February 2019

Report Date

February 2019

Rooms

Notes from the last month.

• As per the previous agreement Learning Spaces Technology (LST) have been finalising room installation list for this final phase of the project.
• We anticipate ending with circa 300 rooms installed with Media Hopper Replay equipment.
• As said LST are now concentrating their funds on improving the quality of the installations we have in place.  This improvement will concentrate on.
  • Dual microphones
  • Chalkboard recording
  • Smart switching dual projection systems
• LST have also been feeding into our development proposals for Replay Scheduler v2.

Issues and risks.

• Risk: Last month we highlighted the risk where we do not have specialist space included in our scope.  That work is being proposed as part of a year 4 project, if that is accepted this risk will be closed.

Next month.

• Continue with the revised plan.

Scheduling

Notes from the last month.

• As per the plan we ran six drop-in sessions to support staff with Replay Scheduler.  The demand for these was non-existent even with substantial communications.  Hopefully this can be seen as a validation of our simple design, professional communications and sound support.  No more drop-ins will be scheduled for this version of the system.
• A short four question survey was sent out to Course Organisers and Course Secretaries asking for feedback on our proposed development for version 2 and any other suggested features.  So far, we have received 30 responses.  A summary follows.

Notes:   Approximately one third of those who responded have not used the Web UI for Replay Scheduler.

Comments received:

The 3^rd question asked the opinion on two features we plan to develop.  Even though these features were in the plan we thought it was worth asking for an opinion now that is being used in earnest.

Perhaps as expected adding the functionality to allow CO/CS to add users was roundly welcomed by almost all responders.  As was adding a ‘Show me my courses’ button on the search page. 

Some other comments were also given to this question.

PPLS

‘For courses that involve groups of lectures by different staff, it should be made easier for individual staff members to opt out of lecture recording. I did so by pressing the pause button at the start of each lecture, but this is not ideal. I had already informed my Head of School that I wished to opt out for pedagogical reasons.’

HCA

‘Not used the scheduler because I am ok with my lectures being recorded but many colleagues are not. Both suggestions sound long overdue and I would very much welcome these functionalities. as UGD I have spent a lot of time getting info from IS on how to go about informing colleagues about opt in/out.’

HCA

‘Since presumably the course organiser will be acting with the consensus of the entire lecturing team, others needn't be added. Adding the feature would simply introduce harmful complexity.’

SSPS

‘The recording times are added wrongly, and I am not able to change the schedule - what's the point of this!’

Moray House

‘As we have multiple 'owners' or administrators of our Learn sites, it has been really frustrating to find that only a single course owner has access and control of the recordings. This has caused all sorts of difficulties to students and additional work for IS support teams as we have had to get their help. Any steps you take to make it easier for other users to be added would be much appreciated.’

Moray House

‘Giving the users (at least the course organiser) the ability to change the recording times manually. For example, one of my lectures starts at 6 pm, but the recording has been automatically set up to start at 6:10.

The fourth and final question asked for additional feature suggestions.

LLC

‘One issue that has come up with our big automatically recorded pre-honours lectures is that the video is available as well as PowerPoint slides and audio. All colleagues in the department would prefer not to have video available. An easy way to preclude video would be helpful.’

Moray House

‘1. Making clear that once the schedule recording preference has been changed, the user should press the 'submit' button to save the changes 2. Sometimes I was not sure whether changing the recording preference at course level superseded the individual recording preference.’

PPLS

‘Ability to set up recordings in advance when is appropriate without having to go through several people to do it.’

Biological Sciences

‘Ensure recordings for lectures that start at half past the hour actually start at half past and not 40 minutes past please.’

