Lecture Capture at Aston University: Evaluation Summary Report 2011

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1 Lecture Capture at Aston University: Evaluation Summary Report 2011 By Paul Gorman

2 Executive Summary Scope The Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice (CLIPP) began coordinating small scale local pilots of lecture capture technologies in 2008/9 to trial emergent tools and to gauge reaction from staff and students. These activities were monitored through the Learning Technologies Working Group, which resulted in a proposal to undertake an institution-wide extended pilot in the 2010/11 academic year, whereby the technology would be made available in all pool teaching rooms rather than just selected venues. Methods A mixed methodological approach was used to collect the data, which included a student survey, five student follow up focus groups and two online staff surveys, one for staff that use Aston Replay and one for those that do not use it. In total 513 students responded to the survey from seven modules and 15 students participated in the focus groups. 24 members of staff who use Aston Replay and 74 who did not use it completed the staff survey. Results The study reported here found that: Students that use Aston Replay are very positive about it being available. The main reasons students views recorded lectures are to clarify or recap what was said in the live lecture, revise for assessments, and view lectures that they were unable to attend. Staff that use Aston Replay tend to do so because they think it will enhance student learning. Staff that do not use Aston Replay are concerned that doing so would reduce attendance. Students that attended the focus groups do not agree that this is the case. The majority of Aston Replay staff users do not think that recording lectures makes a difference to the way they teach. Aston Replay users are generally happy that the tool is fit for purpose. These findings are based on data collected at Aston and represent the views of those that took part in the research and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aston as an institution. 1

3 It should also be noted that the results do not represent the views of all students at Aston, particularly where small scale qualitative methods were used and participant numbers were low. 1 The research team This summary was authored by Paul Gorman, with the Background section written by Chris Howard. The data for this study was gathered by Paul Gorman, Chris Howard, Neil Cocklin and Adam Massey. All the final analysis was conducted by Paul Gorman. 2

4 Table of contents 1 The research team Introduction Background Findings and discussion How many students use Aston Replay? What purpose do recorded lectures serve for students? Who views recorded lectures? How much of the recordings are students watching? How do students think Aston Replay could be improved? Why do staff use / not use Aston Replay? Does lecture capture have a negative impact student attendance? Does Lecture Capture influence approaches to teaching? Is the software and hardware fit for purpose? Conclusions References

5 2 Introduction The Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice (CLIPP) began coordinating small scale local pilots of lecture capture technologies in 2008/9 to trial emergent tools and to gauge reaction from staff and students. These activities were monitored through the Learning Technologies Working Group, which resulted in a proposal to undertake an institution-wide extended pilot in the 2010/11 academic year, whereby the technology would be made available in all pool teaching rooms rather than just selected venues. Lecture capture at the University is widely known as Aston Replay but the software used to run this is called Panopto Coursecast. This software was selected as the most appropriate technology to implement due to the fact that it is software-based, making it scalable across all 52 pool rooms. These rooms were all equipped with new, identical PCs for the start of the first teaching period. Panopto Coursecast gives control over the recording and distribution of lectures to the individual member of teaching staff, so there could be no confusion about recordings being made without staff knowledge through central control. CLIPP provided training courses during the summer recess and the beginning of the academic year, together with online tutorials for any staff interested in using the system on a voluntary basis. During the course of the 2010/11 academic year, CLIPP has monitored Aston Replay viewing figures for seven modules, obtained 513 responses to a student survey from the same seven modules, coordinated five focus group discussions with students (15 students in total), plus conducted two online staff surveys, one for staff that use Aston Replay (24 responses) and one for those that do not use it (74 responses). The aims of this study were to gain an insight into the views and opinions of staff and students regarding Aston Replay and lecture capture in general, learn about their experiences using Aston Replay, plus provide useful statistics regarding viewing figures and the uptake of lecture capture at the University. The findings of this work and the implications for Aston are summarised in this report. 4

