Replay Help website

The Replay team is responsible for creating and updating the Replay Help website: help.it.ox.ac.uk/replay which is now available.

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The site contains useful information about what the lecture capture service involves, how to get started and ‘how-to’ help videos demonstrating how to create, edit and view recordings. The Downloads section contains downloadable documents including an evaluation report on the prospects of using recorded lectures in teaching and learning, legal documents, recommended equipment, disability guidance, and tips for audio and video recording.

There is also a comprehensive set of frequently asked questions and answers.

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Lecture Capture and disability provision

The Replay Lecture Capture team has been working closely with the Disability Advisory Services (DAS), to formulate guidance on the relevance of recorded lectures for disability-related provision.

According to current legislation, universities are required to make “reasonable adjustments” for students with disabilities and encourage inclusive teaching practice which would benefit all students, including those who have chosen not to disclose their disability. Anticipating the needs of students with disabilities and promoting inclusive teaching practice are part of the Common Framework, which the University adheres to.

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Example of a recorded Physics lecture – students can search the written and spoken words, and jump to particular slides to review certain information and reinforce their learning.

Useful links:

 

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How to add the ‘Recorded Lectures’ tool to your WebLearn site

It is now possible to add the Recorded Lectures tool to your WebLearn site, without requesting this from the central WebLearn team. Here’s how:

  1. Login to your WebLearn site with a maintain role and click Site Info.
  2. On the Site Info page, click the Manage Tools button.
  3. The next page shows a list of tools available in the site. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and locate Plugin Tools and click the arrow next to it to see the Replay tool. (NOTE: During July 2016 this is called ‘Replay (New)‘ while we migrate the data to the EU cloud).
  4. Tick the check box next to Replay and click Continue button.
  5. Name the tool “Recorded Lectures” as suggested, and follow the on-screen instructions to add the tool to the left hand side of the page.
  6. If you want to move the Recorded Lectures link higher up in the menu, go to Site Info > Page Order, where you can drag the tool to the desired position, and click Save.

Staff (with the ‘contribute’ or ‘maintain’ role) can click Recorded Lectures to capture lectures or other presentations and edit them, if necessary.  Students (with the ‘access’ role) can view the recorded lectures via the same link.

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Useful links:

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Replay migration to EU cloud server.

As of 1st July 2016, our Replay content is hosted on a North American (NA) cloud server at https://oxforduiversity.hosted.panopto.com. As some of you may be aware, we will soon be migrating this content to a new European (EU) cloud server.

From 11th July 2016, the NA server will become read-only and no new recordings can be uploaded to this server. All existing recordings will remain accessible to students on the old server during the content migration period, which is expected to last two to three weeks. However, the recordings on the NA server cannot be modified or edited. At the end of the process, all existing Replay content will be moved to the equivalent folders on the new EU server and we will remove the old LTI links in all WebLearn sites.

This will require you to update your Windows and Mac Panopto recorder software to point to the new EU server address at ox.cloud.panopto.eu

Throughout July, you will see two LTI menu links: the existing link typically labelled “Recorded Lectures”, and a new LTI menu tool typically labelled “Recorded Lectures (new)” or “Recorded Lectures (EU)”. Clicking this new LTI tool will take you to the new EU server, directly to the new Panopto folder and subfolders associated with your WebLearn site. Initially this folder will be empty, but once the copy process has completed near the end of July, this folder will be populated with the content from the NA server. The migrated content may then be modified and edited again.

Please update your recorder software before 11th July so that you do not experience a break in your ability to create new recordings. We recommend you also take this opportunity to download and install the latest 5.2 version of the Panopto recorder software, as older versions (v5.0 and earlier) will be unsupported from July 29th:

Manual recorder for 32-bit Windows 7/8/10
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Cache/5.2.0.29430/Software/PanoptoRecorder.exe?arch=X86

Manual recorder for 64-bit Windows 7/8/10
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Cache/5.2.0.29430/Software/PanoptoRecorder.exe?arch=Amd64

Manual recorder for Mac OS X 10.9 and later
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Cache/5.2.0.29430/Software/Panopto%20Recorder.pkg

Remote recorder for Windows 7/8/10 (for lecture theatres and teaching spaces)
https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Cache/5.2.0.29430/Software/PanoptoRemoteRecorder.exe?arch=X86

As always, please get in touch via replay@it.ox.ac.uk if you require help, or if you have any questions or concerns.

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How to join the Replay Lecture Capture site and mailing list

The Replay lecture capture project has a site in WebLearn, with an associated mailing list: Replay site in WebLearn

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The site is ‘joinable’, which means that an Oxford user will need to log in, and then elect to join the site. You will then automatically receive emails sent to the site email address, which is lectcap@weblearn.ox.ac.uk.

You can also initiate an email to the group by sending it to the same email address. It will go to all the site members on the mailing list (currently 77 people). If you click on Site Members on the left hand tools menu, you will see who the site members are.

