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Lecturecast allows for the scheduling and recording of lectures in Lecturecast enabled UCL teaching spaces to support student learning.
Recordings can then be made available to students via Moodle courses.
The Lecturecast system provides a learning platform that goes beyond the simple recording of lectures, allowing staff to engage with students, and students to engage further with content.

The Lecturecast service is intended for the recording of teaching events. These may be of two types, listed below.

Modular events:
These are events that are part of an undergraduate or postgraduate taught program that have been assigned to a specific portico taught module e.g. ECON1001. These can be scheduled via the Lecturecast scheduler tool and will automatically appear in the correct section within Lecturecast.

Non-Modular events:
These are events that are part of an undergraduate of postgraduate taught program but are not associated with a particular module code e.g a shared/common introductory lecture taught across multiple modules. These events as long as they have been booked in a lecturecast equipped spaces via room bookings can be scheduled for recording using the Lecturecast scheduler tool. They will not by default be associated with any particular section in Lecturecast but will be stored in the personal library of the person who made the booking, from this location they may be published into any lecturecast sections on which the person making the booking is an instructor.

N.B. Special Events are not supported and cannot be published via the Lecturecast system.
These are events that are not part of an undergraduate or postgraduate taught program, e.g. an inaugural lecture, conference, outreach event etc.

If you are looking to record a special event, as defined above, you may want to contact Digital Media Services who can provide a full filming and editing service.

Special events taking place in Lecturecast equipped spaces can be recorded but not published via the Lecturecast system, and no support will be given to use of the system for these events. Note that the Lecturecast system is automated, and events are not attended by audio-visual staff, so the system may not be suitable for high profile or high production value events.

If you do decide to proceed, scheduling can be done via the Lecturecast scheduler, and the recording will sit in the personal library of the person who created the schedule. It can then be downloaded in one of two formats ( slides/screen with audio or video of presenter with audio) and uploaded to another platform (e.g such as UCL Mediacentral or YouTube).

Lecture recordings provide lecturers with the ability to review the structure and delivery of their lectures for professional development. Lecture recordings also provide lecturers with the ability to change the balance of activities during contact times, e.g. deliver informational elements via a recording and follow up with discussion sessions.

Lecture recordings provide students with the ability to revisit complex material, unusual or subject specific terminology (especially useful for overseas students) and view lectures missed due to illness or unforeseen circumstances.

Some of the benefits to lecturers are:-

• Giving students the ability to review lecture content should reduce the number of basic questions that lecturers have to answer repeatedly.
• Lecturecast affords the opportunity to 'flip' lecture content - delivering the informational content via pre-recorded material and making more productive use of contact time.
• The system logs viewing statistics, giving lecturers and course designers a good idea of how much a recording has been viewed and by whom.
• The system also has a 'Hot spot' system, allowing lecturers to quickly find areas of recordings that have been repeatedly viewed by many students - this can be a valuable aid in identifying topic areas that students find particularly challenging.

 Students both at UCL and elsewhere have reported a range of benefits including:

• The ability to revisit complex material to ensure understanding.
• The opportunity to clarify the use of unusual terminology or subject jargon (this can be especially useful for overseas students).
• The option to view lectures missed due to illness or unforeseen circumstances.
• The ability to bookmark specific parts of recordings as an aid to revision.

In every recent UCL survey of students and their use of technology, more use of Lecturecast has been the most frequent request.

Log in to the Lecturecast Scheduler to make or amend a recording schedule. Recordings made for centrally timetabled teaching events will automatically appear in the associated Lecturecast class within a given module's section. Note that schedules may only be amended or deleted by the staff member who made the original booking. You can find detailed guidance on how to book, and access the scheduler itself, here Lecturecast Scheduler Information

If you use multiple module codes - for example for students on UG and MSc degrees taking the same modules, or for  those with different assessment patterns - you can manage scheduling and display of recordings in several ways.

• You can agree between staff teaching and administering the module that you will use a single module code to schedule and view recordings. For instance, if you had BIOC1001 (UG Yr1), BIOC1001A (part time), and BIOC2001 (MSc module), you may want to agree to record all lectures under BIOC1001. BIOC1001 and BIOC1001A students could then access the same recordings in same Moodle module. 
  You could also link to the same BIOC1001 Lecturecast section in the BIOC2001 Moodle course for BIOC2001 students to view in their own space.

• Lecture recordings may be scheduled using multiple module codes. This means that individual recordings will go into the Lecturecast section for the module they were scheduled against - so for instance Tuesday morning lecture recordings might be recorded under BIOC1001 (UG Yr1), while Friday lectures might be recorded under the BIOC2001 (MSc) module code. Once you have connected your Moodle module to the Lecturecast system using the Lecturecast Connector block, you will need to add two Lecturecast activities to show both Lecturecast sections and allow students to access all recordings.

