Recording lectures or presentation materials creates valuable opportunities for student review and can increase accessibility of course content via captions or transcripts. This practice gives instructors the ability to record their lectures and presentations for viewing via Canvas or through any web browser. Typical recordings include video of the instructor, a screen capture, and audio—all played back simultaneously.
Recommendations and support for lecture capture
The Poorvu Center’s Educational Technology and Media team is here for any help you need with lecture capture. The team can discuss best practices for differentiating the benefits of in-person attendance from those of lecture capture, help you design a plan for making the recordings available, and respond to questions or issues about managing your lecture capture content or the Media Library.
Recordings of all kinds can be a tremendous asset to students reviewing lectures they’ve already attended. Unlike live classes, recordings can be paused and replayed, as many times as needed, recordings can be subtitled, or listened to through audio processing applications, all of which can do wonders for studying course materials and accessibility.
Jonathan Parr, Senior Lecturer in Chemistry
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Two Methods of Lecture Capture
Learn more about the automated and self-service options for recording your classroom lecture and presentation materials.
Or…Share your Classroom Teaching with the World
The practice commonly referred to as “lecture capture” gives instructors the ability to record their classroom lectures and presentations for students to view via Canvas or through any web browser. The recordings are configured automatically in rooms with installed hardware, utilizing a classroom PC or a personal laptop.
However, each semester the Poorvu Center has limited capacity to work with instructors who want to share their classroom teaching with the world. These recordings are done by the Teaching Studios team to ensure the highest quality video and audio, receive light editing, and are typically distributed over YouTube. Contact the Poorvu Center if you’d like to discuss the possibility of sharing your classroom teaching with the world.
Common Questions About Lecture Capture & Captions
Instructors concerned about a potential drop in classroom attendance once lecture recordings are available can contact the Poorvu Center for recommendations on differentiating the benefits of in-person attendance from those of lecture capture.
For example:
- Incorporate quick small-group conversations
- Use Poll Everywhere for low-stakes formative assessment quizzes
- Assign short in-class reflective writing exercises
These are all ways to ensure that students who come to the classroom receive unique, interactive learning opportunities that are not available through a class recording.
Instructors are encouraged to set expectations for the students about the value and recommended use of lecture capture videos as a review tool and not as an in-class lecture replacement.
Automated lecture capture videos from your classroom are uploaded automatically to your course’s Media Library folder and shared directly with students.
By default, media library content is automatically available to students once it is done uploading and processing, but you can control the timing of each folder or specific video’s availability window.
It is also possible to share content with specific individuals directly and not with the entire student enrollment by creating a new folder in your course Media Library and editing the permissions.
In some cases, you may want to manually publish a video rather than specifying a time or having it auto publish. This guide will show you how to set up your course Media Library folder such that new content will not automatically be available until published manually.
Instructors can view the statistics of individual Media Library items, as well as collective stats for an entire folder of items. These metrics can provide general insight into which media items are being viewed, how many times they are being viewed, and which points in the item they are being viewed, as well as other stats that may be of interest.
Check out our support guide for more information: Viewing Media Library Item / Folder Statistics and Usage
We recommend enabling the automated closed captioning options available through the Media Library even if you’re not aware of any students in your class who require them for documented disabilities.
Student Accessibility Services will inform you when human-produced captions should be produced to accommodate particular students.
Yes! Captions benefit more than just Deaf/HOH students. Student retention is improved when captions are present (Morris, Frechette, et. al, 2016). Students with ADHD often cite captions as useful, whether they’re watching videos or participating in class. Lastly, captions are available so widely now that many students have grown accustomed to captions as an integral part of their experience of multimedia.
For your full range of options, the Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning has a video workshop on Captioning Basics.
References
Morris, K. K., Frechette, C., Dukes, L., Stowell, N., Topping, N. E., & Brodosi, D. (2016). Closed Captioning Matters: Examining the Value of Closed Captions for All Students. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability 29(3), 231-238. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1123786
You will probably find that the auto captions are better than they used to be, and getting better with each software and application update. You can easily review and edit the captions for accuracy in the Media Library of recorded content. Rather than being exhaustive in your corrections, focus your time on specialized vocabulary and fixing anything that renders the captions illogical.
For guidance on editing your captions, please reference our support guide: Adding / Editing Captions on Media Library Content
Audio Description is the inverse of captions—it is a spoken track that describes the visuals and action of a video, and is primarily used by people who are blind or low vision. Please reach out to accessibiilty@yale.edu if you need assistance.
Help with the Media Library
The Media Library (otherwise known as Panopto) is a streaming video service that is integrated into Canvas. The Media Library can be used to store, share, and stream uploaded audio and video files - including your lecture capture content.
We’re here to help!
Reach out to the Poorvu Center team if you have any questions or to learn more about our programs.