Recording of Taught Content Policy and Procedures

This document applies to all students and staff members of the University.

Policy and procedures for the recording of taught content in courses, the editing of recordings, and the release of the recordings to students.

The aim of recording taught content is to provide a high quality student learning experience.

This document sets out the University's expectations of its staff in relation to the recording, release and use of taught content.

Taught content is a core learning resource, and the acquisition of knowledge contained in this content is a core learning activity. This may be delivered in different teaching activities, and recordings may be provided in either synchronous or asynchronous forms.

The University recognises the benefits to every student of the ability to revisit all or part of the taught content in a course; in particular, this:

• Constitutes a valuable revision resource
• Allows students to revisit taught content in order to reinforce their learning
• Provides access to taught content to students who were absent from a formal teaching activity, such as a lecture (for whatever reason)
• Promotes accessibility by providing a resource for students who experience difficulty with notetaking
  
• Assist students whose first language is not English.

The University respects te reo Māori as the indigenous language of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Scope

1. This policy applies to the taught content of courses and includes all substantial presentations by teachers that include taught content that students are expected to learn by acquisition.

2. Taught content may be delivered in a variety of different teaching activities.

• This policy applies to taught content in lectures.
• This policy applies to the taught content in other teaching activities if the teacher chooses to record this content.

3. Recordings of taught content include three discrete parts:

• Audio part of the recording
• Visual feed of the recording
• Captions that present spoken words as added text and which are overlaid to the visual feed part of the recording.

Principles of recording taught content

4. Teachers are not required to change their preferred teaching style for the purpose of this policy but nonetheless are encouraged to be aware of the value of recordings in support of equitable access and inclusivity for students’ learning, particularly for students with disabilities.

5. Teachers are best-placed to evaluate both the suitability of their teaching mode for recording and of the quality of recordings. This includes decisions on the editing of recordings and captions.

6. For courses with in-person lectures the recordings of these are provided as a supplementary learning resource and are not intended to substitute for in-person attendance. Nonetheless, for students unable to attend all lectures owing to timetable clashes or other impediment, the recordings of these classes will form a primary learning resource.

7. Some teaching activities formally scheduled as lectures may involve teaching and learning modes not suited to recording, and a recording of such a class may offer few benefits.

• Teachers should consider providing alternative resources so that non-attending students are not disadvantaged.

8. Students may request recordings of taught content in teaching activities that are not required by this policy; however, the decision to make and provide recordings will be at the discretion of the teacher.

• Teachers are encouraged to be supportive of students with disabilities or other difficulties in accessing classes, and to be mindful of the opportunity for recordings to support their engagement and progress.
• Course directors and teachers are encouraged to be guided by advice on individual students that may be provided by Student Disability Services and other service providers.
• Students who believe that a recording has not been provided that was required by this policy may raise their concern through the provisions of the Resolution of Student Academic Complaints and Disputes Statute.

9. Recordings should be released to the students enrolled in the course promptly and within the period specified in the procedures.

10. Students will be advised prior to the commencement of a course on the use of recordings in that course.

11. Teachers must not limit or edit recordings in a way that disadvantages students who are not present at the teaching activity.

12. Archived recordings may be used to ensure teaching and learning continuity.

Roles and responsibilities

13. The University has a responsibility to:

• Provide an efficient and well-maintained system that provides high-quality recordings of taught content
• Support teachers in the protection of their intellectual property
  and exercise of autonomy in the design and delivery of courses
• Protect the privacy of staff and students outside of the context of a public lecture
• Provide guidance for staff on how to advise students to use
  recordings responsibly to benefit their learning.

14. Students have a responsibility to:

• Utilise recordings appropriately for personal study only and not share outside the class
• Understand that recordings of in-class teaching (including lectures) are not provided as a substitute for attendance
• Understand and comply with copyright, privacy and intellectual
  property provisions and respect prohibitions against further distribution
  of recordings.

