1. Purpose of this policy
1.1. This document sets out the University’s policy for recording lectures/ seminars/ workshops/ interactive teaching sessions and making the recordings available to students in support of their learning and the overall student experience. The scope of this policy includes recording and dissemination of all teaching sessions delivered within the curriculum in which a lecturer delivers a presentation to a group of students. It also includes flipped teaching, for example an audio recording made for students before or after a lecture by the lecturer to capture key points. In addition, it covers recordings made by students or non-teaching staff for the purposes of dissemination to students as a tool of learning.
1.2. Learning capture is intended to supplement not replace face to face teaching. It is not mandatory for staff or students to use Learning Capture technology or approaches- however if learning capture is used then this policy governs its use.
1.3. The policy is intended to:
- Ensure that all stakeholders understand their responsibilities when making a recording available.
- Prevents unauthorised use of recordings
- Ensure that appropriate permissions are sought when recordings occur
- Prevent unauthorised use of copyrighted materials in recordings and make people aware of copyright guidance materials and resources in accordance with existing policy such as GDPR and IP laws.
- Ensure that Faculties/Institutes/Departments who wish to use learning capture technology understand clearly what their responsibilities are.
- Ensures that learning capture serves as an educational tool to support effective pedagogy.
2. Definitions
- Affiliate – Non St Mary’s University member of staff.
- Archive - Recordings are moved to a less accessible and usually slower infrastructure for a period of time before being permanently deleted.
- Audience – a group of assembled students, spectators or listeners at an event such as a lecture, public lecture or learning event.
- CLA – Copyright Licensing Agency
- Data-protection – The regulations controlling how personal information is used, accessed and stored. The general principles are that information must be used fairly, lawfully and transparently.
- ERA – Educational Recording Agency. The ERA licence enables educational establishments in the UK to legally make recordings or copies of TV and Radio programmes and clips for educational use.
- Learning Capture - The definition of learning capture is the digital recording of a learning event that is intended to be made available to students: It can also be:
- as a minimum, an audio recording of the lecturer’s voice delivering the lecture/ learning event.
- Screen capture, PowerPoint Slides, or other visual materials presented alongside oral delivery.
- A video recording of the learning session. This might include a video recording of a class session, but might also include practical skills-focused sessions, field sessions etc.
- Flipped teaching or short recordings prior to teaching sessions.
- This list is not exhaustive.
- Opt in – Members of staff voluntarily agree for their lectures to be recorded.
- Personal data - personal data is information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual. Any processing of this data must be done fairly and in line with data protection principles.
- Presenter - this refers to both the deliverer of the live event and any other ‘deliverers’ subsequently added (as meta-data) to a recording.
- Published/Unpublished – Recordings can be rendered 'unpublished' which means that they remain on the system but cannot be viewed.
- Recording – the action or process of recording sound, video and or slides for educational teaching and learning.
- SMU - St Mary’s University.
- TEL – Technology Enhanced Learning
3. Policy Statement
3.1. This policy applies to all staff and students engaging in Learning Capture in any form.
3.2. Use of Learning Capture is not mandatory but if you do use Learning Capture technology you must adhere to this policy.
3.3. Learning capture will not be used as a performance management tool in any formal or informal appraisal process unless the staff member wishes the material to be included themselves.
3.4. Captured and disseminated material may be used in disciplinary proceedings, for both staff and students, if the content displays behaviour that warrants such disciplinary action.
3.5. Staff are encouraged to use their preferred teaching style; and there is no requirement to change teaching style due to the lecture being recorded;
3.6. Support will be provided by TEL to ensure that staff are confident in using the Learning Capture solution for the purposes of teaching and learning.
3.7. Captured recordings will be made available to students via online streaming but not via download. Unauthorised sharing or distribution of a recording by staff and students is not permitted.