6 3 Background The use of technology to record audio and/or visual aspects of face-to-face lectures is increasingly becoming a common feature of teaching practice in higher education (Deal, 2007). This has been driven from the often observed dip in the concentration levels of students during the course of lectures (Middendorf & Kalish, 1996). Unsurprisingly, Davies et al. (2009) and Gosper et al. (2008) found students who had access to recorded lectures felt this measure would have a positive impact on their learning. Furthermore, Balfour (2006) argues this measure allows students to reduce the time they spend on note taking during lectures, meaning that they have more opportunities to develop an understanding of the taught material and engage in face-to-face discussion. Entwistle argues that the weakness of information technology for university education is that it is often used as a convenient way of delivering knowledge and understandings to students as packages to be deposited within their memory banks. What we know about student understanding warns against this conception, drawing attention to the importance of students engaging with topics and interacting with ideas. (Entwistle, 2009, p138). The concerns raised by Entwistle (2009) directly relate to the substantial body of research on the concept of approaches to learning. That is, the distinction between deep and surface approaches to learning (Marton and Säljö, 1976). Fundamentally, a deep approach refers to an orientation to understand and extract meaning from a learning task compared to a surface approach which is a reproducing or memorising orientation (Entwistle, 2001). Students who adopt a deep approach to learning generally perform better during assessment and tend to have a favourable student experience (Prosser & Trigwell, 1999). The context of the learning environment can shape the approach to learning a student employs (Entwistle & McCune, 2009). In this case, if recorded lectures are predominantly used to create learning environments centred on retaining information, these contexts are likely to promote a surface approach to learning. In turn, this may consequently have a detrimental effect on attainment and the overall student experience. In this light, the important question is not if recorded lectures are used but how they used to supplement the face-to-face lectures? Previous research has tended to address issues relating to access to recorded lectures. Studies by Botherton and Abowd (2004), Davis et al. (2009) and Von Konsky et al. (2009) have found that students tend to access recorded lectures when they were first made available, at the start of semester and before assessment. This suggests that recorded lectures may be used in part by students to direct revision strategies, though there is a lack of evidence from the student perspective to substantiate this claim. 5

7 With regard to the impact of recorded lectures on assessment, research in this area has tended to find that access to recordings has little or no significant correlation with students exam results (Traphagan 2005; Botherton and Abowd 2004). Despite this, more recently, von Konsky et al. (2009) found students achieving the highest grades on a software engineering degree, tended to supplement faceto-face lectures with audio recordings. In comparison, students achieving the lowest grades were less likely to make use of the recorded lectures. However, it is problematic to infer cause and effect from correlation data, but these findings do show that students using lecture recordings may be more strategic in their learning and aim to achieve the highest grades. When considering attendance at lecturers, Deal (2007) argued that empirical studies have tended to observe no significant difference in lecture attendance between students enrolled on courses that used lecture recording technologies and those that did not. This is significant as Massingham and Herrington (2006) found face-to-face lecture attendance affected exam performance on a course employing lecture capture technologies. That is, students who were categorised as poor attendees performed significantly worse than those categorised as satisfactory or good. Use of recorded lectures was not accounted or controlled for during the above study, so it is unclear whether lecture attendance was associated with the use of recording technologies and how these impacted on student grades. Interestingly, Copely (2007) found students claimed recording technologies were useful for them but they still needed to attend lectures because they provided structured learning environments promoting both discussion and understanding. In light of this, Fernandez et al. (2009) recommends integrating both face-to-face lectures and recordings to produce quality learning outcomes. Despite this, whilst there is a growing literature on the effectiveness of lecture recording technologies, there remains a lack of empirical evidence on their impact on the student experience. 6