15. Course directors have a responsibility to:

• Advise students that lectures and/or other teaching activities are
  recorded in the course
• Advise students on how to use recordings to supplement and enrich
  their learning
• Ensure that recordings are released to students within the period specified in the procedures or request an exemption as specified in the procedures

16. Teachers have a responsibility to:

• Ensure that recordings are edited as appropriate or request an exemption as specified in the procedures
• Advise students on the appropriate use of recordings in the course and
  in respect to specific teaching activities
• Be aware in particular of the risks of transcription errors for te reo
  Māori
• Advise students on how to use recordings to supplement and enrich
  their learning
• Advise students if recordings and/or captions will not be available for specific teaching activities owing to an approved exemption request.

17. Associate Deans Learning and Teaching have a responsibility to:

• Consider exemption requests and approve those that in their judgment
  satisfy the criteria outlined in the procedures
• Be aware in particular of the risks of transcription errors for te reo Māori
• Support course directors and teachers in their adherence to this policy and the application of the procedures.

18. The Learning Environment Support Unit (LESU) has responsibility for providing technical support for recording-enabled teaching spaces.

19. Academic Services has responsibility for timetabling courses, which includes the scheduling of teaching activities into recording-enabled teaching spaces (as required).

Exemptions to this policy

20. It is acknowledged that the processes of recording, editing and captioning of taught content utilises technologies that – at their current states of development – may have consequences that affect other policies and strategic goals of the University, and hence may justify exemptions to parts of this policy and procedures. While these effects may diminish with technological improvements they include but are not limited to:

• Discrimination against te reo Māori in captions produced by automated speech recognition, which conflicts with Te Reo Māori Policy and Principles.
• Added burden of workload for teachers through editing incorrect captions, which will affect the measurement of workload norms and teaching delivery as they are interpreted in the Academic Workload Principles and Policy.
• Inequitable burden of added workload for those using te reo kupu in classes, which conflicts with Te Ara Tautika, The Equity Policy.

21. Exemptions are to be decided by the Associate Dean Learning and Teaching in accordance with the procedures.

Intellectual property and privacy

22. Recordings of taught content are created by staff members of the University and the University has a licence to utilise these in the delivery of courses and programmes as outlined in this policy and procedures.

Note – see Intellectual Property Created by Staff and Students Policy

23. Students must obtain permission of teachers if they wish to make their own recording of taught content.

24. Course coordinators will ensure that guest lecturers or other non-University employees who are active participants in teaching are informed that, unless they specifically withhold permission, their contributions will be considered to be in scope for this policy and procedures.

25. Recordings will be shared only with currently-enrolled students in the relevant course, by default.

Recording of content in teaching activities

26. Automatic recording is undertaken by LESU in recording-enabled teaching spaces for:

• Teaching activities scheduled as lectures.
• Other teaching activities where the teacher requests automatic
  recording.

27. Manual recording is undertaken by teachers for the taught content delivered in:

• Other teaching activities not in recording-enabled teaching spaces but where the teacher chooses to record the taught content. This includes the recording of taught content delivered online in synchronous mode (also known as “live-stream").
• Pre-recorded taught content delivered online in asynchronous mode.

28. The recording of taught content is not required under the policy except where specified in items 26 and 27.

Timetabling and scheduling

29. Advice about courses scheduled in recording-enabled teaching spaces will be provided with timetable information.

30. Academic Services will ensure that courses with multiple streams are scheduled in recording-enabled teaching spaces.

31. Automatic recordings are set to begin at the scheduled start of the lecture and end immediately before the next scheduled lecture.

32. For teaching activities other than lectures teachers may request automatic recording if the teaching activity is scheduled in a recording-enabled teaching space. The request can be made to the Staff Service Centre.

33. Advice to students about the availability of recordings in a course will be provided in the digital course outline and Canvas.

Controlling recordings

34. Recordings may be stopped if the content or activity is unsuitable.

• This may occur for instance if a quiz or test is held during a scheduled lecture session; or for periods of student interaction in order to protect students’ privacy
• Omitting sections of the recording should not disadvantage students who are not attending.

35. Manual recordings may be initiated by teachers in recording-enabled teaching spaces. Manual recordings are controlled from the e-lectern and must be stopped at the end of the teaching activity. Active recordings will automatically stop prior to the commencement of the next scheduled lecture.

