Lecture Capture: FAQs

Please refer to the Lecture Recording Policy that states that staff should record all lectures unless there is a particular reason not to. The policy highlights situations when it is appropriate to opt out of recording a lecture.

Lecture recordings are of benefit to all students not just students with special dispensation. The University values diversity and equality where all students can benefit from technological advances.  Access to lecture recordings is becoming the norm for all students across the UK and globally, irrespective of special needs.

Guidance is available in Toolkit on Panopto.  Advice and support for staff, for managing their recordings in Panopto and in MyAberdeen, can be obtained from Media Services (IT Services) and eLearning (CAD).

Follow the guidance provided by eLearning for adding Panopto recordings to MyAberdeen Ultra Courses.

Only those users with whom you share the link for the recording.  Therefore, unless you choose to share the link to the recording with staff/students outwith your course, and for which you have given permission to allow them to access it, or you add it to the list of courses /people allowed to view your recording.  You control who has access to your recordings.

You control who has access to your recordings. If another member of staff wishes to use your recording in a different course, they will need to ask you to enable this. You can add additional courses to the list of users able to view the recordings. You can also share a link to the recording which permits “anyone in the institution with the link” to access the recording but this is not as secure as anyone can take that link and share it with anyone else in the institution.

You can delete a recording by going to the appropriate folder in Panopto, select the recording then select “delete”.  Deleted recordings can be recovered up to 90 days after deletion however you can permanently delete a recording by choosing “remove permanently”.  This option is a “hard delete” meaning the recording cannot be recovered.

Panopto is the recommended institutional solution for recording lectures as it gives staff and students the greatest flexibility and benefit when recording a lecture. However, IT Services and CAD (eLearning) can provide links to resources for recording a lecture in an institutional application such as PowerPoint, if a member of staff does not wish to use Panopto. The recorded lecture should then be uploaded to Panopto in order to stream it, rather than uploading it to MyAberdeen directly, where students will be able to download it.

The student’s voice will be recorded if they decide to speak during a lecture which you are recording.  If they don’t want to be recorded, you can either pause the recording or advise them not to speak until after you have finished recording.

The University’s Lecture Recording Policy states that recordings should normally be available for that academic year, plus one year.  However, as students and staff retain access to courses in MyAberdeen for two years after the course has finished the University recommends that the recordings remain available in course areas for this period of time.  Lecturers who created their own recordings can delete them at any time from Panopto. Recordings are held on Amazon Web Servers in the EU (Ireland).  Users manage their content through MyAberdeen or directly through Panopto’s web interface.  Recordings older than 3 years and not accessed in over 13 months will be archived.  Recordings older than 6 years and not accessed in four years will be deleted.

Storage on Panopto is automatically manged using content retention rules. 

Content older than 3 years that has not been viewed in over 13 months will be archived.  Archived content is still available to play back, but may take up to 2 days to be available.  If a user clicks to play archived content, they will be emailed when the content is ready to play.

Content older than 6 years that has not been viewed in over 4 years will be permanently deleted.  Content that has been permanently deleted cannot be recovered. 

More information on the Panopto archive is available on Toolkit.

No, the video is still in Panopto and therefore available for viewing or downloading by anyone to whom you have given such permissions. If you wish to delete a video you should delete it from Panopto, where the video is stored. 

Recordings are not automatically destroyed at the end of each academic year. This needs to be done by the lecturer individually in Panopto, where the recordings are stored. A decision has been taken that, while the Covid-19 situation and blended learning continues, recordings will be made available only to the current cohort registered in the course in the current academic year. This includes any student who is required to resit in the following year from the current student cohort. 

The University’s Lecture Recording Policy details the policy framework surrounding use of Panopto. Please refer to questions 13 and 24 for details relating to the Covid-19 situation.

Performers have rights in their performance and any recording of that performance.  Unless there is a clause in the individual’s contract of employment to the contrary, performance rights belong to the lecturer.