8 4 Findings and discussion The following section will summarise and discuss all the main findings of the evaluation. 4.1 How many students use Aston Replay? Of the 513 students surveyed, 45.2% had used Aston Replay and 54.8% had not used it. The percentage of students that have used Aston Replay is not dissimilar to research done at other Universities. For example, at the University of Southampton, Copley found that an average of 58.75% of students across four courses viewed video podcasts in a semester (2007). The Aston figure is slightly lower, but our data was taken from seven modules delivered within different Schools, whereas Copley based his work on recordings done for Marine Studies only. Our data shows that viewing figures vary depending on the Module/School. Indeed, the Aston data shows that 62.1% of EAS students surveyed had viewed Aston Replay, compared with 48.8% in LHS, 42.9% Combined Honours, and 18.6% ABS. Based on the focus group discussions we had with students, it is worth noting that all of the participants had heard of Aston Replay and the vast majority indicated that they do view recorded lectures. However, this was only based on the views of 15 participants. 4.2 What purpose do recorded lectures serve for students? The students that attended our focus group discussions were generally very positive about Aston Replay and everyone thought it was a useful tool for students to have (even the small minority that do not use it recognised the value for other students). From these discussions, we were able to identify three main reasons why these students were making use of Aston Replay: 1. As mentioned previously, Balfour (2006) had argued that students that view recorded lectures were able to spend less time making notes in the live lectures. Indeed, our focus group discussion revealed that many students watch recorded lectures to clarify things they may not have understood or missed during the lecture. The following quote exemplifies this point: I usually use it because most of the time because I m also working as a student it s quite hard for me to get everything that lecture is saying in class because I m feeling tired sometimes, so it s always good to go back to sit down and listen to it a fresh and match it with what I ve written in my notes A number of the focus group participants were international students and the above point was particularly important for them, as their first language was not English: 7

9 First of all I am not a native English speaker, so sometimes it is hard for me to understand everything for the first time. So with Aston Replay I can watch the lecture again and maybe understand things more clearly 2. Of the focus group participants, the vast majority stated that they view recorded lectures to help with revision/recap. The following quotes exemplify this point: If I don't understand it I will watch it, but from my past experience I usually watch it during my revision before an exam So it is nice to have my own time, I can go over it. So it just refreshes it in my mind Claims that students view recorded lectures for revision is evident in current literature (Botherton and Abowd, 2004; Davis et al.,2009; Von Konsky et al., 2009) and there is additional evidence to support these claims by examining viewing figures in Aston Replay. For example, the graph below (Figure 1) clearly shows that for Module A, viewing peaks at certain times of the year. Module A has seven sessions in total, running between the 27 th of October 2010 and the 15 th of December Therefore, this graph indicates that the vast majority of viewings occur immediately after the sessions and then tails off significantly for the rest of the year, with only a small amount of minutes viewed after the 10 th of January 2011 (see Figure 10). Figure 1 - Weekly viewing figures for Module A, 2010/11 8

10 In addition to this, Figure 2 shows the annual viewing figures for Module C, which has 14 sessions uploaded between the 4 th of October 2010 and the 14 th of February This graph shows a reasonably even spread of views across the academic year, with the main peak occurring in May Again, one could argue that this could indicate a mix of students recapping after the session and also revising/recapping months after the sessions took place. Figure 1 - Weekly viewing figures for Module C, 2010/11 3. The third and final reason students indicated to us why they use recorded lectures is that they are able to view the lecture if they were not able to attend. The following quotes are good examples of this: Yeah, I quite like the recording because sometimes I miss the lecture so I need to see back the lecture Yes I think the main reason for me was a couple of times when I had to miss lectures, I tried to feel better about it watching the videos If a student is unable to attend a lecture, our respondents were quite clear that they are glad to have the opportunity to catch up on what they have missed. It is worth noting that no participant claimed that recorded lectures are an adequate replacement for face-to-face lectures, only supplemental to their learning. 9

