Quick Tips for Maximizing Lecture Capture Video Quality

YuJa provides the tools you need to create high-quality lecture capture videos for your students, whether you use the desktop-based lecture capture software, hardware capture appliance, in-browser capture tools, or mobile capture applications.

Check Your Equipment

In some cases, video and audio quality issues are the result of poorly functioning or inadequate equipment. For instance, you may find that your video and audio quality is poor if you’re recording with the on-board webcam and internal microphone in a laptop PC.

Audio Equipment Choices

A USB microphone is recommended. Both wired and wireless microphones will work, and YuJa is compatible with a wide range of USB microphones. Wireless microphones are a more practical classroom solution, but if you’re recording from your office or a home office, you can certainly use a wired or headset style microphone for clear audio quality. No matter your audio equipment, try to ensure background noise is limited.

Video Equipment Needs

For lecture capture recordings, a separate web camera is suggested. These are also available at a wide range of price points, with higher quality products offering improved resolution and increased features.

While a microphone and webcam make up the basics of a lecture capture recording, lighting can also matter. If your camera quality isn’t the problem, adding additional lighting may improve the visibility and clarity of your recording. This is especially helpful for on-site demonstrations.

Improving Screen Capture Quality

For most users, the screen capture process will be seamless, producing clear and quality recordings without additional effort. In other cases, however, users may have to adjust settings in the YuJa Software Capture desktop application or their computer to improve screen capture quality. Below, you’ll find some tips and tricks we’ve found helpful to create top-quality screen capture recordings.

Screen Resolution Settings: Match your screen resolution and your screen capture resolution. You’ll find the YuJa Software Capture screen resolution settings in Settings. YuJa’s Video Platform offers adaptive bitrate streaming, which improves the quality of experience by allowing recording in higher video qualities because they don’t rely on bandwidth and network connections. Instead, the video player detects the capacity of the user’s device and adjusts the bitrate accordingly.  

“For most users, the screen capture process will be seamless, producing clear and quality recordings without additional effort.”

The ClearType Tuner: Try out the ClearType Tuner included with Windows, which is enabled by default in Windows 7, 8 and 10. In Windows 10, the ClearType Tuner is located in your Display Settings under Advanced Settings; however, it is also available in older versions of windows. Turn on ClearType and use the tuner to improve the display quality of fonts and text on your screen.

Icon Size Settings: In Display Settings, confirm that icons are set to 100% size.

Full Screen Mode: Record screen captures in full-screen mode, rather than in a minimized screen for the highest quality recording.

Zooming In or Out: When showing a file or document on screen, or illustrating a web browser on screen, be certain you are viewing the screen at 100 percent, rather than a lower or higher zoom value.

With just a few tweaks, you can record high-quality video that make your students feel like they’re in your room no matter where they connect.

Bring Lectures to Students On the Go with YuJa’s Mobile Apps

The YuJa app is an ideal addition to the YuJa learning platform. It enables students to access:

1. Course lecture captures.
2. Uploaded external video content from the Media Channel.
3. Social learning features, including real-time discussions.

Additionally, the Video Platform offers a HTML5-based media player designed for optimal device playback. They provide adaptive bitrate streaming, network-sensing technology and interactive capabilities.

Users can simply download the YuJa app from the Apple App Store for iOs or the Google Play store for Android devices and log in using their SSO, either with their established YuJa login or a login provided via email (for institutions that rely on LTI-Integration). This maintains login for a set duration of time, offering students increased ease of access.

YUJA MOBILE APPS PROVIDE REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS

The YuJa mobile app facilitates learning in a wide variety of situations with exceptional practicality for hands-on training in various fields since the device and lectures can accompany the student wherever they go.

• With the mobile app, a medical student can watch or re-watch a procedure or demonstration from multiple angles. This provides ongoing support for students during training, improving their ability to learn and maximizing the effectiveness of hands-on training.
• During student teaching or teaching practicums, students in the education field can take techniques and lessons from lectures with them to their new classrooms to support their students.
• For engineering and other technical students, integrated presentation media mean that lecture captures can bring diagrams and blueprints home, to the lab, or to the office on a mobile device.

How Analytics Can Improve the Educational Experience

Video analytics allow instructors to track the use of videos and media, how well they’re working, who is watching or viewing the media, and which parts of a video are attracting the most attention.

User data quickly highlights which students or groups of students may be struggling, and allows them to address those students’ needs.

