Simplify Lecture Capture Workflows with Automation

While some instructors happily embrace new technology even with the extra steps, others may be more reluctant to add to their responsibilities. Fortunately, there is an easy, accessible solution that brings lecture capture to every classroom 一 automation.

What Is Automated Lecture Capture?

Automated lecture capture is exactly what it sounds like;  lecture capture technology starts and stops on a schedule. Lectures are live streamed, published to the course, or saved on a day-to-day basis without any effort from the instructor aside from the initial setup. You might think of automated lecture capture a bit like setting up a calendar event. Once the parameters have been set, no one is required to do anything. Management and maintenance of lecture capture is simplified, and there is no need for regular instructor involvement in the process.

How Does It Work?

YuJa’s software is able to automate lecture capture in three ways: using the Auto-Scheduling Sub Panel, APIs, and Room Scheduling integration. 

• Auto-Schedule Sub-Panel: YuJa’s Device Scheduler automates the recording process using Software Capture applications within the Admin Panel. Instructors or IT teams can create a one-time or recurring schedule for Lecture Capture in a few simple steps.  
• APIs: An Application Programming Interface is essentially an intermediary between applications that allows them to work together. YuJa provides a series of RESTful APIs (representational state transfer) to provide seamless scheduling and management of video capture content.
• Room Scheduling Integration: YuJa has partnerships with Ad Astra and Scientia, which allows institutions to pull room schedules and auto-schedule, making YuJa’s Lecture Capture even more valuable. 

The Benefits of Auto-scheduling for Instructors

Auto-scheduling offers a number of benefits for instructors. With automation, instructors can: 

• Control recordings using any web browser
• Capture and live stream 
• Adjust schedules
• Publish seamlessly to their LMS 

When lecture captures are automated, there is no need to take time at the beginning of the class session to start recordings, or to take attention away from students at the end of the class session to stop and save or publish a recording.

For Tech-Savvy Instructors: Instructors who enjoy new technology can still use on-demand lecture capture for impromptu or scheduled review sessions, study groups, or even mobile captures; however, auto-scheduling eliminates any risk of human error.

For Less Tech-Savvy Instructors: For instructors less comfortable with new technology, auto-scheduling provides a hands-off approach to lecture capture. Their lectures are captured without any effort or involvement from them.

All instructors benefit from knowing that their students have access to high-quality lecture captures for review and reference. This can limit the need for in-class review, and provide a useful resource that instructors can refer to on an ongoing basis.

The Benefits of Auto-scheduling for Institutions

While students and instructors can benefit from automation on a day-to-day basis, the benefits of auto-scheduling technology are even more significant for institutions. 

• Students have expressed a strong interest in lecture capture technology, and many even have an expectation of the availability of lecture capture. For institutions, being able to provide reliable and widespread lecture capture is an important marketing opportunity to attract and retain a quality student body.
• Automated lecture capture provides consistency. There is no need to expend additional effort and expense to train instructors or to work to encourage instructor compliance.
• Automation requires little time for set-up, and can be completed before the semester begins. Smart scheduling technology even allows for vacation periods. 

Using Lecture Capture for Self-Assessment

At Bronx Community College of The City University of New York, Albert Robinson, Associate Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology said that while the primary use of YuJa’s Enterprise Video Platform is to create, store and manage media content, an unexpected perk he’s heard instructors laud is the ability to self-evaluate.

“I have heard from several instructors that when they began recording lectures, they saw areas they would like to change in their teaching or lecturing style,” Robinson shared in this case study. “Several had revelations about how they could better serve students, maybe by shortening or breaking lessons into parts, and that has helped them change the way they’ve been doing it for years.”

Using Recorded Lectures to Assess Your Teaching

While student feedback is helpful, it’s also highly subjective. Student grades might shine a light on instructor effectiveness, but they’re far from painting the full picture. The ability to watch, re-watch and assess your own lectures enables you to become better at what you do, reach your students and use your class time more effectively.

