Professional Development Student Experience Teaching Support

Tips and Tricks: Lecture Capture

Students in a lecture theatre

The University of Manchester’s Lecture Capture service has been quietly creating one of the institution’s most extensive digital learning resources. Beginning as a pilot in just 10 lecture theatres in 2011/12, lecture capture was subsequently rolled out across the University, establishing the recording of taught sessions as a routine part of the student learning experience.

Its importance lies not simply in recording what happens in a lecture: University policy explicitly recognises recordings as a supplementary learning resource that allows students to revisit taught content and complex concepts, supports study and revision, offers greater flexibility to those unable to attend, and provides additional support for students with accessibility requirements or for whom English is not their first language.

A few simple habits can make lecture capture work much more smoothly, both for you and for your students. This article collated by the Faculty Teaching and earning Enhancement leads aims to provide a refresher of some basics that can be easily overlooked.

  • Make sure you’re using the screen that gets recorded.  With two projectors, it’s the right-hand screen from the students’ perspective that gets recorded.  With three projectors, it’s the middle screen.
  • Use the radio mic, even if you have a loud voice.  The ambient microphones can be variable, and the radio mic makes life easier for students in the room as well as those listening later.

  • Stop or pause before the post-lecture questions begin. Use the QR code to pause the recording when students ask you things at the end of the lecture so that they aren’t accidentally recorded.  The QR code is here: https://www.mypodcasts.manchester.ac.uk/staff-faqs/lecture-recordings/pause-qr/

  • Check what you’re projecting.  Outlook inboxes and Teams chats have an unfortunate habit of appearing on screen while you’re setting up.  If they’re on the recorded projector, they’ll be in the recording too.

  • Check the visualiser occasionally.  If you’re using the visualiser, periodically check that it’s still in focus.

  • Repeat questions from students.  If a student asks a question during the lecture, the ambient microphone may or may not catch them.  Repeating the question means everybody in the room hears it and it also makes sense to someone watching the recording later.

  • Be aware that automatic captions can be surprisingly attentive.  In rooms where live captioning is enabled, quiet remarks and comments under your breath may also find their way onto the screen.

  • Remember that recordings are released automatically.  By default, they appear shortly after the session. You can change your preferences if you would rather edit and approve a recording before it is released.

A complete set of FAQs on using lecture capture can be found here: https://www.mypodcasts.manchester.ac.uk/staff-faqs/lecture-recordings/