The effective use of analytics can enable:

• Improved student outcomes. Numbers and statistics can help determine the best course of action for an instructor, whether a certain concept needs to be retaught, or a certain student is struggling overall, a detailed report can show instructors where to put their efforts.
• Higher quality instruction. Near real-time feedback can help instructors augment their learning based on student feedback.
• Enhanced responsiveness to student needs and desires. By identifying challenges as they occur, instructors can intervene before it causes a student to fail. 

Analytics for Course Insights

With a comprehensive Visual Analytics dashboard, instructors and administrators can view: 

• The number of videos and quizzes viewed
• Total play length
• Engagement metrics
• A usage summary

Using the data, instructors can understand their classes at both a class and individual student level, including their participation, collaboration and where students might be struggling to understand a concept.

Analytics Drive Actionable Insights

The YuJa Enterprise Video Platform offers a variety of analytics tools that provide a comprehensive picture of instruction, course success, student understanding and more.

“The YuJa Enterprise Video Platform offers a variety of analytics tools that provide a comprehensive picture of instruction, course success, student understanding and more.”

• Comprehensive Insights: Review total storage, total bandwidth, most active classes, and top videos on a single page.
• Content Analytics: With Content Analytics, instructors can look at a range of information about individual media files and user interactions with those files, including an overall summary and specific information about views, browsers, operating systems, and a segment-by-segment breakdown of media content viewing patterns.
• User Analytics: Analytics on a user level provide useful information about how a specific user is engaging with content published to Media Channels and Deep Linked Content for an individual class or group.
• Group Analytics: Group Analytics provides information about historical cumulative views and historical cumulative unique views, along with the most popular videos and media content.
• Visits Page: YuJa offers a Visits page, which reviews information about unique and non-unique users in the institution or enterprise and about registered devices. Administrators can quickly see organizational data, rather than information about a single class or media recording.
• Storage Analytics: Storage tracks the use of storage in the YuJa Cloud, with both storage usage and the number of stored objects.
• Bandwidth: Tracks bandwidth usage, either overall or on a class-by-class basis.
• Gradebook Analytics: The Grade Book provides access to quiz scores.

Remote vs Online Learning: What’s the Difference?

The terminology has caused confusion among students and the public at large, but the main differences lie in planning and preparation for these courses. 

Remote learning:

• This type of education is an “emergency measure used to assure continuity of learning.”
• Faculty must quickly adapt and use whatever tools are at their disposal, even if they’re not designed for educational purposes. 
• This type of education may lack user experience if instructors aren’t trained to use available resources.
• Students may or may not have access to technology and internet connectivity needed to fully participate in courses without institutional technology at their disposal.

Online learning: 

• Online courses are purposefully planned and designed to function in an online environment.
• Technology and tools are selected to support the instruction and to help meet objectives.
• Faculty are trained and supported in their use of online teaching tools. 
• Students only enroll in the course if they have the technology and tools to help them be successful.

During the pandemic, many realized that the flexibility of online learning is a benefit that should be afforded to all students, even beyond lockdowns and emergency situations. To that end, selecting technology to support true online learning is critical. 

Create a Successful Online Course With Tools that Support Online Learning

“Courses and content should be available 24/7, so students can learn anywhere, and using any device.”

For a successful online learning experience, a strategic approach must be taken to ensure: 

Availability. Courses and content should be available 24/7, so students can learn anywhere, and using any device. Offering downloadable documents for offline viewing, adaptive bitrate playback, and delivery that facilitate support across a broad range of devices all will help students and instructors be successful. 

Accessibility. Courses should be accessible to all, including providing accessibility features like closed-captioning, high contrast options, compatibility with screen readers, and adherence to standard accessibility templates and frameworks. 

Interaction. Enabling interaction between the instructor and students, and among learners, is important to facilitate idea and knowledge sharing. Each individual should be able to contribute to the learning process. 

Integration. Learning tools should all work together to support your learning ecosystem. Ensure your solution includes enterprise connectors and integration points for cross-compatibility with your LMS, SSO, and other learning tools. 

Support. Train and support both instructors and students in their online educational journey.

Inside Higher Ed concluded that as institutions work to meet the needs of students, they must intentionally design online learning. “We certainly do not expect all courses to be online in the future, but institutions would do well to support all faculty in leveraging digital learning tools and best practices… To best employ such tools in serving students, institutions will need to rely on thoughtful technology selection, faculty development, instructional design and application of proven frameworks to best ensure quality online learning.”

