To capture or not to capture? ... It depends! Who answers the question?

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on lecture capturing in academia. A lecture capture is a video created while academic staff deliver lectures to students in a specially equipped classroom. A camera oversees the podium and its surroundings and a software records whatever is presented on the screen. While uploading, the two parts are joined automatically in one single video that can be accessed from the cloud through a link.

To capture! Doing so, all lectures are available to students to watch over and over again. Actually, students who missed a class can "attend" at a later time. A repository of lectures is developed in which all lectures of a module are stored and can be re-used either by students or by lecturers themselves for any reason, such as clarifications, consolidation, developing learning material for e-learning etc.   

Not to capture!! Not capturing means that we stick to the old traditional face-to-face lecturing. Is that bad? No, if you consider that lecturing was performed this way for centuries now and no one got any harm. But, if we think there is some pedagogical value in it, why not to capture while living in the digital era? Here are some reasons:

• a video is not interactive, so students who watch a lecture capture cannot learn through engagement with the lecturer or fellow students;
• having a back-up learning plan, students are tempted not to appear in classes;
• when lecturers go public are not criticised only by students but also from other colleagues;
• lecturers should be extra careful with slides, copyright issues, spelling, language etc., i.e. any slip on anything is recorded;
• all material becomes open for others to use.

https://www.epiphan.com/blog/what-is-lecture-capture/

Of course, there are counter arguments to all the above but let's not elaborate. I think there is an implicit underlying suspicion that lectures will cease to exist. Would you think that if a lecture is engaging and stimulating that students would prefer not to come but watch the video instead? Would you think that if lecturers are performing a role which interacts with audience and motivates students through their physical presence that students would prefer the capture instead? I believe not in both cases. The rest of the issues about copyrights, appearance, criticism etc are secondary to the overall educational value. No one in academia claims that lecture capturing alone will change the face of education. What we argue is whether the wise use of lecture capturing will promote blended learning as the most favourite and most effective type of leaning to date. 

Our University has launched a debate over the issue, not so much about the importance of lecture capturing but mostly on whether academic staff should opt out or opt in. That is, whether all lectures should by default be recorded unless staff do not wish to do so (opt out), or whether they only lectures recorded are those that staff want to (opt in). To the surprise of many people, the Senate has agreed that the University will implement a policy of opting out from lecture capture from the start of the 2017-18 academic year. This means that the recording of material and subsequent publication on MOLE will become the norm, unless staff have persuasive and formally sanctioned reasons for not doing so. 

I would really value your opinion on whether the International Faculty should follow; you can post your opinion public as a comment or send it in private through email. 

Have a wonderful break.

Petros Kefalas
IFDLT