students to set their own pace and a slightly accelerated speed may even be used to improve efficiency (Gorrisen, van Bruggen, & Jochems, 2012). This control allows students to relax in lectures and take notes later during lecture playback (Leadbeater, Shuttleworth, Couperthwaite, & Nightingale, 2013) and review elements that they may have missed in the live lecture (Nashash & Gunn, 2013). Lecture recordings are highly valued by students for review and revision (Larkin, 2010) and exam preparation (Taplin, Lee Hun Low, & Brown, 2011). Vajoczki et al. (2011) found that deep learners in particular were successful in using lecture recordings for test review purposes. Targeted usage has been noted to review difficult concepts (Leadbeater et al., 2013) and to resolve conflicts (Danielson et al., 2014). Odhabi and Nicks-McCaleb (2011) assert that lecture captures are particularly effective for technical work and screen capture recordings have been found to work well with simulations and lab activities (Stolzenberg & Pforte, 2007).

Williams and Hancock (2012) argued that lecture capture was a particularly good match with contemporary, web-savvy students. Brooks, Erickson, Greer, and Gutwin (2011) contend that it meets the needs of the modern student and Larkin (2010) found lecture capture to promote mobile learning. With lecture recordings housed on web platforms, students report satisfaction with the flexible access (Nashash & Gunn, 2013) and derive greater motivation from being able to self-regulate their learning (Spaeth-Hilbert et al., 2013). Students report greater productivity, efficiency, time savings, and even improved sleep patterns when given access to lecture recordings (Danielson et al., 2014). Gorrisen et al. (2012) assert that the autonomy achieved over lecture consumption renders the very medium of the traditional lecture a learner-centered approach. Students often view the previous year’s recordings prior to the lecture (Odhabi & Nicks-McCaleb, 2011), further evidence of what Danielson et al. (2014) referred to as their good judgement in lecture capture usage.

Taplin et al. (2011) found that educational organizations were able to break from the constraints of physical classroom size, which permits colleges and universities to reach a potentially far larger student population (Euzent et al., 2011). A wider array of students may be serviced effectively, as lecture recordings appeal to students with varying learning styles (Taplin et al., 2011) and are particularly useful for dyslexic students and those studying in a second language (Leadbeater et al., 2013).

Constraints

The playback of lecture recordings permit no immediate dialog with the instructor for clarification or exploration of the topic at hand and recordings are thus intended to supplement but not replace live lectures (Williams & Hancock, 2012). University faculty report fears that recordings will lead to lower attendance in the face-to-face lectures and thus lesser opportunity for classroom discussion (Germany, 2012). Leadbeater et al. (2013) found that lecture attendance is in fact reduced when lecture captures are maintained, but not to the degree anticipated by faculty. Students may require more self-discipline when lecture recordings are present (Euzent et al., 2011; Spaeth-Hilbert et al., 2013) and Vajockzi et al. (2011) found that surface learners in particular were prone to skip more classes when recordings were available. In another case, lecture capture resulted in no negative impact on attendance (Nashash & Gunn, 2013). Wieling and Hofman (2010) observed that when absences occur they are primarily triggered by other factors, with the recordings simply allowing student to compensate.

Students are found to predominantly access lecture recordings from home (Gorrisen et al., 2012). The technical problems that result from students accessing recordings in such varying playback environments are prevalent and concerning and may lead to imbalances of opportunity within the student cohort (Larkin, 2010). Technical concerns may not be limited to the playback environment, with faculty often complaining that glitches with the recording software in lectures often disrupt their live lectures (Nashash & Gunn, 2013). Even in the absence of technical issues, the live classroom experience may be impacted by the constraints and demands of the lecture capture technology being used (Danielson et al., 2014).

Student privacy may be a concern, particularly in the absence of extensive editing of the resulting captures (Nashash & Gunn, 2013). Many faculty will chose to make recordings from previous years available to students (Odhabi & Nicks-McCaleb, 2011), and thus questions and concerns voiced by the students in class may live on in those recordings. Long-term retention of recordings may cause copyright issues as any materials accessed or used in the live lecture may be preserved and distributed indefinitely (Nashash & Gunn, 2013).