Student Perspective: How YuJa’s Accessibility Tools Helped a University of Alberta Student in Their Final Semester

Odayh Jamal recently earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, a Top 5 Canadian university located in Edmonton, Alberta. During his last semester, two of his instructors started using the YuJa Enterprise Video Platform’s Lecture Capture tools to record and disseminate lectures to students. 

Student Use Case 

“Videos captioned in other platforms were often unreliable and inaccurate. It wouldn’t catch certain words, making it hard to find what you’re looking for later.”

Odayh used the Video Platform for three primary purposes, all of which reflect the university’s goals of providing accessible and inclusive content to learners:

• Transcripts: YuJa features like transcripts, which provides text of spoken words, made searching simple. “The transcripts made it easy to read everything that was said during class,” Odayh said, adding that transcripts also simplified searching by keywords when reviewing for exams. “The ability to search the text allowed me to find exactly what I was looking for.” 
• Auto-Captions: An accessibility feature, many students use captions for an added layer of comprehension. Instructors were using another vendor prior to YuJa, but Odayh said the captions weren’t reliable. “Videos captioned in other platforms were often unreliable and inaccurate. It wouldn’t catch certain words, making it hard to find what you’re looking for later,” he relayed.
• Rewatching Lectures: Before starting an assignment, and particularly before midterms and finals, Odayh said he would rewatch lectures to review any problem concepts and to ensure he was prepared. “(The other software) wasn’t optimized for learning,” Odayh stated. “In my final semester at the University of Alberta, YuJa made it easy to find information in eClass (Moodle Learning Management System).”

Embracing New Technology Improve the Learning Environment

Odayh said instructors embraced the new technology, which provided another avenue to connect during the pandemic. “If institutions want to make a positive switch, using YuJa could help improve the learning environment for students,” he concluded. “It’s definitely easier than other platforms.”

Creating Engaging Lecture Capture Recordings for Remote and In-Person Instruction

Recording lectures through YuJa’s lecture capture tools provides students with the ability to watch, re-watch, and review lectures wherever they are, using a computer or mobile device.

For online learners and flipped classrooms, lecture captures may provide the only lecture experiences for the class. Recorded lectures that are interesting and appealing to students will help engage students, keep their attention, maintain focus, and help them learn.

Below are some tips to create engaging recordings for all students, whether they attend class face-to-face or online.

Add Visual Interest With Multi-Source Recording 

YuJa makes it simple to incorporate multiple cameras, video feeds, audio and screen sources. This brings all of the tools of a well-equipped lecture hall online and makes it more accessible to your students, even those away from the classroom. Incorporating visual elements engages your students, including visual learners, as you lecture.

Visual presentation material is essential to take your lecture up a notch. It also makes note taking easier for students.

• Use PowerPoint or another presentation software to incorporate images, notes and other information. You can easily share your screen as you produce a lecture capture recording.
• Plug in your classroom SmartBoard to allow students to see you work equations, make notes or share information on the board.
• Document cameras allow you to share printed material with students.

Most instructors are already using PowerPoint presentations, SmartBoards and other tools in their everyday lectures. These tools are even more important when recording lectures.

Helping Students Connect with Lectures

“Incorporating visual elements engages your students, including visual learners, as you lecture.”

Visual interest is not the only way to create an impressive and engaging lecture capture. You can implement many different strategies to maximize the effect and interest of your lecture captures.

Show: Show how, when and why this material matters using real-world examples. This is especially helpful for general education classes. 

Connect: Connect material to information your students already know. Making familiar connections can help students stay interested.

Summarize: For information dense lectures, summarize or review material before moving on to new material.

Define: Define jargon or unfamiliar terminology.

Outline: Use outlines, a table of contents and other tools to help your students organize their note-taking.

Explain: Explain difficult concepts in several ways to reach all of your students.

Use Assessment Tools

YuJa offers a number of ways to assess the efficacy of your lecture captures.

• Incorporate video quizzes into lecture captures. The results will help define problem areas.
• Review discussion boards for student questions. Check and see if students seem to be struggling with a certain concept or assignment.
• Check your analytics for signs students are re-watching portions of videos. Analytics provide insights in real-time.

