USQ deploys new recording

Students studying at the University of before moving to Relay. Apart from cost, not been engaged in recording at the Southern Queensland (USQ) were the first Relay’s advantages over other commercial university. For example, using a tablet PC or in Australia to experience the latest lecture lecture recording tools such as the more graphics tablet, mathematics lectures can be recording technology, giving distance students widely used Lectopia/Echo360 are that recorded and made available to all students. and on campus students who cannot attend • recordings are started and stopped by the Student feedback to lecturers who have classes a near on campus experience. After lecturer – no booking required recorded their lectures and made them joining the beta trial in 2008 and successful available via the university’s learning testing in the Faculty of Sciences in semester • the recorder can be installed on any management system, Moodle, has been one in 2009, the University rolled out the , i.e. the lecturer may bring their very positive. Many lecturers reported that lecture recording software, Camtasia Relay, to own laptop or tablet PC students commented that the recordings all lecture theatres and teaching rooms at the • recordings outside lectures, e.g. in an office suited their learning style as they could listen beginning of semester two, 2009. or from home, are possible to or watch the recordings from anywhere, The software captures any movement on the and repeat as necessary. On campus students • with the portable recorder installed on computer screen and verbal explanations of benefit as well as they can view a lecture a USB stick, recordings can be made on the lecturer in class making it available to they may have missed, or revisit concepts any computer from any location directly students as a screencast in video format. This they did not understand in the lecture. Some onto the stick, e.g. when visiting another can then be played back on a computer, or students said that they no longer write what university or when off line downloaded to a portable device such as an the lecturer writes in class (on a tablet PC) iPhone or video iPod. An audio-only version of • editing is possible with Camtasia Studio or because they can access this later, instead a lecture is also produced. any video editing suite they take notes of the “soft” information that is mentioned by the lecturer but never written While Camtasia Studio, also by US software • the software runs on Mac and PC. down. company Techsmith, is well known in Output formats may be individually assigned Australian higher education circles and Birgit Loch – USQ by the Relay administrator as required and requires an individual license for each lecturers may check the status of their [email protected] computer, Camtasia Relay is based. The recording via the web interface. recorder may be installed on any computer that connects to the university network, While PowerPoint recordings with an audio making Relay a cheaper option for widespread component are appropriate for PowerPoint- lecture recording. USQ previously used the only lectures where no whiteboard writing is home-grown but ageing IPLOD ( required, screencasts are particularly useful in PowerPoint Lectures On Demand) system quantitative disciplines which in the past have

The Camtasia Relay recorder.