Guidance for teaching staff

Scheduling recordings of teaching

Teaching events categorised as lectures 

  • Will be scheduled for audio & screen recording if they are timetabled into a room with Echo360. Any teaching event not categorised as a lecture will not be scheduled for recording.
  • Echo360 coverage across the estate is expanding but in some locations is still limited. The upgrade of the estate will prioritise expanding coverage to rooms with a capacity of 45 students or more. Teaching staff who wish to record their teaching but are roomed in location that does not currently support Echo360 recording are able to loan personal recording equipment by submitting a request through the UofG Helpdesk.
  • To add video to a recording, please contact the Echo360 team via the UofG Helpdesk at least one week before the class event.
  • An example of a recorded lecture can be view viewed via Echo360 – set sources to Video 1, to view slides plus audio only.

If there is a room or timetable change:

Please note that the recording schedule will not update automatically.

  • If a room change occurs due to a change made by central timetabling, CTT will alert the Echo360 team to update the recording schedule.
  • If a room change occurs due to a change requested by the School, Lead School Timetablers should alert Echo360 to the change through the UofG Helpdesk

Opting out of recordings

Timepoint 1

When timetabling is launched in February, all teaching events categorised as lectures will be scheduled for recording if the room(s) they are allocated have that functionality.

In the normal process of timetabling communications, teaching staff should be made aware of this change and should be given the option of opting out of recording for an event or course by informing their lead school timetabler.

The School timetabler should update CMIS to remove the flag from all affected events or add in any non-lecture events where recording is requested.  Such requests may lead events or courses to be moved to another room.

Timepoint 2

When the final timetable is issued to Schools in June/July, all teaching events labelled as a lecture should note whether they are scheduled for recording (taking into consideration prior opt-out or recording equipment availability in the timetabled rooms).

As part of the regular timetable review, lead school timetablers and teaching staff should confirm if there are any changes to be made to the recording schedule, either to opt-out of lectures or to opt-in to recording other types of events and the event should be updated on CMIS.

Ad-hoc opt-out

In addition to the two formal timepoints associated with timetabling activity, staff may also opt-out on an ad-hoc basis throughout the academic year by informing their lead school timetabler who should update the event on CMIS. The following principles apply to ad-hoc opt-out:

  • Requests to change the recording schedule that are submitted to CMIS no later than one week before the timetabled event will be guaranteed, that is, no recording will take place.
  • Requests to change the recording schedule that are submitted to the CMIS less than a week before the timetabled event will still be processed by the Echo360 team, however, it is not possible to guarantee that the recording schedule will be updated in time, particularly at peak times. In such cases, teaching staff should familiarise themselves with alternative methods for preventing the recording, for example, pausing the recording in the lecture hall at the beginning of the class and/or deleting the recording before it is published within the 24-hour window.

Individual opt-out data will only be available to lead school timetablers, the Space Management and Timetabling team, and the Echo360 team in order to process requests. An aggregated report that details the number of lectures that were recorded and the number of opt-outs by School and College but that does not contain any personal information about individual teaching staff or events will be disseminated to relevant Learning and Teaching Committees in order to evaluate the impact of the policy.

Communicating to students about recordings

Information about which lectures will be recorded should be added to course handbooks. Where teaching staff have opted-out of recording all or some of their lectures, we would encourage staff to provide one of the following reasons to help students better understand when and where recording is appropriate: 

  • Recording facilities are not available in the room(s) in which the lectures on this course are delivered. 
  • The approach to lecturing undertaken in this course is not suitable for recording, for example, there is a high degree of interactivity;
  • Recording the lecture would require the lecturer to change their teaching approach to facilitate the recording and this change would be detrimental to the student experience; 
  • There are legal, ethical or privacy reasons for not recording part or all of a lecture on this course. 
  • There are personal reasons that make it inappropriate for lectures on this course to be recorded; 

Where lecture recordings are provided, students should be provided with guidance on how to use lecture recordings in course handbooks or on Moodle where the recordings are published. Staff may use and adapt the following template if desired: 

  • Lectures on this course will be recorded. The recording will include any content that is being presented via the projector (e.g. slides/visualiser) and the audio of the lecturer. Recordings will be published to Moodle automatically 24 hours after the lecture. Please note that this lecture series has not been designed for hybrid delivery. Therefore there may be elements of the lecture that are not picked up by the recording (e.g. if there is Q&A from the audience or equipment failure) and you should not expect the recordings to be as high quality as those designed for online delivery. 
  • There is also a large amount of evidence that attendance is highly predictive of performance. Lecture recordings are provided to help you recap the lecture and to give you flexibility for when illness or other unavoidable good cause means that you cannot attend the lecture.  
    There are a number of studies that find that students who do better tend to both attend the live lecture and use the recording to revise. Lecture recordings can also help you take better notes in lectures. Summarising and paraphrasing what the lecturer is saying is better than writing down what they say word for word even though it’s more difficult. The recording can help reduce any worries you might have about missing anything as you can use the recording to add to your notes later. 
  • An example of a recorded lecture can be viewed via Echo360: set Sources to Video 1 to view slides plus audio only.

 Student guide

Guidelines on transcription for recorded lectures

  • Transcription guidance for on-campus recorded lectures follows the University’s audio and video accessibility guidelines.
  • On-campus recordings of lectures are suggested to fall under the Requested priority category, that is automated transcripts where students can request edited transcripts, e.g., for disability reasons.

Evidence base for lecture recordings

Should you wish to read more about the impact of lecture recordings, you may find the following sources helpful: 

Visiting and guest lecturers

The recording of teaching policy applies equally to external visiting and guest lecturers with the exception of evidencing consent where, because of the different employment situation, they will be required to sign a consent form as they did previously.

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