When you receive an email from the list, clicking on ‘Reply’ will send the reply to the original sender only. If you click ‘Reply All’, the reply will go to all the site members on the mailing list.

Contact the Replay team: replay@it.ox.ac.uk
Replay Help website: http://help.it.ox.ac.uk/replay

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Worried about Student Attendance?

The Great Concern

By far the most commonly voiced concern about Replay and recording lectures is that students will simply stop attending the live lectures. After all, if the lectures are available online, why bother travelling to the lecture hall to attend the live session?

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No Cause for Alarm

In fact, whether or not a lecture is recorded seems to have no impact on student attendance at lectures. The vast majority of Oxford lecturers interviewed noted that there was no change in the number of students attending their lectures after they began recording them. Surprisingly, one professor believes it is possible that clever use of lecture capture can increase lecture attendance. She notes that students who miss one lecture due to illness or some other reason are disinclined towards attending subsequent lectures, as they fear they have fallen behind and won’t be able to understand. However, by giving them access to a recording they can catch up with their classmates, and be encouraged to return to classes.

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The Science

This widespread concern about possible negative impacts of recorded lectures on student attendance rates has led to a plethora of papers on the subject. Several studies have shown that lecture recordings do not impact negatively on lecture attendance; indeed Franklin et al. (2011) found, like the aforementioned professor at Oxford, that in some cases it actually improves attendance rates. Karnad (2011) discovered that “students use lecture recordings to reinforce their understanding of lecture material, rather than … as a replacement for attending lectures”. This finding is supported by the studies of Soong et al (2006), Traphagan et al (2009) and Gosper et al. (2008), which all found that students use recordings to prepare for assignments and catch up on lectures they missed. Massingham and Herrington (2006) found that the cause of missing lectures was generally illness or overlapping lecture times, and not the availability of recordings.

Ultimately, the evidence is overwhelming that students will not be dissuaded from attending lectures by the existence of recorded lectures. Students regard recordings as a supplementary tool, an aid to their revision, and not as a replacement for live lectures.

Bibliography

Franklin, D. D., Gibson, J. W., Samuel, J.C., Teeter, W. A. & Clarkson, C. W., 2011, Use of Lecture Recordings in Medical Education, in Medical Science Educator, 21(1), pp.21-28.

Gosper, M., Green, D., McNeill, M., Philips, R., Preston, G. & Woo, K., 2008, Final Report: The Impact of Web-Based Lecture Technologies on Current and Future Practices in Learning and Teaching, Sydney: Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

Karnad, Arun (2013), Student use of recorded lectures: a report reviewing recent research into the use of lecture capture technology in higher education, and its impact on teaching methods and attendance,London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK, at http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/50929/.

Soong, S.K.A., Chan, L.K. & Cheers, C., 2006, Impact of video recorded lectures among students, in Proceedings of the 23rd annual ascilite conference: Who’s learning? Whose technology?, Ascilite 2006, Sydney, The University of Sydney. Sydney, pp. 789–793.

Traphagan, T., Kucsera, J. V. & Kishi, K., 2009, Impact of class lecture webcasting on attendance and learning, Educational Technology Research & Development, 58(1), pp.19–37.

If you have questions, comments, complaints, or anything else relating to the lecture capture project, then please contact replay@it.ox.ac.uk.

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Human Rights and Replay

The Oxford Human Rights Hub Meets Replay

Amongst the many reasons to start using Replay are the innovations in teaching and communication it facilitates. The Oxford Human Rights Hub (OxHRH) is based in the University of Oxford Faculty of Law, and, although Oxford staff and students form its core, it has a broad network that incorporates practitioners and policy makers from across the globe. The OxHRH holds several seminars every year, but it is next to impossible to get people from such a broad range of locations to meet in Oxford at the same time and so the OxHRH decided to experiment with webinars.

Webinars are seminars that have both a live “in-room” audience and are simultaneously broadcast over the internet. This allows them to reach a global audience, which is ideal for the OxHRH. So a webinar was the solution to their needs; leaving only the small issue of how to actually set up and conduct a webinar.

Seeking a solution, they approached the Educational Media team in IT Services. IT Services offers several options for hosting webinars, and advised the OxHRH on this occasion to use the Replay lecture capture system.

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Replay Rises to the Challenge

Replay is capable not only of recording lectures, but also of streaming a presentation to a global audience in real time. The technology also allowed for distant viewers to interact with the participants in the OxHRH; polls were conducted, viewers were encouraged to send in questions, and the webinar altered and took shape around these questions and responses. This interactivity enhanced the online viewers’ experience beyond what would have been possible with a simple recording of the presentation.

Initial expectations were that about 40 people would attend each webinar. However, more than 70 people participated in one session, and over 100 in another! Feedback from the viewers was overwhelmingly positive.  Moreover, the OxHRH event organisers were impressed by the professional feel of Replay’s output, and the broadcasts ran smoothly, without technical issues. All in all, this was a very successful outing for Replay!