Lecture capture accurately records what students see in the classroom and provides a clear record of the students’ experiences. Traditional course observations by a supervisor or department head only provide a look into a single class period and do not allow the instructor to review class video. In contrast, lecture captures can record every lecture on a consistent and ongoing basis.

How to Use Lecture Capture for Self-Assessment

Use lecture captures to assess all of the following about your own performance in the classroom:

• Check your speaking volume and speed. Is your speech clear, audible and well-paced?
• Were the objectives of your course made clear to students?
• Listen to your tone. Do you maintain a varied and interesting tone throughout your class?
• Think about note-taking. Could you take notes from your lecture?
• Look at your course structure. Do you sound well-organized and prepared?
• Consider your visuals. Are you maximizing your use of technology and other tools?

Pay special attention to: 

• Adequacy of classroom procedures
• Enthusiasm for teaching and knowledge of subject matter
• Stimulation of cognitive and affective gains in students
• Relations with students

Ask yourself if you’re satisfied with your lecture style, determine strengths and weaknesses, and consider what you might change to improve the learning experience.

Lecture Capture is One Tool in Your Toolbelt 

Lecture captures allow you to take a virtual seat in your own classroom and to put yourself in the role of a student. You have the ability to think about your lecture style, make sure your class can see and hear, and make yourself a better lecturer. 

It’s important to note that lecture capture is just one way of self-assessment and improvement. Other methods, such as peer review, self-assessment rubrics, student feedback and evaluations, engagement analytics, and annual goal setting and tracking can all benefit instructors as they work to hone their craft and continue on a journey of self-improvement. 

Join Our December 8 Webinar: Optimize Your Lecture Capture With YuJa and Pearl

Join Our Webinar to Learn More

The details: 

• Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021
• 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET
• Register Now

Tune in to learn how you can streamline your lecture capture with Epiphan Pearl hardware and the YuJa Content Management System integration, including:

• How to make your lecture capture more accessible 
• The advantages of hardware 
• What’s possible with YuJa and Pearl

Moderators will include: 

George Herbert: Epiphan’s Technical Support Manager and Training Guru 

Isaac Kingsmith: YuJa’s Director of Business Development and Partnerships 

Our Partnership with Epiphan Pearl Makes Lecture Capture Easy

Epiphan Pearl is our newest partnership. YuJa and Epiphan provides your institution a flexible, reliable and fully-integratable solution, with automatic file uploading, event schedule synchronization, built-in confidence monitoring and other workflow enhancements to make your lecture capture experience seamless from start to finish.

Epiphan’s Pearl-2, Pearl Mini, and Pearl Nano hardware encoders integrate directly with YuJa. Once paired, Pearl can access your YuJa calendar to automatically start and stop recordings or streams at scheduled times. Even better, Pearl will automatically push event recordings to YuJa, minimizing administration time and ensuring your content makes it to the right place.

No matter your application, there’s a solution to meet your needs. 

10 Essential Features to Consider When Choosing a Lecture Capture Solution

The right lecture capture platform will meet the needs of your IT staff, administration, content owners and learners. While each of these groups may have different priorities, the right solution will meet the needs of diverse audiences and add value to your organization.

Institutions should consider 10 key factors when selecting a lecture capture solution: scalability, compatibility, integration, analytics, automated scheduling, playback, organization, editing capability, and accessibility.

1. Scalability

For many organizations, long-term scalability, or the ability to grow with the organization, is essential. If you outgrow your lecture capture solution, it is a poor short-term investment. The right lecture capture solution for your organization must offer the flexibility to grow to meet changing needs or even to adapt to and accommodate new technology as it changes over time. 

Whether you’re using YuJa’s Lecture Capture solution for tens or thousands of users, workflow features like adaptive bitrate streaming, multi-device media encoding and a global content delivery network help make it easy to deliver content to your audience.

