Queen Mary, University of London

Q-Review – Lecture Capture

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is Q-Review?

Q-Review Logo

Q-Review is a ‘lecture capture’ service we are trialling in Educational and Staff Development. This is an initiative which has being brought into pilot stage. It is a service for staff and students that is being developed in response to staff and student demand.

`Lecture capture´ refers to the recording of an educational event using a combination of digital media. Lecture capture has being taken up successfully by the OU, Imperial, Birkbeck, Heriot Watt, Coventry, Newcastle, LSE and many other UK institutions.

Educational and Staff Development have been using the technology for the past few years. More recently we have received an increasing number of requests from academics to broaden the availability of the system. We have responded to that need by making a portable installation available for short term loans. As part of the Teaching Room Refurbishment project, new systems will go into two lecture theatres this summer.

What is the technology being used?

The software underlying Q-Review is called Echo360 (http://echo360.com/). It will record video, audio, and the presenters screen (e.g. PowerPoint, notations or webpages) and combine these into a user-friendly format. It can also be set to record just audio or just audio plus screen. It can automatically record lectures, produce user-friendly learning resources and publish them to a choice of distribution mechanisms, e.g. WebCT CE6, iTunes, webpages, iGoogle, etc.

The undergraduate MBBS programme in the SMD, the School of Business and Management, the department of Economics and the Centre for Commercial Law Studies are making some use of ESD installations. There are also three installations for postgraduate courses in the SMD.

You can see samples of the software at http://www.echo360.com/showcase/

How is it used at QMUL?

We are providing this as a service available to staff on request. We´re keen to emphasis to members that this as a service provided at the request of staff who think that it will be useful for them and their students.

The Code of Practice for using the system can be found here.

What can it be used for?

A full lecture capture installation aims to capture the entire classroom experience from a live lecture. It will record audio from the presenter(s) and attendees, a screen capture of anything that is sent to the screen (e.g. PowerPoint, Smartboard annotations, DVDs, etc.) and can record other sources (e.g. a document camera used to record transparencies, OHT slides or videos of a complex procedure).

Other uses include, for example, a library tour released for student induction, demonstrations of experiments that are time-consuming to repeat can be recorded and made available for learners to watch as often as required, student presentations could be recorded and then placed online for peer review of their presentation skills. There are many uses for these technologies that extend beyond recorded lectures and can be integrated into learning activities.

What are the advantages?

  • Aids in effective revision by learners
  • Aids in dealing with large class sizes
  • Demonstrations are available to view at any time
  • Lectures can be released in advance allowing time for more interactive teaching in face-to-face sessions by moving away from ‘chalk and talk’
  • Aligns the experience of distance learners’ more closely with learners on campus
  • Helps staff improve lecture style
  • Allows students to do note-taking afterward and pay closer attention during the lecture

Will the students stop attending lectures?

It has been noted in UK HE institutions making wide-scale use that attendance has not dropped off. Anecdotal and quantitative evidence in fact points to cases where teaching staff have noted a slight increase in attendance at labs and student seminars when lectures have being recorded. It is important to realise that a recording is not a substitute for valuable face-to-face contact time and most learners are aware of this.

If you are very concerned about attendance please read this post (http://www.esddelu.org.uk/e-learning-at-queen-mary/if-i-record-my-lectures-will-i-never-see-a-student-again/) for some strategies to meet this challenge.

How does it work?

A central server holds the recordings and can also schedule recordings remotely. Installations on dedicated hardware appliances, laptops and PC’s record locally and upload these presentations to the server. These ‘clients’ can either record on an adhoc basis (the appliance has a simple Record button on its front) or they can receive schedules in advance and record and distribute lectures without any staff involvement.

What are the advantages of this system?

The foremost advantage is ease of use. With little, or even no, input from the presenter a entire series of lectures can be recorded, processed, and placed online.

While solutions like Camtasia, Captiviate, Articulate and digital audio recorders are all in good use for various projects around QM including ESD; Echo360 is a scalable, automated solution that is easy to use and requires little if any technical skill.

What does ESD offer?

We can offer a consultation service for advice on installing your own system. We can also offer two installations that can be booked for use:

  1. Our E-Learning Centre has a full hardware installation including an interactive whiteboard, a choice of microphones and a ceiling mounted video camera. We can help you use all of this equipment. If you are planning on pre-recording lectures to include on your course; we recommend booking our Centre for a full day. At the end of that day you will have a series of lectures recorded, online, and ready to present to students.
  2. We also have a mobile installation on an easily portable tablet PC. The PC has an inbuilt microphone (a tabletop USB microphone is also provided) and, as a tablet PC, the presenter can also ‘write’ directly to the screen simulating some of the advantages of an interactive whiteboard. The system does not require an internet connection to record; you can record your presentation anywhere and anytime you like and upload it later.

Interested staff should email Eoin McDonnell at e.mcdonnell@qmul.ac.uk for advice both on installing a capture service locally or borrowing the ESD mobile installation.

Who else is using Echo360?

The three main UK users are LSE, Coventry and Newcastle. Other UK users include Birkbeck, Kings and Imperial. For a full list of Echo360 clients look here: http://www.echo360.com/customers/.

What is involved in an installation?

There are two suggested types of installation. The former is better suited to a large well-used theatre; the latter for a course team where resources and rooms are shared.

  1. A capture appliance could be readily installed in most teaching spaces using existing hardware (e.g. podium PC’s, projectors, etc.). In some cases additional equipment (e.g. a ceiling mounted video camera or microphone) might also be considered. This has the advantage of being relatively transparent to the presenter. It also means there is no setup time before the event; a series of lectures could be recorded with no equipment being setup and without any intervention from the presenter.
  2. The other option is a portable installation on a tablet PC or laptop. Some functionality is lost, for example on the present version of the software there is no support for video cameras, but portability is a big advantage. Presentations can be recorded anywhere and at anytime. Obviously this requires more involvement from staff as someone must carry this laptop.

Can the recordings be edited?

An online editing tool is included in the new version of Echo360. This is web-based so the editing tool can be used anywhere with an internet connection without the need for anything to be installed on the PC. It is not an especially powerful editor but it can easily trim sections from the capture and is relatively easy to use.

However it is recommended that students are given access to recordings as rapidly as possible. Student feedback would indicate that they are less concerned about the quality of production and more concerned with the quality of content and the speed at which it is made available.

Can you estimate how much technical support will be needed initially and for maintenance?

DELU will advise on the installation, make initial contact between the parties involved, and highlight any problems that we can foresee from our experience of previous installations. We cannot however act as a project manager for the installation. We will offer a high level of support and training to a central administrator(s) of a system in a department and/or to a team of teaching staff.

Assuming that a room already has a standard QMUL A/V installation then upgrading that for lecture capture should not be a major project.

What about copyrighted materials?

Presenters should be careful about recording and distributing materials that they are not the copyright holders of. Licences that allow use in the classroom do not always extend to uploads or broadcasts. We would advise consulting your subject librarian if this is a concern.