If you record in-class lectures and make them available online, why would students still come to class? If they don’t—but can pass exams—does it matter? While faculty have mixed feelings about recorded lectures, a combination of new technologies makes it possible to allow ONLY students who attend class to access recorded lectures online, for the purposes of review (not discovery).
Problem
For several years, UMBC has been providing a lecture-capture taping service whereby student videographers are paid by professors or departments to trek across campus, set up tripods and cameras, capture a variety of lecture content (and formats), and bring them back for light editing, digitization and distribution online through open and (sometimes) closed access websites. While the process doesn’t scale particularly well, it is relatively unobtrusive to the faculty member, who can go about the process of lecturing pretty much the way he or she has always done.
In recent years, lecture capture demand has grown as have a variety of solutions that include dedicated, wall-mounted, pan/tilt video cameras with remote control and automated, scheduled recording. These are attractive (and expensive) solutions, but still don’t address faculty concerns about whether students will come to class if the lectures are available online.
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| A view of the lecturn at the start of Mendelson's Spring 2008 Biology class. |
Last spring, after seeing a photo of 15 personal digital audio recorders aligned along the podium of a large biology class, we talked with the instructor, Tamara Mendelson, who explains her rationale for allowing them: “Everything I say is fair game for a test, so I tell the students ‘If I were you, I’d record it all.’ And they do.”
Just like our labor intensive lecture capture service, Mendelson didn’t have to do anything and apparently the students were content to have only her PowerPoint presentations online and their own audio recordings. When we suggested she could make the recordings herself and post them on Blackboard, Mendelson wondered if she could limit access to only students who were in the class. In other words, she wanted to provide the online, recorded lectures for review by students who were present, not for discovery by students who were absent.
Combined with our own lessons learned about simple screencasting software solutions, clickers and the use of a function called “adaptive release” in Blackboard, we realized it is possible to use a daily record of attendance collected by the clickers as a "precondition" for who can access recorded lectures that the instructor posts to his or her Blackboard site.
While we are using MP3 digital audio recorders only, the same process can be used for recorded screencasts made with Camtasia and published in Blackboard, which we have been supporting for years.
Essentially, any faculty member can adapt this cookbook “recipe” to use clickers to control access to any file or function in Blackboard:
- Record the audio of your lecture with an MP3 digital recorder (we’ve found a good one for $80) accompanied by a powerpoint; or make a screencast which combines audio and any actions or screens on the instructor’s vga display into one synchronized file (we like Camtasia).
- Ask at least one clicker question during the class period or (ideally) the lecture yourself so you don't get clicker-only "drop ins" (you might even want to ask questions at the start & end of the period/lecture).
- Upload your clicker grades into your Blackboard gradebook.
- Create a folder where your lecture materials (e.g., PPTs & audio or screencasts) will reside; make it unavailable to students so you can take your time uploading lecture materials.
- Upload your lecture materials
- Use Blackboard's "Adaptive Release" function to limit access to only those students who have ANY score (e.g., activity) for that day's clicker question(s)
- Make the lecture folder available.
- Send and/or post announcement that the day's lecture materials are available for REVIEW to students who were present and "clicked."
For more information, DoIT has prepared a help sheet, which also uses short screencast videos to "show and tell" the process Mendelson will be piloting this fall:
Posting/Controlling Access to Recorded Lectures
http://www.umbc.edu/oit/newmedia/blackboard/help/audio/audio_directions.html
Comments (4)
I think that limiting access to lecture recordings is a great idea in principle, but as a three-year veteran of clicker use, I wonder how well this idea will work in practice. One headache I've faced every year is sporadic clicker/user malfunction--on average about 5% of the students in my class will claim after each lecture that their clickers did not work. This means that the instructor may have to manually give access to class recordings to a fairly large number of students after every class session. Another problem I foresee is that some students will bring the clickers of their no-show friends and "click-in" for them so that they get credit for attending class. I've been told by my own students that this happens regularly, but it is nearly impossible to police such illicit clicker activity. Finally, I'm not sure what can be done to prevent sharing of the recording files once they have been obtained "legally" by most of the class. My sense is that most students are more loyal to their friends than they are to us!
Posted by Steve Miller | August 19, 2008 11:15 AM
Posted on August 19, 2008 11:15
Steve,
You raise valid points. My biggest concern (and Tamara's) is the clicker software flakiness factor, which I know has not been perfect--or maybe it has been perfectly flaky. :-) We are upgrading the clicker software in all lecture halls, and I'm hopeful this will stabilize things a bit more. We'll see. If it falters, Tamara was willing to at least put up the audio file as "open access" on those days when there's an issue. Obviously, the more issues we have, the less useful this becomes if everyone can get it without coming to class.
As for sharing of clickers (or recorded files), I know it's difficult to police, but I'd tell all the students this is an academic integrity issue. That by knowingly clicking for someone or sharing a recorded audio file with someone who is not present constitutes a violation of UMBC's academic integrity policy--for both people. Will they still click and share? Maybe. But at least they've been warned. And maybe some will think twice.
Just remember: the person who aids and abets this will have to both click for AND share a file with someone else. Obviously, if a student is not present to click, but you find they have the lecture (by lobbying you on a quiz or grade score by saying "but in your lecture you said . . .") then you know they got the file without being present. So, they violate the AI policy, too, and if they don't ID their accomplice, they make maters worse for themselves. Hate to even think like this, but in the end it is a matter of personal academic integrity.
Finally, one could just not worry about controlling access, and leave the lectures "open" (albeit just available in the Bb course site) and let the student grades and performance speak for themselves. Essentially, that's what Tamara did before. We were just focused on letting her record the files herself, and then use clickers & Bb to decide how and when the lecture gets posted and who can view/listen to it.
Lots to think about.
John
Posted by John Fritz | August 20, 2008 12:46 AM
Posted on August 20, 2008 00:46
It seems like a lot of work to keep registered students from accessing and learning from the lectures they missed, for whatever reason.
Posted by Just wondering | August 20, 2008 4:02 PM
Posted on August 20, 2008 16:02
Just wondering:
I can see your point, but I've found faculty are somewhat divided on this. To some this is very important--to others (maybe yourself) it's not. But I felt it was important to come up with a way that faculty could control access, if they really wanted to do so.
Now, the lesson learned may likely be that it IS too much work. But at what point isn't it. And at that point, do faculty still want it. Until we try these things out, we'll never know.
One thing: if a prof got a legitimate excuse from a student, he or she could manually enter a score for the student in the Bb gradebook for that day's clicker question(s). This way, the student would have an entry in the gradebook and would be able to access the missed lecture.
JF
Posted by John Fritz | August 22, 2008 12:31 AM
Posted on August 22, 2008 00:31