11 4.3 Who views recorded lectures? Based on the demographics of the 513 student respondents from seven modules, we have already determined that viewing statistics vary depending on the School of the respondent, but other demographics are less important in determining whether the respondents view Aston Replay or not: 44.9 % (219) of full-time respondents use Aston Replay, compared to 58.8% (10) of part-time 47.7% (201) of Undergraduate respondents used Aston Replay, compared to 0% of the 13 Postgraduates 34.9% (99) of First Years use Aston replay, 73.8% (31) of Second Years use it, and 55.7% (98) of Third Years use it 48.3% (116) of Male respondents use Aston Replay, and 42.5% (124) of Females use it 44.5% (161) of year olds use Aston Replay, 56.3% (45) of year old use it, 42.9% (6) of year olds also use it, and 50% (6) of 30+ year olds use it 47.2% (108) of Asian respondents use Aston Replay, 41.2% (21) of Black respondents use it, 46.2% (96) of White respondents also use it, and 26.3% (5) of Mixed respondents use it These statistics show little variation based on age, gender or ethnicity. However, Second and Third year students tend to view Aston Replay more than First years. There are too few respondents who are from a mixed background and study at postgraduate level to make a meaningful conclusion of the above results. 4.4 How much of the recordings are students watching? We have seen above that there is variation in how many students actually open and view recorded lectures, but how many times and how long a student views a session varies greatly. Drawing on data from Aston Replay figures, we were able to establish that some students are heavily reliant on viewing recorded lectures and will view all of the recording, often several times, whereas others only view smaller sections of recordings. As Table 1 shows, Module B has the highest average percentage viewing figures, with 318.7%. This indicates that there are a number of students viewing the sessions/lectures numerous times. The lowest percentage is in Module F, which has an average viewing of 40.3% (see Table 1). To further emphasise this point, we can observe that the range in average viewing time is vastly different. For example, Module B s lowest average viewing time by a student is 2.083%, but the highest individual student viewing is 3445%. This is a significant difference and is a good example of just how varied the student viewing patterns are for every module. For a single student to have viewed a session recording 3445% is staggering, but the data clearly shows that some students are watching recordings a lot more than others. One could argue that the length of the recording/session time could impact how much of the session a student will view. There is evidence to back this up in Table 1, which shows that the module with the highest average session time (100.8 minutes for Module G) has the lowest percentage viewing time, 10

12 with students only viewing 36.8% of sessions, on average. In comparison, Module B only has an average session length of 42.1 minutes and has students viewing 318.7% of the sessions, on average (see Table 1). Table 1 Total numbers of recorded sessions, average session times (Mins), average student viewing time (%), range of student viewing time (%), number of students enrolled on course, average number of students viewing sessions and average number of students viewing sessions (%) by module Number of sessions in 2010/11 Average session times (Mins) Average student viewing time (%) Range of student viewing time (%) Module A Module B Module C Module D Module E Module F To add further weight to these points, the focus group discussions with students revealed similar findings. There were mixed experiences amongst the participants regarding how much of the videos they watch and how they navigate them. Some of the participants prefer to watch most, or even all of the recordings until they have obtained what they need from the recording: I try not to pick actually because I mean skipping some parts, so I think it is better to watch all the presentation, to actually understand it better Unlike the participants above, others indicated that they prefer to cherry-pick sections of the recordings and only watch the bits they want or need to view: That's what I found useful with Panopto (Aston Replay), because you can skip across and pick like a specific part of the lecture For those students that make use of Aston Replay, it is clear that the functionality of the software if helpful for both types of student, those that like to watch the whole thing and also those that only wish to pick out sections or parts of a lecture. 11