36. A webcast facility may be used in conjunction with recording to share a teaching activity in synchronous (live-stream) mode.

• A webcast is not an alternative option and recordings must be provided if required by this policy.
• The webcast function in Panopto is not enabled by default. Teachers may request this for automatic recordings by contacting the Staff Service Centre.
• Teachers should take care in using real-time captions during synchronous online delivery of teaching activities, since errors cannot be corrected in real-time. In particular, teachers may opt to not use captions when te reo kupu or other non-English words are used.

Editing and release of recordings

37. Panopto is the preferred platform for the making and editing of recordings, and for the release of these to students in a course.

• Automatic recordings and manual recordings of timetabled teaching activities will be uploaded to the course folder and accessible via the Panopto Video tab in Canvas.
• Manual recordings of a teaching activity that is not formally timetabled will be uploaded to the teacher’s personal folder in Panopto. These must be transferred to the course folder when released to students.
• Recordings of teaching activities delivered in online, synchronous mode may utilise a number of platforms but recordings are to be uploaded to the course folder unless technically incompatible with Panopto.
• Pre-recordings may be created using Panopto, or by another facility and then uploaded to the course folder.
• Exceptions to releasing recordings through Panopto may apply for recordings made previously and which are technically incompatible with Panopto.
• Short videos (3 minutes or less) may be uploaded directly to Canvas.

38. Recordings may be edited by staff with a teaching role in Canvas, including ‘Teacher’, ‘Teaching Support’ and ‘TA’. Editing of recordings must not:

• Remove substantive portions in a way that disadvantages students who were not present at the teaching activity
• Delay the release of recordings to students.

39. Captions are a supplementary aid to support students’ use of recordings but are prone to error. Editing may be required to correct grossly inaccurate captions but may require considerable effort – see Exemptions, below. Students will be advised on the accuracy of captions in each course; and teachers should be alert to the following, in particular:

• Terms that are offensive - including offensive terms that are inadvertently created in the automatic captioning process
• Te reo kupu (words written in te reo Māori) that are misspelled through the automatic captioning process
• Terms written in English but inaccurately captioned.

40. The timing of the release of recordings should not disadvantage students who were not present at the time of the recording.

• Automatic recordings will be released automatically 24 hours after the end time of the recorded teaching activity (not including weekends)
• Teachers should release manual recordings within 24 hours after the end time of the recorded teaching activity
• Teachers may choose to release automatic or manual recordings earlier
• For courses with sequential teaching activities teachers should ensure that the release of a recording enables students who were not present for a class to prepare for the following class. This may require the release of a recording within less than 24 hours.
• If teachers require additional time for editing individual recordings may be delayed up to 72 hours.

41. By default, recordings will be released only to students enrolled in the course through Canvas. Teachers must be aware that sharing links to recordings may make these recordings accessible to others who are not enrolled in the course.

42. Recordings made for a previous offering of a course may be used in an emergency situation to ensure teaching and learning and teaching continuity.

• An example of this may be if there was a fault with the recording, or if a teacher was unavailable for a scheduled class owing to an unforeseen reason.
• In general, previous recordings are not substitutes for recordings of current classes.

Exemption requests

43. Requests for exemptions may be made to the Associate Dean Learning and Teaching by:

• Course directors – in respect to recordings (including captions) for courses as a whole;
• Teachers – in respect to recordings (including captions) of teaching activities for which they are responsible.

44. Requests for exemptions will be approved subject to the criteria and requirements outlined in these Procedures but with final decision – including removal of approval – resting with:

• Associate Dean Learning and Teaching
• Course directors and teachers may appeal the exemption decision. This will be heard by the Pro Vice-Chancellor Education whose decision will be final.

45. Exemptions to automatic recording or to the release of a recording may be approved in cases where:

• The primary mode of delivery in the course is not conducive to recording and the recordings would provide limited pedagogical benefits for students
• The release of recordings would lead to increased risk of copyright infringement and where options to manage the risk are impractical
• The teaching activities contain personal information or use case studies which, if released, may infringe privacy or confidentiality, and other options to manage these concerns are impractical

46. Exemptions to the addition of captions may be approved in cases where captions are significantly inaccurate and where the correction of these is not feasible. This includes cases where te reo kupu (words written in te reo Māori) have been incorrectly transcribed.