2. Compatibility

Technology rarely operates in a silo, working independently without sharing information.  Choosing a lecture capture solution that works with your existing technology and is continually assessing and improving its compatibility will help those who rely on lecture capture not only transition into using video tools, but create engaging media content for viewers. 

3. Integration

Along with compatibility, when shopping for a lecture capture solution, organizations should select a lecture capture solution that plays well with the current learning management system and which accommodates a range of different peripheral technologies. This will help ease the implementation process and expand its utility. Consider SSO products, captioning vendors, your LMS and other technologies as you assess lecture capture solutions. 

4. Analytics

Tracking and measuring data helps instructors see what teaching methods are effective and find areas for improvement. Analytics enable organizations to track who is accessing media, patterns of media usage and user engagement to help maximize investment in lecture capture technology, and enables content owners and administrators to adjust lecture capture strategies for improved user engagement. 

There are two main forms of analytics to consider when choosing a lecture capture technology. A good solution integrates both:

• Administrative analytics, which share information of primary interest to IT and administrative staff, like network usage.
• Learning analytics, which share information about how students are using the lecture capture technology.

The YuJa Video Platform’s Visual Analytics suite collects a variety of data and provides reports that cover system statistics, usage and instructional insights.

5. Automated Scheduling and Remote Start

Auto-scheduling is an essential tool for lecture capture. Automated or remote scheduling enables the lecture capture to begin and end recording without direct instructor or content owner involvement. This increases the overall reliability of lecture capture for users, and reduces effort and work on the part of instructors. YuJa’s Lecture Capture technology offers remote scheduling and on-demand recording capabilities. 

6. Playback

High quality video playback on any device is essential. Users may watch lecture captures on smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers. Playback quality should automatically adjust to provide a clean, crisp viewing experience for each of these different devices, and should accommodate varying network speeds. Additionally, YuJa’s Video Platform allows users to download content to watch later, even if they don’t have an internet connection.

8. Organization

Lecture capture creates significant amounts of media content in the form of large video files. In order to maximize the usefulness of this content, your lecture capture solution should organize and store media content. In addition, it is critical that content be searchable for future use. 

9. Editing Capability

With fully-integrated editing capabilities, instructors can easily edit content, remove errors, update or add a forgotten slide or note about an assigned reading to their lecture captures. Lecture capture features like multi-stream, non-destructive editing within a web browser, smart workflows, inline caption editing and the ability to schedule recordings all allow course designers and instructors to create and deliver higher value content for learners.

10. Accessibility

No matter the size of your organization, lecture capture solutions must be fully accessible with closed captioning, keyboard adaptations, and audio descriptions. In addition, technology should be compatible with screen readers and other assistive devices to make content accessible to all learners. 

Learn more about YuJa’s Lecture Capture platform by checking out our comprehensive guide.

Student Lecture Capture Priorities

Maximizing the Investment in Lecture Capture Technology

In order to understand student priorities with regard to lecture capture, it is important to consider the different ways students  use lecture capture technology. 

• In a traditional classroom, students may use lecture captures for study and review, to reduce confusion and increase understanding, and to catch up on missed classes.
• In a hybrid learning environment, lecture captures are often watched before class, freeing up in-class time for other activities and hands-on learning.
• In an online course, lecture captures provide instruction, engagement, and information.

An ideal lecture capture solution facilitates learning in all of these situations, and meets the needs of students in each.

Understanding Student Priorities

Regardless of the learning environment, students share many of the same priorities with regard to lecture capture. 

Quality and Flexibility

Today’s students expect more than just a grainy recording; they expect access to high-quality audio and video recordings. Lecture capture technology needs to support a variety of inputs, including audio and video sources, as well as high-definition recording.

In addition, students want to be able to adjust the playback speed of lecture capture content. This provides the ability to move through a lecture at a pace best suited to the individual, and is an effective tool for study and review. 