LTI Compliant Lecture Capture for Seamless Lecture Capture and LMS Integration

Learning tools interoperability allows third-party tools to communicate and work within the structure of a compliant LMS, without the addition of special applications.

LTI integration simplifies the process of faculty lecture capture integration, as well as student access to lecture capture files.

• LTI compliance increases the value of your investment in classroom technology, both in terms of your LMS and your lecture capture technology. 
• LTI allows auto-generation of YuJa accounts in the LMS based on LMS user information, and it logs the user seamlessly into YuJa without the need to enter credentials.

YUJA IS FULLY COMPLIANT

YuJa is fully LTI compliant, making installation and access simple for users. YuJa offers an IMS-certified LTI 1.1, 1.3, and LTI Advantage LMS integration for all commercial LMS systems.

YuJa’s standard LMS integration for all commercial LMS platforms includes:

• IMS-Certified LTI Integration: We offer an IMS-certified LTI integration including provisioning of role, user, and course information. 
• Gradebook Integration: IMS-certified LTI Gradebook integration and native Gradebook integration to automatically import video quiz assessment data.
• Media Chooser Extension for LMS-Embedding: Instructors can directly embed media within LMS pages, modules, announcements, discussions, assignments, and more. Content is deep-linked using the LTI Advantage specification to ensure data is accurately tracked. 
• Single-Sign-On Crosslinking: Integration enables cross-linking capabilities with an institution’s Single-Sign-On provider across non-LMS enterprise systems. 

Other Benefits:

LTI compliance makes it simple to access the features of YuJa, but offers a number of other advantages to users of both your LMS and YuJa:

• Integrate student information, including access rights, directly into YuJa from your LMS.
• Information from the LMS automatically transfers to YuJa, making setup simple.
• Create seamless access to lecture capture video.
• Offer instructors multiple lecture capture options, including with the YuJa appliance, YuJa software interface and YuJa web capture available through the familiar LMS

HOW DOES YUJA INTEGRATE WITH YOUR LMS?

“LTI compliant lecture capture makes lecture capture technology accessible and available through the LMS your faculty and students already know and use.”

YuJa relies upon LMS integration modules designed for common and widely used learning management systems. LTI compliant lecture capture makes lecture capture technology accessible and available through the LMS your faculty and students already know and use. YuJa meets the specifications to integrate with other compliant LMS systems without other technology. 

Integrating YuJa into your LMS is a task for your IT department, but once it is in place, faculty can easily make YuJa available to students directly through the LMS. LTI integration makes the use of lecture capture technology seamless, both for instructors initiating capture in their classrooms and students who need to view lecture capture videos. 

Competency-Based Learning: How to Support Non-Traditional Students

What Is Competency-Based Education?

Competency-based education (CBE), or personalized learning, combines the assessment of existing skills with mastery-based academic progression. With this model, instructors assess the knowledge and experience students already possess through work and life experience. Then, individualized educational plans can be created to best meet the needs of non-traditional learners, many of whom are in the workforce as they work toward earning a degree. 

Learner-centric in nature, interest in CBE has grown in higher education over the past decade, and adoption efforts span all institution types, according to the National Survey of Postsecondary Competency-Based Education (NSPCBE).

CBE FOR NONTRADITIONAL LEARNERS

“More research is needed, but early indications suggest that CBE programs often serve a greater proportion of students with prior credits than traditional programs, and institutions price their CBE programs so that the amount students pay may be similar to or lower than for traditional programs,”

Personalized learning solutions offer improved access to education, particularly for non-traditional learners such as adults who are returning to school after years away, and students with families.

“More research is needed, but early indications suggest that CBE programs often serve a greater proportion of students with prior credits than traditional programs, and institutions price their CBE programs so that the amount students pay may be similar to or lower than for traditional programs,” the report noted.

For a student with significant relevant experience, course progression may occur quite rapidly. Non-traditional students may find personalized education more manageable and affordable.

YUJA AND COMPETENCY-BASED EDUCATION

Traditional classroom structures can fail to support competency-based learning—these set-ups require students to move through material at approximately the same pace, regardless of personal understanding.  

YuJa provides video capture and integrated social tools that enable students to tailor their learning path to reflect their strengths and interests, as well as tools that make attending flipped courses more convenient for the student and easy for the instructor. 

INCREASING COMPETENCY-BASED LEARNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Competency-based learning leans on innovative technological solutions to help non-traditional students thrive.  A 2020 State of the Field study by American Institutes for Research found that between 2018 and 2020, 128 unique institutions have reported offering at least one operating CBE program, for a total of 1,057 CBE programs. 