13 4.5 How do students think Aston Replay could be improved? During focus group discussions, the students were asked how Aston Replay could be improved. The responses to this were interesting in that there were no actual negative points presented regarding the tool itself, or what it can offer to students. The majority of them, including the few that did not use it, contended that it would be a better system and more useful if all lectures were recorded, instead of just some. They felt that there should be consistency amongst staff regarding its use. Examples of this can be seen in the quotes below: Realistically I think all lectures should be recorded.. The only negative thing I see is that it s not enforced for all lectures Although the focus groups were only based on the views of 15 students, there was consistency on this issue and students agreed that this would be a good way to move forwards. Interestingly, this finding is generally shared by staff that use Aston Replay to capture their own lectures. In our surveys, 24 respondents indicated that they use Aston Replay and of those respondents the majority agreed that, where appropriate, all lectures should be recorded. In contrast, 74 respondents indicated that they did not use Aston Replay and the majority of them disagreed with the same statement. These findings suggest that those that have experienced using Aston Replay are more positive about it, whereas those that have not are more negative about it. It could be argued that this is due to misconceptions or lack of knowledge about what Aston Replay can offer as a tool, or perhaps it could be down to a reluctance to record lectures for other reasons. The evidence to examine staff perceptions will be considered in the next section. 4.6 Why do staff use / not use Aston Replay? Of the respondents to our surveys, those that use Aston Replay gave numerous reasons as to why they use Aston Replay. The most common reasons given can be categorised into three main themes: To aid/assist student learning To provide materials for distance learning Asked to use it by line manager or university This adds weight to the argument posed earlier, that staff who use Aston Replay are more positive about using it, as they recognise the benefits for student learning, especially distance learners. The majority of staff strongly agree that they are happy to continue using Aston Replay to record lectures and that recorded lectures can enhance student learning. Additionally, the majority of respondents also strongly agree that students are very positive about lectures being recorded. 12

14 Users of Aston Replay shared many positive comments about the tool, but the three common themes that emerged were that they the tool is good for students learning, it is an easy tool to use and that their students like it. In contrast to this, non-users of Aston Replay were more negative about these aspects. When asked why they do not use the tool, the most common reasons cited were as follows: Concerned about the impact it can have on attendance Concerned about the impact it can have on interaction No added value by doing it Time constraints Prefer other methods Alters the way I teach/talk Interestingly, 83.1% of these respondents said that they do not record their lectures for students, but 16.9% said that they do, but using different tools. In a follow-up question, the staff were asked to indicate what tool they use to record their lectures and the most popular answer was 'Adobe Presenter', with other answers including 'My netbook with a USB microphone', 'Camtasia Studio', and a 'Dictaphone / MP3 Recorder'. One could argue that the fact the majority of these respondents do not record lectures at all shows that they are not necessarily opposed to Aston replay as a tool, but more generally to lecture capture as a concept. Indeed, the survey results revealed that the majority strongly agreed that they are happy to continue delivering lectures without using 'Aston Replay' to record them and that having recorded lectures online would reduce the number of students that attend in person. In addition to these findings, the majority of non-users are neutral as to whether access to recorded lectures can enhance student learning, however, they are neural regarding the statement I do not think lectures should be recorded at all. The neutral responses to these statements indicate that there is general uncertainty about lecture capture and what it offer students. Indeed, the majority indicated that they are aware that training is available for Aston Replay, so there does not appear to be a lack of knowledge that help is out there, they simply do not value it. In contrast, 91.7% of those that do use Aston Replay indicated that they required support to use the tool, 100% of them were able to get the support they needed and were satisfied with the support they received. One could argue from these results that appropriate training is useful, but there is reluctance to take this path for some. 4.7 Does lecture capture have a negative impact student attendance? As we have seen earlier, the majority of staff that do not use Aston Replay agree that having recorded lectures reduces attendance. Also, there is some uncertainty amongst users too, as respondents to the staff survey were generally neutral regarding the statement having recorded lectures online 13