3.8. Learning capture may not be appropriate to use in support of all teaching sessions. For example:
- • where the time is spent primarily in small group discussion;
- • where learning spaces are not fitted with learning capture facilities;
- • where there are ethical concerns, such as the discussion of sensitive material taking place;
- • where activities which involve removal of clothing e.g. Sports Rehabilitation massage sessions;
- • where a ‘client’ discusses personal information e.g. behaviour change / health promotion interview;
4. Staff Consent
4.1. Explicit consent must be obtained for recordings of personal data of the staff or students being recorded. In some cases, it would not be appropriate to record sessions where certain personal information may be revealed or shared by staff/students – staff should seek advice from their Programme Director (or the Faculty Associate Dean for Student Experience) if they have concerns or need guidance/advice. 4.2. Where learning is delivered by an affiliate or someone other than a university employee, the module leader is responsible for bringing this policy to the attention of the lecturer in good time and to ask for their consent for their teaching to be captured. Consent should not be assumed. Moodle provides a pro-forma document that may be used to record consent from external (non-SMU) speakers.
4.3. Where consent is not obtained and a recording has been made, the recording will be permanently deleted.
4.4. SMU reserves the right to make recordings unavailable until such evidence of consent can be provided, where it is believed to be missing.
4.5. SMU reserves the right to delete recordings in the event that evidence of consent cannot be produced by a Faculty/Department/Institute.
5. Audience/ Student Consent
5.1. Presenters are obliged to inform the audience that an event is being recorded and that their voice is likely to be captured. SMU reserves the right to restrict access to or delete recordings where this evidence cannot be produced.
5.2. Consent to being recorded will be captured via student registration.
5.3. The method of notification should be recorded so that it can be produced as evidence if required. For example, part of the first recording in a series might be the lecturer informing the audience that this series will be recorded. Alternatively, where a department or lecturer chooses to make a long series of recordings, this should be made clear to students via an accessible location, such as in the Faculty, programme or module handbook; or module page.
5.4. Students will also be made aware that sessions are being recorded via a ‘recording notice’ explaining why the University records teaching and setting out students’ rights and obligations. The recording notice will be displayed in all relevant teaching spaces and its contents will be communicated to all students during induction.
5.5. Students may request not to be recorded on grounds relating to their particular situation and circumstances. Students must be informed of their right to opt out of being recorded at the first viable point of communication and must be presented explicitly and clearly with details of the opt out process. There may be occasions where discussions would be appropriate to explore the scope for a suitable compromise. Practical measures may include:
- • just audio and screen capture recording (voice and related presentation slides only);
- • positioning individuals "off camera" ;
- • instructing the relevant staff/student not to identify themselves or be identified by others when asking questions;
- • allowing those who have opted-out to participate at a time when the recording is not in progress e.g. at the end the activity or in a different group;
- • reminding students of the academics ability to pause recordings and the ability to edit a recording before publication;
- • reminding individuals of the agreed limits on use and publication of recordings.
5.6. Recordings may occasionally raise data-protection issues if they include the processing of personal data where individuals can be identified and those individuals have asked not to be identified. If there are concerns about a potential risk to data protection then the Data Protection Officer should be contacted.
5.7. Staff and students should report concerns regarding captured material (eg defamatory or inaccurate material) included in a recording to the IT Helpdesk (helpdesk@stmarys.ac.uk).
5.8. Students may not be permitted to opt-out of recordings where a recording is an explicit requirement of a University award (e.g. recording of assessed presentations).
6. Authority and rights over recordings
6.1. The University requires consent to make the recording in the first place and to use, copy or make the recording available to others. These consents are covered in the consent form in respect of the limited proposed use by the University.
6.2. SMU will give presenters full editing rights over recordings that have been uploaded to the interface. Presenters can also make unavailable or delete recordings through the interface. In addition, the presenters can give editing rights to other users/presenters.
6.3. When a member of staff leaves SMU they can assign editing rights to specific colleagues/successors, should they wish. This should be done via Appendix B.
6.4. If the presenter leaves the institution without assigning ownership to another member of staff, SMU will assume editing rights to the recording and the recording will be archived and deleted as per section 10 of the policy.