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Carrying On

Emboldened by the successful implementation of webinars thus far, the OxHRH is planning to conduct more such sessions. However, this unrestricted service is not something that IT Services is likely to offer across the entire University in the long term. The University is charged for each individual hour of viewing, so large online audiences would run up hefty viewing fees. Nevertheless, these webinars showcase one of the potential applications of Replay, and hint at other innovations that may grow from it. (Note that IT Services offers a separate service – WebEx – a web conferencing service that gives participants the tools to seamlessly collaborate and share information.)

If you have questions, comments, complaints, or anything else relating to the lecture capture project, then please contact replay@it.ox.ac.uk.

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The Case Studies of 2014, Where to Find Them and What to Expect Next

The Departments

During summer 2014, case studies were produced about the departments which were participating at that time in the technical trial; they make for interesting reading, and when read alongside the 2015 reports it is evident how far Replay has developed and been improved. They also reveal how overwhelmingly happy participants have been with the system over the course of both lecture capture projects. The 2014 case studies are as follows:

Cyber Security

Digital Humanities

English Faculty

History Of Art

Pathology

Physics

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Please click on the links above to view the snapshots (short summaries of the full reports), which are available in both Microsoft Word and PDF formats in the WebLearn site – the case studies folder is publicly available, so you won’t need to log in.

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Coming Soon on this Blog

A further collection of case studies has been produced over summer 2015. Both the full reports and 2-page snapshots will be linked to in an upcoming post.

If you have questions, comments, complaints, or anything else to discuss relating to the lecture capture project, then please contact replay@it.ox.ac.uk.

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Surprise at Professor Simon’s Statistics

Predicting the Future

In preparing for the lecture capture pilot project (now branded Replay), a great deal of thought went into anticipating problems that may arise, how to make the recording process as unobtrusive as possible for lecturers, and how the students will want to use the system. While many of the predictions have been proven accurate, that does not mean there haven’t been a few surprises.

Professor Steve Simon is a lecturer in the Department of Physics, who offers a popular series of lectures during Hilary Term on condensed matter. He was among the first lecturers to begin using lecture capture software, and 2 years worth of his lectures have now been recorded and made available to students. The students have put this to good use, but while many of the predictions concerning their use of the recordings proved true, an analysis of the related statistical data revealed something rather unexpected.

Steve Simon Viewings Chart

Peaks and Valleys

Examining when students viewed the recorded lectures shows that, as expected, there was a spike from the end of April through to June 2014; confirming that students used recorded lectures as a supplementary tool to aid their revision, and to revisit difficult topics just before exam season. Similarly, October witnessed a second spike, as conscientious new students prepared for the year ahead by watching the previous year’s lectures.

Also impressive was the extent of viewing. This lecture series alone received 47 unique visitors in one week, and garnered a total viewing time of 1,545 minutes in another!

The Big Surprise

Yet, the biggest surprise was the revelation that viewing of the Hilary Term 2014 lecture series saw a third spike during Hilary Term 2015. This was in spite of the fact that Professor Simon was giving an almost unaltered version of the same lecture series, and that a recording of this newer version was also available to students. Puzzling as it first seems, it transpired that the students were watching the previous year’s lecture before attending the corresponding one in person. They were using the recordings to prepare for the lecture; apparently conscientiousness is not limited only to students in their first term!

Worries have been voiced that recording lectures and making them available online will encourage students to miss the live lectures; however, the aforementioned spike was not accompanied by any noticeable drop in attendance rates. It would seem that students see recorded lectures as a supplement to, rather than a substitute for, their actual lectures; as a means of revising; and as a chance to re-confirm their grasp of the more difficult aspects of the subject.

If you have questions, comments, complaints, or anything else relating to the lecture capture project, then please contact replay@it.ox.ac.uk.

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Come Fly With Us: Pilot Project Departments

The Pilot Project

Several departments and faculties participated in the 2014 lecture capture trial and continued using the system during the 2015 pilot project. The list of all participants is below:

Biomedical Services
Cyber Security (Centre for Doctoral Training)
Department of Computer Science
Department for Continuing Education
Department of Economics
Department of Physics
Department of Statistics
English Faculty
Faculty of Classics
Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages
Faculty of Philosophy
History of Art Department
Law Faculty
Oxford Human Rights Hub
Saïd Business School
School of Pathology
School of Public Health (Nuffield Department of Population Health)

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The Good News

As might be expected, departmental needs and usage of the lecture capture system vary. Some use it merely as a means of recording lectures, while others employ it to facilitate innovative pedagogical approaches, such as a lecturer recording 10-minute ‘podlets’ in their office to support student learning. The lecture capture team has been able to test the system in a variety of situations and as a solution to several different learning needs. The results are positive – all the departments will continue to use lecture capture, and most plan to expand their use (by recording more courses or employing it in different ways) in the coming year.

If you have questions, comments, complaints, or anything else relating to the lecture capture project, please contact replay@it.ox.ac.uk.

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