15 reduces the number of students that attended in person. Non-users are more concerned about this issue than users are, but the question for Aston is whether this is a real problem at all. Indeed, Deal s work in 2007 observed no significant difference in the attendance of those that views lecture recordings and those that did not. Without very close scrutiny, this aspect is difficult to determine. However, during focus group discussions the vast majority of students felt that recorded lectures have no impact on attendance at all, and that they are simply a way to assist further study, or catch up when you genuinely could not make the lecture. The key message here was that the students generally agreed that the fact that the lecture is recorded is not why they would miss a lecture, they would have missed it anyway. These quotes exemplify this point: No, I would have missed it (the lecture) anyway No it doesn t encourage you to skip lectures Not really because actually it takes the same amount of time to do it afterwards, so what is the point to skip the lecture, if you still watch the lecture recording you know Another point made by some of the participants is that students will miss lectures from time to time, for whatever reason, but it is better to have the recordings online than not to have them, as there is then no excuse for not being up-to-date: It s really helpful (to have lectures recorded) and efficient because students cannot say Because of this and this reason I failed because if you didn t go to the lecture then it s on Aston Replay for you to watch. It really gives to them no reason or no excuse why they should fail Another interesting point to consider is that almost half (45.2%) of the 513 students we surveyed during this study viewed lectures online, and yet their survey responses were always obtained in the lecture theatre before or after a live lecture had taken place. One could argue that this point, combined with the clear evidence that lecture capture is used for revision and clarification of what they viewed in the live lecture, means that concern about attendance may be misplaced. 4.8 Does Lecture Capture influence approaches to teaching? Exploring how Lecture Capture influences approaches to teaching is an interesting area, because we have users on one hand and non-users on the other. For users, we can safely say that they are sharing their views based on experiences, but for non-users we are usually asking them for their perceptions of how it might alter their approach to teaching. For users of Aston Replay, the majority indicated that using the tool makes no difference to the way they teach. However, there were other common themes that emerged, which include: More structured approach to lectures Pleased that non-attending students will be able to view lecture 14

16 More careful about what I say These differences to teaching approaches are generally quite positive, but the most important finding is that users feel there it makes no difference to their teaching style. In terms of how non-users feel recording lectures would alter their approach to teaching, it is very interesting to note that the most common answer was the same as users in that they believe it would make no difference to the way they teach. This was the most common response, but other respondents stated that they believe the following difference would occur: It would reduce classroom interaction Would cause me to feel guarded in my approach Increase pressure Take away spontaneity Some of the staff respondents do record lectures using other tools, so it is worth noting that some of these issues are based on experience and not just their perceptions of how lecture capture can influence the way one teaches. 4.9 Is the software and hardware fit for purpose? We have established that most users of Aston Replay are appreciative of the pedagogic value of lecture capture, but for a tool to be useful it has to be functional, useable and fit for purpose. We asked staff numerous questions about how they are able to use it and whether these functions work well enough for the tasks required. In terms of what staff are able to deliver to students and how they prefer to use Aston Replay, 87.5% indicated that they use it for PowerPoint capture; 83.3% use it for Audio Capture; 54.2% use it for Screen Capture; 45.8% use it for Video Capture. So, from these findings we can see that our respondents prefer to use PowerPoint and Audio Capture more than they do Video capture. The evidence suggests that this usage behaviour is likely to be down to personal preference, because the majority of respondents do not seem to have any problems using the tool indeed they strongly agree that Aston Replay is an easy tool to use and they strongly disagree that making my lectures available in BlackBoard is difficult and using Aston Replay takes up too much time. In addition to this, the majority agree that the audio quality of recordings is fit for purpose, as is the video quality. In contrast to this, non-users of Aston replay were generally unsure about how much time Aston Replay takes up, as the majority were Neutral regarding this statement. When asked to specify any negative aspects that staff think Aston Replay has there were several themes that emerged. The most common complaint was to do with time being wasted when things don t work correctly, or take a long time to set up before the lecture. These seem to be limited to slow PCs or unforeseen problems with software, rather than the way the software operates. However, some staff did suggest that some of the editing features could be better. 15