Further, 82% of institutions expect the number of CBE programs in the US to increase in the next five years. 

“Despite the major disruptions to institutional operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we see evidence of growth in programs and optimism about the future of CBE, even though barriers remain,” it concluded. 

YuJa Bridges the Education Gap for Active-Duty Military

Education and Active Duty Military

The United States military supports students who wish to begin or continue higher education while on active duty with tuition assistance and other educational programs for those in the Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, National Guard, and most Reserves. The GI Bill and VA Benefits also are available to help with educational costs no matter the type of degree a student is working toward.

Active Duty Military Students can: 

• Enroll in evening courses on base, provided by local colleges or community colleges.
• Take evening or weekend courses at an institution in a nearby community.
• Take advantage of distance learning opportunities and online learning.

The pandemic has expanded the world of online learning, with many programs now being offered entirely online. This makes remote learning convenient, accessible and flexible even to those with unpredictable schedules, while in-person learning options may vary depending upon where an individual is stationed, their work schedule, and their role in the military. 

Institutions that use YuJa help create distance or remote educational opportunities to support active duty students in meeting their educational goals.

Online Learning for Active-Duty Military

“The pandemic has expanded the world of online learning, with many programs now being offered entirely online.”

Online courses through YuJa allow students to watch lecture captures with integrated multimedia presentations, participate in online real-time discussions, and to connect and collaborate with one another.

To meet the needs of active-duty personnel in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, YuJa offers:

• The ability to watch lectures from any device.
• Features that enable search inside video and to re-watch lecture captures.
• Adaptive bitrate streaming and downloadable content for those with connectivity issues or who don’t have access to WiFi at all times. 
• The potential for instructors or course designers to create flexible, competency-based courses.

FERPA, Intellectual Property Rights and the YuJa Video Platform

FERPA applies to any public or private elementary, secondary, or post-secondary school and any state or local education agency that receives funds under an applicable program of the US Department of Education. 

YuJa is a FERPA Compliant Enterprise Video Platform 

What does this mean for users of the Video Platform? 

YuJa ensures student privacy and complies with regulations outlined in FERPA. While the Video Platform does contain student directory information, students control how that information is seen and accessed. All academic information is available only to the instructor and cannot be freely accessed. Information may be shared only within the guidelines of FERPA.

FERPA rights include:

• The right to inspect and review records.
• The right to have inaccurate records corrected.
• Written permission to disclose student records, except in certain circumstances.
• The right to refuse to allow directory information to be shared.

How Institutions Can Use Information

YuJa allows students to interact safely and securely with classmates in a protected environment and feel confident that YuJa will never sell personal information to third parties.

Examples of appropriate use of student information under FERPA include: 

• Schools can provide information for financial aid.
• Instructors can provide a list of student names for members of the class.
• Professors can provide students with the ability to check their grades through a private interface.

YuJa only asks for information essential to maintain the classroom learning environment, which remains private and inaccessible to others. Even instructors cannot see email addresses or phone numbers and this information is not shared.

YUJA AND INSTRUCTORS’ PRIVACY

For instructors, maintaining FERPA compliance is essential. YuJa supports these efforts while ensuring students’ privacy rights are protected. Instructors can be at ease knowing they don’t have to be concerned with potential violations of FERPA when encouraging student interaction and engagement. This helps instructors create a safe space for student learning.

Instructors may also be concerned about intellectual property (IP) rights. YuJa stores lecture captures, video podcasts and other materials on the YuJa Cloud. The content’s intellectual property rights are retained by the organization and instructor, not YuJa. A secure group has access to the files instructors choose to share, and membership in individual groups is controlled by the instructor or administrator.

STUDENTS AND PRIVACY, IP CONCERNS

Students may worry about their online privacy, including security of personal information and IP. 

FERPA protects privacy by limiting access to personal information. Instructors will have some information, as does the school administration, but in most cases they don’t have the right to share it without permission. YuJa allows students to interact safely and securely with classmates in a protected environment and feel confident that YuJa will never sell personal information to third parties.

With regard to the security of intellectual property, including files, lecture captures, and other material, YuJa stores data in the YuJa Cloud. This is a secure and stable online storage environment with security protections in place. We place security as our highest priority and use world-class primary data centers.