Searchability and Notetaking

In order for students to use lecture capture content effectively, they need to be able to find the lectures they need, and to find content included in the lecture. Search features are essential for students, and should incorporate a variety of search tools, including:

• Title
• Tags
• Slide content
• Captioning

In addition to being able to search both course and individual video content, students also want to be able to take notes from within the lecture capture interface.  For the most effective study option, students should be able to download their notes alongside relevant slides from the lecture capture.

Accessibility and Mobility

College students today have a variety of different learning styles, as well as learning challenges. Accessibility features not only provide legally required Section 508 Compliance, but help students to learn and engage. Effective captioning, audio descriptions, and keyboard shortcuts help to support student learning.

Mobility is also a high priority for students today. Many students are busy and need the ability to watch lecture capture content from a mobile device, like a tablet or smartphone. They also appreciate the ability to download video content for offline viewing, or to download audio-only podcasts for review.

How to Enhance Your Lecture Recording Quality

With more distance-based learning comes the need to produce quality recordings to distribute across your Learning Management System (LMS) platforms to your students. Instructors are expected to ensure quality information being presented that can be easily seen and heard.

How to Improve Your Lecture Recording Quality

Factors to look out for to ensure quality lecture recordings.

• Less “Fat.” Details can help you articulate your main point and help drive your argument home. However, redundant information and jargon can make your content harder to digest. Ensure your recordings are straight to the point.
• Text Overload. In the event your lecture recording also has text presented, students will naturally read those words. As a result, large text blocks and bulleted lists will force students to inefficiently multi-task. Reducing the amount of text per slide can help students focus more on listening and less on typing.
• Proper Flow. Divide each point into their respective slides and ensure that your presentation isn’t too rushed or too slow. This improves the flow of lecture presentation and ensures that students won’t need to constantly rewind or fast-forward the recording.

2. Visual Quality Improvements

While lighting remains of the easiest alterations you can make to improve recordings, poor lighting can instantly detract viewers from the learning experience if left mistreated. Consider the addition/removal of various lighting sources to ensure a clear and natural display for your viewers.

3. Audio Quality Improvements

Like visual quality, it is important to ensure that your audience is actively listening to your material as well. Contributing factors such as auditory distractions and repetition can cause your audience to tune out of your content and or result in confusion.

Factors to consider when improving audio quality.

• Clear Sound. No one likes choppy or distorted audio. The addition of another microphone can enhance the listening experience so that viewers can clearly hear your presentation. Consider using a Lavalier microphone as it allows for users to walk around during their presentation in case you have an additional whiteboard to display.
• White Noise. Outside noise can be distracting even without your knowledge that it exists. Avoid standing near running machines or oscillating fans during your recordings. While it might not generate much noise in person, your microphone might pick up the humming significantly louder in a recording. Run a quick test footage before recording to prevent this occurrence.
• Outside Noise. Prior to recording, consider closing any doors or windows in your recording studio to prevent any outside noise from interrupting your recordings.

Related Post: How to Record Lecture Videos

Everything You Need to Know About Lecture Capture in One Comprehensive Guide

Lecture capture isn’t a new technology, but it’s popularity has skyrocketed. Not only does it meet today’s unique educational challenges, but it offers immense flexibility when used in a Hybrid Flexible learning model. 

We’ve compiled “A Comprehensive Guide to Lecture Capture in Today’s Educational Landscape” to guide IT professionals, technology decision-makers, school board members, and other key stakeholders in learning about Lecture Capture and whether it might be the right next step for your organization. 

What’s Covered?

Key areas highlighted include advantages and drawbacks, enabling hy-flex learning, choosing the right Lecture Capture tools, creating an ideal learning experience, training, steps to preparation and deployment and more. Frequently asked questions are addressed, but we always encourage decision makers to learn more by contacting us.

View the Comprehensive Guide

In the meantime, click here to view the free comprehensive guide to lecture capture.