- Academic Technology
Advantages of Lecture Capture Software Over Hardware-Based Lecture Capture Systems
Rolling Out A Lecture Capture Software Solution Overnight
With lecture theatres in two countries of the world, three cities in UK and another that requires a ferry to get to, it is a lot of effort to install AV equipment on our campuses.
The University of Southampton has been using Panopto since 2010. In that first year, we deployed the lecture capture software to 30 users by packaging up the software into a format that could be pushed to computers of our choosing on any of our sites. By our second year, we had a site license and could flick a virtual switch to have lecture capture everywhere.
For us, lecture capture software had a distinct advantage over hardware-based lecture capture systems: It gave us the ability to switch on lecture capture to all 160 centrally bookable lecture spaces and make it available on every member of staff’s PC (thousands). Since we did not have dedicated lecture capture hardware in our lecture theatres, there was no need for staff visits or to configure complicated permissions — just the ability to capture lecture everywhere overnight.
Planning For The Unexpected – Lecture Capture Software Offers Flexibility
Our first use of Panopto, outside of testing, was for a conference in April 2010. Two of the speakers were planning to travel to the UK from mainland Europe to give a keynote speech when the ash cloud from Eyjafjallajökull closed airports across the continent. We gave the speakers access to our Panopto servers and they uploaded their talk from a hotel room and answered questions over the phone.
A Searchable Library of Lecture Content With An End-To-End Video Platform
Lecture capture software lets you pinpoint video content from an entire library of lectures.
When the Panopto lecture capture software sits on the same computer as the presenters’ documentation there can be deep integration with the applications they choose to use. Most of the time this application is PowerPoint.
As Panopto digests all the content from a PowerPoint presentation, students can find a particular slide in seconds from a library containing years’ of lecture content and be brought straight from the search results to the precise second the slide appeared.
Full Control Over Recording Lectures
The final point I’d like to make on software solutions is the control it gives, not just as an administrator of the computer but also as an end user delivering a lecture. As there is no anonymous box recording your actions but an application on the computer, you have full control over everything that happens in your session. If you wish to stop recording the buttons are available to you, if you wish to record a session that you didn’t plan to, then the recorder is in the start menu ready for it.
And of course, if you run out of time you could always finish recording the lecture in your office.
*The views and opinions expressed here represent the author’s and not those of institutions or organizations that they may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Related Reading: Three Generations of Lecture Capture