By default, Lecturecast captures all material sent to the room's projector from any connected device (e.g PowerPoint slides from an attached laptop, handwritten notes or objects held under a document cameras). Audio is captured via a clip-on radio microphone and video of the presentation area (i.e the lecturer or presenter) is captured via a fixed position camera.

No. Video of the presenter may be omitted from the recording by un-ticking the 'Capture presenter' option available in the online scheduler (when 'Unscheduled events' view is used). Prior to recordings commencing, schedules can also be edited (only be their creator) to change the 'Capture presenter' option.

There are a couple of things worth remembering that reduce possible ambiguities in recordings:-

• Questions from the floor are often faint in the recording as it is usually only the presenter who has a microphone. Repeating or paraphrasing the question asked before answering will ensure that both the question and response are clear in the final recording.
• It is best to use the computer cursor/mouse to highlight particular areas of the slide or presentation when they are being referred to. Devices like laser or physical pointers will not be captured.
• The cameras used by Lecturecast will not effectively record materials being written on white boards. If you need to draw, write or mark-up materials during your presentation it is best to use the in-theatre document camera.

In the case of external or guest speakers, they should be asked to sign the standard Lecturer consent form. The form is used to gather permission to record their lecture and permission to re-use their copyright material. The completed "Lecturer consent forms" should retained by the UCL department which has organised the event as proof that we have the relevant permissions. A consent form is available from the main UCL library's Lecturecast copyright page.

 Guidance on this can be found on the Library's copyright pages for lectures, podcasts etc. 

A new Moodle block has been created allowing the linking of a Moodle course to a Lecturecast section. As  Moodle courses act as gateways to associated Lecturecast content the Moodle-to-Lecturecast course link must be set up before course staff and students can access Lecturecast content.

The change in the Course short name is due to the Lecturecast Connector Block. At present,  when a  Moodle course is mapped to a Lecturecast section,  the Moodle Course short name is  changed to be the same as the Lecturecast section – and this happens each time you map to a new Lecturecast section.

This can be changed back though you will first need to create your mapping, then add a Lecturecast activity to link through to your recordings. After this, you can change your short name back to what it was originally without breaking the link to Lecturecast.

If you choose to change the short name back to what it was before, the Lecturecast Connector block will display that ‘no mapping exists’.  However as the linking has already been done, following instructions above,  the Lecturecast recordings should still  display.

To change the course short name,  do the following on the relevant Moodle course -  Settings > Course administration > Edit settings > Course short name> change the name (the name must be unique and must not have any apostrophes).

We are aware that this is not ideal and a new version of the Moodle Connector block is in the final stages of testing. The new block will not overwrite the Course short name and will show multiple mappings.

Moodle courses need to be mapped to Lecturecast sections and Lecturecast activities added and linked (see guides) - roles and their associated rights to a Lecturecast section are assigned at the point of clicking through a Lecturecast activity set up for a given section. Rights assigned are:

Students and non-editing tutors on the Moodle course → Students on the linked Lecturecast section
Tutors and course administrators on the Moodle course → Instructors on the linked Lecturecast section

Yes, basic editing functionality allows sections to be removed from a video. Detailed instructions can be found within the /wiki/spaces/LecturecastResourceCentre/pages/32804861 training guide.

In most cases editing Lecturecast recordings is not strictly necessary and the choice to edit or not is the personal preference of the presenter (or decided by departmental policy). It is important however, where for example, personal conversations between event attendees may have been inadvertantly recorded, that these be removed. When scheduling recordings there is an option to make recordings automatically available to students or to hold them back for review before making them available.
Instructors can make any recording available or unavailable at any time and if material does need to be removed it's recommended that recordings are made unavailable until any edits have been completed and processed.

There are a number of ways video content, other than scheduled recordings, can be placed in Lecturecast classes, these include:-

• Uploads from personal capture software (note that pre 2017 upgrade versions of personal capture software will need to be upgraded).
• Videos created using the Lecturecast mobile apps.
• Videos can be uploaded directly to a class by logging in to a Lecturecast section and using the upload facility. Note that each class can contain only one video but instructors can create any number of classes to house their content. You can find out how to upload content to your section here: https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/LecturecastResourceCentre/Lecturecast+ALP+-+Managing+Content#LecturecastALP-ManagingContent-1.1Addavideotoaclass

By default, downloads (MP4 files of screen presentation and audio) are disabled but may be enabled at section level by anyone with instructor access to the section. Note that before enabling or disabling content download, instructors should consult their colleagues teaching on the same module and check whether or not there is a departmental policy regarding the availability of downloadable recordings.

Recordings and other content will held for a rolling seven year period following the last time the material was accessed. i.e for material to be automatically deleted it would need to sit un-viewed for seven years.

Content recorded using the Lecturecast system prior to the upgrade will continue to be available via the old Lecturecast system for at least a year after the upgrade. No new recordings can be made on the Lecturecast Legacy system but existing links to recordings held there will continue to function for at least a year post upgrade. No automatic migration of old recordings will take place. You can find out more about Legacy content, and how to migrate individual recordings, here: Lecturecast Legacy