7. Data Protection and Confidentiality
7.1. All captured data must be collected and used fairly, stored safely and not disclosed to any other person unlawfully.
7.2. In the case of a breach of either data protection or confidentiality during a recorded lecture, the presenter should immediately make the recording unavailable, then edit the recording to remove the breach to ensure that data confidentiality is maintained.
7.3. Where SMU is made aware of any breach of either data protection or confidentiality within a lecture recording, it will immediately make the recording unavailable, then contact the presenter to correct the content matter.
7.4. Examples of personal data being shared could include one or a combination of the following: name, location data and reference to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.
7.5. Examples of data breaches could be but are not limited to:
- Not informing students beforehand about the lecture being recorded
- Using the recordings, without consent, for purposes other than the original intended purpose
- Where there is likely to be a significant contribution or presentation by another party, for example a visiting lecturer, not obtaining a signed consent form for that party prior to the recording
- Discussing a confidential health or family issue, and that discussion is accidentally recorded because the student’s tutor has not yet stopped the recording. (In this case the recording must be edited to remove the private discussion before it is made available to students.)
- Capturing of sensitive personal data. To avoid recording sensitive data on lecture capture a recording can be paused.
- If the recording is not secure, is downloadable rather than streamable, leaking it on to a public forum etc.
- For recordings made whilst ‘out in the field’ (for example a sporting activity) consent should be obtained for each recording.
8. Copyright
8.1. Where the recorded lecture or event shows work created by a third party and the copyright in this work has not expired, it is important to seek advice before distributing the recording unedited. It is likely that permission, e.g. via email, will need to be sought from the copyright owner unless an agreement exists between the owner and SMU. Presenters using their own content may still be required to seek copyright approval from the publisher.
8.2. St Mary’s has a Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Higher Education Licence which allows small amounts of published copyright works (books and journals) to be copied for teaching purposes. This includes illustrations and images within the works. Scanning must be carried out by the Library under the Digitisation Service, to ensure the terms and conditions of this licence are complied with
8.3. St Mary’s has an Educational Recording Agency (ERA) licence, which permits the use of (and copying of) TV and radio broadcasts for educational purposes. You can also show (and copy) material from on demand TV services such as the BBC iplayer under the ERA Licence. We recommend that you use the Box of Broadcasts service for access to digitised TV and radio broadcasts. Recordings acquired from this service can be recorded in lectures.
8.4. Only appropriately licenced material should be used in captured recordings. Adherence to the CLA HE licence is mandatory and full advice on how to include content under the CLA HE license should be sought from St Mary’s Library Services (library@stmarys.ac.uk). View copyright advice.
8.5. If a recording is to be published on the open web or a course area which is publicly available, then further permission may be required. For information on what further permissions may be needed advice should be sought from SMU Library Services.
8.6. Where third party material has been recorded and permission for its inclusion has not been verified, the recording should be edited to remove the material before being made available to students.
8.7. Should copyrighted content be used, it must be referenced appropriately.
8.8. Resources that are copyright free should still be referenced when used.
8.9. Where TEL is made aware of any breach of copyright within a lecture recording, it will immediately make the recording unavailable and then contact the presenter to correct the matter.
9. Security and Access
9.1. All recordings will be password protected and only authorised access will be allowed.
9.2. The University will provide an institutional platform for learning capture and will monitor its effectiveness of supporting student learning and the student experience.
9.3. Misuse of recordings will be treated as misconduct and will be handled through the appropriate disciplinary processes for staff and students.
9.4. Staff and student access to, and use of, the learning capture system may be logged but only for the purpose of data gathering to see how often the platform or lecture has been used.
10. Archiving and Deletion
10.1. Recordings are not created for long term use. Recordings will typically be available for 3 years following the end of the academic year in which they were created.
10.2. A presenter can make a request for any of their recordings to be retained on the system for a specified period of time.
10.3. If no request is received then all recordings more than 3 years old will be deleted permanently.
11. Review and Update
11.1. This policy will be reviewed by TEL annually.