The University’s Lecture Recording Policy states that “As stated in the University Policy for Intellectual Property Exploitation and Revenue Sharing the University owns the intellectual property of the Teaching Materials (as defined in the Policy) created by staff and the recording of the lecture, whereas staff retain ownership of their performance rights which are licensed to the university for a limited period. All staff using Panopto are required to accept the relevant consent agreements in order to ensure that the University is legally entitled to make recordings available to students as per this policy.”

The University owns the copyright to Teaching Materials but the Policy for Intellectual Property Exploitation and Revenue Sharing provides a license to staff to use Teaching Materials for non-commercial research and teaching purposes for as long as they remain staff of the University.

You are in full control of who gets access to your lecture recordings. A very small number of system administrators have the ability to access your recordings but only to help you set correct permissions or deploy them within the VLE efficiently.

Specific permissions are granted to course folders in Panopto which limit viewing to those users enrolled on the course.

Each staff member is responsible for ensuring that the materials they use comply with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, or is covered by an appropriate licence agreement, e.g. CLA Higher Education Licence. Guidance on copyright is available to staff. The Copyright Officer in the Library can provide additional guidance and support in relation to copyright.

The individual staff member is responsible for ensuring that use of 3rd party copyright material in teaching complies with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, or is covered by an appropriate licence agreement, e.g. CLA Higher Education Licence. Guidance on copyright is available to staff. The Copyright Officer in the Library can provide additional guidance and support in relation to copyright. 

Remove it or link to it.  Staff should remove any materials which infringe copyright from their lecture recordings.  Links should be used with care as the hosting site may itself be infringing copyright by making material available without appropriate permission from the rightsholder. Guidance should be sought from library staff.

Panopto is the recommended institutional solution for recording lectures as it gives staff and students the greatest flexibility and benefit when recording a lecture. However, IT Services and CAD (eLearning) can provide links to resources for recording a lecture in an institutional application such as PowerPoint, you do not wish to use Panopto. The recorded lecture should then be uploaded to Panopto in order to stream it, rather than uploading it to MyAberdeen directly, where students will be able to download it.

Yes.  

Students have had access to courses for two years after the course ends and therefore will have had access to view any video recordings you provided in the course, unless you have permanently deleted these from Panopto. Please note that a decision has been taken that, while the Covid-19 situation and blended learning continues, recordings will be made available only to the current cohort registered in the course in the current academic year. This includes any student who is required to resit in the following year from the current student cohort. 

The recording is the property of the University and held on servers only accessible to students on the course at the University, so technically, you would not be able to use it at another University. 

No.  

The policy has been clarified that a recording cannot be used during industrial action without the consent of the staff involved.

There is no requirement to record tutorials.  All students should be given the opportunity to engage with the teaching experience and are expected to attend, whether online or in person. Refer to Tutorial Recording Guidance form for further information.

The Teaching Recording Consent Form for External Users should be used to see the consent of individuals who are external to the University of Aberdeen, see the form for further information.

The Lecture Capture Policy makes it clear that lecture (or other) recordings may only be used by students as a personal aid for study purposes.  The student may not share, publish or otherwise make the recording available in whole or in part to any other person. This is clearly stated to students in section 7 of our guidance on studying online.

For students studying online (whether wholly online or as part of blended delivery), they may find it easier to study if they can download a recording particularly where they have poor broadband. 

Panopto is set to enable download by ‘authenticated users with access’ and as such students are able to download recordings for their own use.  While the default setting does allow download by students, staff can change the setting to prevent download where they feel this is necessary.  Guidance on how to do this is available on the Panopto help pages on changing download settings.  Where staff feel it necessary to do so, it should be noted that this may limit students’ ability to access recordings where they have limited broadband access. 

In Collaborate, staff need to ‘Allow recording downloads’ by editing the settings for the default Course Room or for a scheduled session. Guidance on this can be found on the Blackboard help pages on allowing recording downloads.