ECA

‘Ability to schedule ad hoc class times that may be different to room bookings. I found issues with co-ordination between room bookings / student timetables and the automatic recordings. Although it appeared I could edit the recording times on Learn (through the capture software), the recording still started automatically at an earlier time. This resulted in 30 min recordings of an empty room before we arrived. Perhaps this would have been possible through the 'schedule media' method. For next session, I am uncertain whether I must adhere to the strict timetabling start times. With double lectures, it can be preferable to start at 9.30 (as opposed to 9.00 or 9.50), then have a short break, and then start the second lecture. This was my intention but the recording tended to start (with the room booking slot) and I simply paused it between lectures.’

Moray House

‘It would also be good if this would allow for sharing of recordings between Learn sites. Sometimes a lecture is for more than one course but at present, only the course owner can share recordings with other sites and this causes problems.’

Business School

‘1. To add tutorials which are being recorded. 2. To show what is not being recorded, but can be found in the timetable, and the reason it is not recorded. 3. To opt out without needing to select a reason, e.g. the Course Organiser has asked Course Secretary to opt out but not provided a reason.’

Law

‘We would really appreciate if there is an audit trail to see who has switched on/off the lecture recordings and when. It is difficult for us to know how when a recording was switched on or off and would be useful in the instances where some lectures are recorded but not all.’

Other comments.

LLC

‘I would like to cease development of this system and cancel the lecture capture programme.’

HCA

‘Lecture recording encourages passive learning: please review this policy.’

PPLS

‘I would much rather see an opt-in system, with no recording being the default.’

Current List of the Updates set for development.

Decision: The potential updates below are to be discussed at the Steering Group.

Reporting

Notes from last month.

• With the assistance of development services, the BI Report has been updated to include all three levels of opt-out in one report.
• Further work is being done by the service team to refine this updated report.  This report will then be able to be run by staff across the LTW support teams so that there is no single point of failure.
• The team met to discuss the data that will be required to create the monthly and end of year reports discussed at the last steering group.
• Our primary concern is obtaining the full echo360 data set.  We are expecting to have a conference call with echo360 in the week beginning 04^th March.
• We are using Power BI.  The next step with Power BI is to open the ‘Gateway’ which is part of Office 365.  This will allow us to automate the reports.
• You can also construct authentication/user management around the gateway to maintain the appropriate audience for the service statistics.

Issues and Risks

• We need to understand Echo360’s plans.

Next Month

• Complete the gateway.
• After discussions with echo360 write up how we will technically bring the data together and bring that plan to the next Steering Group for approval.

Data and Access

Notes from last month.

• The Video Migrator is now Live.  The Migrator assists with the uploading of recordings into Media Hopper Create.
• The team asked for feedback from schools about the upcoming retention period deadline.  Should 18 months be retrospectively applied to all recordings then we would be deleting starting the end of March this semester.
• The feedback was that this was a tight deadline and so advice on whether the original two year retention period should stand for recordings done before Jan 01^st 2019 is being sought.  If it is agreed that two years can be applied and not 18 months then this will need to be cleared with the Programme Board as Electronic Business and then ratified by LTC.  

Issues and Risks

• We have asked Echo360 for support with the deletion of recordings as the process is manual and final.  Should a mistake be made it is not currently recoverable.  As mentioned in a previous section of this report we have a planned call with Echo360 in the week beginning 04^th of March.

Next Month

• Complete the gateway.
• After discussions with echo360 write up how we will technically bring the data together and bring that plan to the next Steering Group for approval.

Transfer to BAU

Notes from last month.

• It has been agreed that for the start of term we will re-introduce the dedicated phone line for support that can be used for the Student Helpers.
• As mentioned the Drop In sessions have taken place.
• Although not strictly part of the MLE005 project three Benefits Realisation workshops have been setup.
  • Wed 13^th March Murchison House G09 at 2pm.
  • Wed 20^th March JCMB 1206c at 3pm.
  • Wed 27^th March Lister 2.2 at 2pm.

Issues and Risks

• Nothing new.

Next Month

• With Scheduler v2 under development we will begin the review of our end to end documentation.  From a room being installed, to service and then offline.