47. For courses with approved exemptions teachers may nonetheless choose to use recordings for selected teaching activities.

48. Students must be advised if taught content and teaching activities are exempted from recordings and/or captions, through:

• Digital course outlines
• Canvas - especially if this advice differs from that included previously in digital course outlines.

Copyright

49. Teachers must use the copyright material of other parties in accordance with the University’s copyright and database licensing agreements and the Copyright Act. A copyright notice will be automatically added to all recordings.

50. Students are advised that they must not make a further copy, sell, alter or further reproduce, or further distribute recordings. Penalties for infringing these rules are set out in the Copyright Materials Policy.

51. Teachers should exercise options to address copyright concerns in recordings, such as:

• Recording audio only for portions of the teaching activity, if requested
• Pausing the recording during the class
• Editing the recordings (including captions)
• Requesting an exemption.

Archiving

52. All recordings will be stored until the end of the next corresponding teaching term following delivery of the course.

The following definitions apply to this document:

Acquisition – for the purposes of this policy and procedures – means the learning type that comprises listening to a teacher.
Associate Deans Learning and Teaching are responsible for the overall development of teaching and learning in the faculty, including providing policy and strategic advice to ensure that the faculty creates and fosters an environment that enables a positive student experience.
Asynchronous  refers to taught content that is created prior to being made available to students.
Audio means the teacher’s voice captured through a microphone, or other sounds integrated with the video projection.
Automatic recording means the recording of lectures by default that are scheduled in a recording-enabled teaching space where an exemption has not been applied. In addition, other teaching activities may be scheduled for automatic recording if scheduled in a recording-enabled room and requested by the teacher.
Canvas is the University’s learning management system (LMS). References to Canvas in this policy and procedures apply to any future replacement LMS.
Captions are a text version of the spoken part of a recording. These are created by automated speech recognition software and added to the visual feed of the recording.
Course directors are responsible for the overall design and management of the course to ensure that course design, assessment and delivery support learning outcomes and are aligned to the relevant programme graduate profile.
Courses are the basic component of all academic programmes and include single and double-semester courses.
Digital course outline contains detailed information on the offering of a course in a specific term to assist students in their selection of courses.
Manual recording means the teacher initiates the recording in a recording-enabled teaching space themselves, or creates a recording in another teaching space using another facility, or creates pre-recorded content.
Panopto is the University’s platform used for recording, editing and publishing recordings to students (via Canvas). References to Panopto in this policy apply to any future replacement system.
Policy means the policy section of the Recording of Taught Content Policy and Procedures.
Procedures means the procedures section of the Recording of Taught Content Policy and Procedures.
Recording-enabled means a teaching space such as a lecture theatre that is equipped with a recording system for automatic or manual recording.
Staff  member means any individual employed or contracted by the University on a full or part-time basis. This includes permanent, fixed-term or casual staff.
Synchronous refers to taught content that is created in the presence of students, such as during an in-person or online class.
Taught content contains knowledge that a student is expected to learn through acquisition, such as during lectures, but may feature in other teaching activities.
Teaching activities include the teaching components used for scheduling courses. The formally approved primary graded components for taught courses are: lecture, seminar, tutorial, laboratory, studio, online course, team-based learning, workshop, field studies, clinic and practicum.
Teacher refers to an individual employed by the University on a full or part-time basis to provide instruction to students in taught courses, and who is responsible for the taught content being recorded.
University means Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland and includes all subsidiaries.
Visual feed is the recorded visual source selected by the lecturer, i.e. PowerPoint slides or a connected laptop.
Webcast means the facility to cast a synchronous, live-stream teaching activity. Teachers should be aware that students attending through this means may experience delays of up to 40 seconds.

Owned by:                       Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education)
Content manager:        Manager, Academic Quality Office
Approved by:                  Provost – delegated authority of Council
Approval date:               11 December 2023
Review date:                   11 December 2028