Before using Lecture Capture guide

From September 2021, most teaching rooms at City will be Lecture Capture enabled. Further details are available in the Lecture Capture enabled rooms page.

All taught sessions classified as lectures in the MyTimetable system for 2023/24 will be automatically scheduled to be recorded using Lecture Capture if they are timetabled in a Lecture Capture enabled room. IT will manually set up recording schedules for lectures with early term start dates. From November, recording schedules were set for the remainder of the calendar year. Going forward, IT will schedule in recordings for lectures in the next 180 days. There is a small subset of lectures that are excluded from the automatic schedule and these are scheduled manually by IT. 

To facilitate the automatic scheduling Lecture Capture recordings, recording schedules need to be set consistently.

This means that all Lecture Capture recordings that are automatically scheduled will record the following sources:  

• Audio (A) 
• Data Projector (D) 
• Video Camera (V) 

Lecture Capture live stream will not be enabled on automatically scheduled recordings.  If you need to change the sources to be recorded and/or to enable live stream you will be able to do this via this form on the IT Self Service Portal.

Once requested with at least two working days’ notice, staff can request to change Lecture Capture recording sources or to opt in to live stream. If you need to change the sources to be recorded and/or to enable live stream you will be able to do this via this form on the IT Self Service Portal.  

The form will prompt staff to provide a reason when requesting that particular sources are not recorded.

Changes to timetabled lectures need to be made through the timetabling system for the changes to be automatically made to the Echo360 schedule. A small subset of lectures are excluded from the automated process.

1. events more than 8 hours long
2. joint teaching activities
3. co-located activity taking place in multiple rooms

If you have any late changes that affect a recording in the 'excluded' set, contact Timetabling to make the change and log a request on ServiceNow for IT to make a change to the Lecture Capture schedule.

Any staff member enrolled on the Moodle module can make the recording unavailable to students if the Lecture Capture schedule cannot be amended in advance.

1. Login to the relevant Moodle module
2. Select the link to Lecture Capture from the Module dashboard. If you are using Grid format, open the Block drawer and navigate to the Activities block. Select link to External tools. Select the link to the Lecture Capture activity.
3. Select the link to the relevant Lecture Capture from the list of Lecture Capture links available on your module.
4. Open the video menu to the right of the relevant recording and select Make Unavailable.
5. Select OK.
6. The link will still remain and students will see a message that no content has been added yet if they click into the link.
7. The Lecture Capture owner can now request that the recording is deleted from Lecture Capture by logging a call on IT Self Service Portal.

Staff may want to record other types of taught sessions, i.e. tutorials and/or seminars, and make these recordings available for students. The Lecture Capture booking form on IT Self Service Portal will enable staff to request recordings of taught sessions not classified as lectures on MyTimetable. 

Remember to add your exceptions to the booking form for weeks you are not teaching the session - e.g. reading week. Otherwise the empty room or private conversations will be recorded and made available to your students via the Lecture Capture activity on Moodle.

If there are any changes to your schedule or room information after you have made your booking, log a request on IT Self Service Portal citing the booking reference and ask for the changes to be reflected in your Lecture Capture recording schedule.

Last-minute changes

If you are allocated to a different room or need to cancel your recording, please call 020 7040 8181 to discuss changes required.

Echo captures the audio (A), video camera (V) and display (D). You can choose what sources you'd like to record for your tutorials and seminars when you book your recordings via IT Self Service Portal.

You need to give at least 2 working days notice to book a Lecture Capture recording.

If your seminar or tutorial is moved or rescheduled, check if the new room has Lecture Capture and contact the IT Self Service Portal to reschedule or cancel the Lecture Capture recording.

If a tutorial/seminar is cancelled/rescheduled or your room is moved and you do not get a chance to contact the IT Service Desk to request that your Lecture Capture is cancelled, you will end up with a recording of an empty room or potentially a meeting/conversation if someone has gone into the empty room to use it.

You will need to make the recording unavailable immediately after the scheduled lecture and you can log a request on IT Self Service Portal for the recording to be deleted.

Any staff member enrolled on the Moodle module can make the recording unavailable.

1. Login to the relevant Moodle module
2. Select the link to Lecture Capture from the Module dashboard. If you are using the Grid format, open the Block drawer and navigate to the Activities block. Select the link to External tools and then select the link to the Lecture Capture activity.
3. Select the link to the relevant Lecture Capture from the list of Lecture Capture links available on your module.
4. Open the video menu  to the right of the relevant recording and select Make Unavailable.
5. Select OK.
6. The link will still remain and students will see a message that no content has been added yet if they click into the link.
7. The Lecture Capture owner can now request that the recording is deleted from Lecture Capture by logging a call on IT Self Service Portal.

Any staff member enrolled on the Moodle module can make the recording unavailable.

1. Login to the relevant Moodle module
2. Select the link to Lecture Capture from the Module dashboard. If you are using the Grid format, open the Block drawer and navigate to the Activities block. Select the link to External tools and then select the link to Lecture Capture.
3. Select the link to the relevant Lecture Capture  from the list of Lecture Capture links available on your module.
4. Open the video menu to the right of the the relevant recording and select Make Unavailable.
5. A confirmation box will display. Select OK.
6. The link will still remain and students will see a message that no content has been added yet if they click into the link.
7. The Lecture Capture owner can now request that the recording is deleted from Lecture Capture by logging a call on IT Self Service Portal.

There is a pause/resume button to control Lecture Capture on the Crestron panel in most rooms. You could also set a number of days before the recording is made available to students via the link to Lecture Capture in Moodle. This will give you time to make any edits to your recording.

Students can use the app to cache the recordings for offline viewing only within the app. This enables student to engage with the recordings flexibly and review them while travelling. If you want students who are accessing via a browser to be able to view the recordings offline, you can enable this from the settings tab of your section within Echo360.

The Analytics page for a course/section provides a lot of information regarding student engagement and classroom participation.

As long as you are the owner of the Lecture Capture recordings, you can reuse Lecture Capture recordings from a previous year. You will find all your recordings in your Library tab in Echo360. Select the video. Select Share and select Class . Input your Course, Term and section. Select New class . Provide a title for the Class, input a date and select Share.

You can use the system to record students, e.g. if they are giving presentations. However, they must give consent to be recorded on the system. Further guidance on recording student presentations using Lecture Capture is available from our Using Lecture Capture to record student presentations guide.

You must ensure you have authorisation to show any copyrighted materials in your PowerPoint presentations or other teaching materials. This applies whether the lecture is recorded or not. For more information, review the the Library's copyright guidance. Videos or animations that you show in your lecture will not be reproduced to high quality if they are recorded using lecture capture, so it might be useful to include these as additional resources in Moodle for students to download.

City has a two year retention policy for Lecture Capture recordings and deletes recordings two years or older each June.