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18 5 Conclusions There are a number of key findings that this study has been able to highlight. This section will present and summarise the main findings are discuss the implications of these for Aston. As discussed previously, of the 513 students surveyed, 45.2% had used Aston Replay and 54.8% had not used it. This shows that usage is reasonably high amongst those surveyed at Aston. The high response rate to the survey means that this is a good indication of the degree to which students are viewing lectures across the University and, although these vary depending on the School, it means that the resources are proving useful for many students. All of the students that attended the focus group discussions were very positive about Aston Replay, even if they did not use it themselves. The fact that their main suggestion for improvement was to roll this out across the board and encourage all lecturers to do it is an indication that opinions are quite high regarding its value. However, although this finding was consistent amongst the participants in the focus groups, it cannot be used to represent the views of all students at Aston. The Aston Replay viewing figures, combined with data obtained from the focus groups, indicated that the main reasons students views recorded lectures are to clarify or recap what was said in the live lecture, revise for assessments, and view lectures that they were unable to attend. This is useful evidence that shows recorded lectures are not considered a replacement for face-to-face lectures but a means to allow students to revisit things they might not have heard, enhance their understanding and refresh their memories. The demographics of students that use Aston Replay indicate that age, gender and ethnicity are not useful indicators as to whether someone will view recorded lectures. However, the School that a student belongs to as well as the individual module they were enrolled to have some influence on student viewing figures. The reasons for this would require further investigation, but there is some evidence in our data that suggests the length of the lecture might impact on how much of the video they actually watch. One could argue that this might also influence whether they view it at all. It is interesting to note that Second and Third year students tend to use Aston replay more than First years. It could be argued that this might be explained by the weighting given to assessment. We know 17

19 that students use recordings for recap and revision, so this might be less important in the First years, when their grade is not as important for progressing into the next academic year. Data obtained from student focus groups and the raw data taken from Aston Replay indicates that students that use Aston replay either prefer to cherry-pick the parts they want to see, or watch the whole thing (some repeatedly). This shows that students have different needs regarding how they view the sessions. Aston Replay is able to meet the needs of both types of student. The main reason that staff use Aston Replay is because they think it will enhance student learning. Although only 24 staff members responded to the survey, it could be argued that this finding does show that enhancing the learning experience of students is high on their list of priorities. Staff that do not use Aston Replay are concerned that doing so would reduce student attendance in live lectures. The vast majority of students that we spoke to did not feel that this was the case and contended that students will either attend or they will not, regardless of whether the lecture is recorded. Students do use Aston Replay to catch up on missed lectures, but the bigger question is whether this matters. Clearly, students that do attend lectures are making use of the videos too, so if non-attendees can also catch up using this method then it brings into question the validity of these concerns. This study did not reveal that students see recorded lectures as a viable alternative to face-to-face lectures, but more research would be needed to explore this fully. Aston should continue to promote training sessions and offer support, as staff that required support to use Aston Replay knew it was available and were satisfied with the help they received. Non-users do not appear to dismiss Aston Replay due to a lack of training, as most are aware it exists, the main reason for not using it is more to do with their opinions regarding lecture capture as a concept. The vast majority of Aston Replay users do not think that recording lectures makes a difference to the way they teach. Although some expressed changes (mostly positive) this finding has interesting implications for the University, seeing as non-users are concerned about the impact this would have on their teaching. However, what is of paramount importance is that the teaching quality is good, regardless of whether it is recorded or not. There are some minor complaints about slow hardware and software not always working as it should, but overall Aston Replay users are generally happy that the tool is fit for purpose. The audio and video 18

20 quality is considered appropriate for most users. Further research would be needed on this and attitudes towards the quality of equipment will fluctuate as technology improves and time moves on. In closing, one should bear in mind that these findings are based on data collected at Aston and represent the views of those that took part in the research and do not necessarily reflect the views of Aston as an institution. It should also be noted that the results do not represent the views of all students at Aston, particularly where small scale qualitative methods were used and participant numbers were low. Despite these limitations, this study has provided a useful insight into the views and opinions of staff and students, explored their experiences using Aston Replay, plus provided some useful statistics regarding viewing figures and the uptake of lecture capture at the University. 19

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