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 the following teaching events:

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 can be scheduled for recording, as long as they have been booked in a Lecturecast equipped space via room bookings, 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 existing Lecturecast sections (i.e. modular section) on which the person making the booking is an instructor.

NOTE: Special events are supported by Digital Media and cannot be scheduled via the Lecturecast system.
These are events that are NOT part of undergraduate or postgraduate taught programs, e.g. an inaugural lectures, conferences, outreach events, public events, CPD, etc.

If you need to record a special event, contact Digital Media at video@ucl.ac.uk who provide filming and editing services.

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.

 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 create or edit a recording schedule. Schedules may only be amended or deleted by the staff member who created the original schedule. Find instructions on how to access the Lecturecast Scheduler and how to schedule a recording in the Lecturecast Scheduler training guides.

Recordings for centrally timetabled teaching events will automatically appear in the associated Lecturecast class within a given module's section.

• Only events timetabled via CMIS can be scheduled for recording. Check to make sure that your lecture is timetabled via CMIS.
• Ensure the lecture is taking place in a Lecturecast enabled teaching space.
• Try searching for any other module codes assigned to your lecture e.g. ECON1001 and ECON1001A as only one code will feed into the scheduler for each event. You could also try doing a search using the ‘Location’ field.
• Event information is brought into the scheduler on a 3 month rolling basis. Your event will need to occur within the next 3 months to be visible in the Lecturecast Scheduler.

The maximum duration of a single recording is 4 hours. Events booked in CMIS longer than 4 hours will appear as non-bookable in the Lecturecast scheduler. Events longer than 4 hours should be broken down to chunks of less than 4 hours in CMIS to make them bookable via the Lecturecast scheduler. Currently the scheduler advises users to contact the Lecturecast team for scheduling recordings more than 4 hours in length, the team will assist in making these bookings during the first term of the 2017/18 session but subsequently will expect users to make the necessary adjustments in their CMIS bookings allowing them to schedule their own 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. Once a recording has been made the presenter component can only be removed by downloading the slides & audio version of the recording and re-uploading this into the class containing the original video. It's important to note that if the original video has been available to students, overwriting it will cause the loss of student bookmarks and/or Q&A synchronisation with the original media.

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. Moodle courses act as gateways to associated Lecturecast content and therefore the course link to Lecturecast must be set up before course staff and students can access the 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. 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

Find out how to link a Lecturecast section on a Moodle course in the Linking Moodle to Lecturecast training guides.

Yes, basic editing functionality allows sections to be removed from a video. Detailed instructions can be found within the Lecturecast ALP - Edit a capture training guide.

This is possible if student content such as Q&A, notes etc. has not already been associated with the class content. Find out how to remove the presenter from a recording in the /wiki/spaces/LecturecastResourceCentre/pages/32804865.

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. Find out how to upload content to your section in the Add Content to a Class training guide.

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. Find out more about Lecturecast Legacy and how to migrate individual recordings in the Lectuirecast Legacy section.

Echo360 is a web-based application that uses a browser to view content and as such has certain browser requirements. Beyond ensuring you're using a supported browser, there are also some browser configuration settings you may need to check or change to successfully use Echo360 (especially if using Safari on iOS/MacOS).

Issue: The capture preview appears to jump around between frames.  The completed capture is however fine. 

Advice: Mac PCAP users can still complete personal captures on High Sierra by starting the capture normally even though the preview does not display properly.

Echo (Lecturecast service providers)  are working on a new capture application that will resolve the issue  and they hope to have a beta application available for users in early 2018.