Lights, Camera, Action for Universityof Leeds Lecturers.

The University of Leeds is one of thelargest higher education institutionsin the UK and a member of the RussellGroup of research-intensiveuniversities.

The 2008 Research AssessmentExercise showed the University ofLeeds to be the UK’s eighth biggestresearch powerhouse and theUniversity’s vision is to secure a placeamong the world’s leadinguniversities by 2015.

Lecture Capture SystemUniversity of Leeds E D U C AT I O N

The Brief

An ambitious ground breaking project worth approx. £1.1 million toupgrade the M&E infrastructure and AV systems to allow for theinstallation of a lecture capture system (the largest roll-out in Europe)within Central Teaching Space. Works were required in 201 teaching roomsacross the campus and ranged from a simple installation of the lecturecapture device to a full upgrade of power, data and installation of a newAV system.

3 categories of lecture capture system were implemented:

• Bronze - the capture of presentation and audio• Silver - the capture of presentation, audio and video from a

fixed camera• Gold - a complete presenter tracking video solution for presentation

and audio with step mats to enhance fixed whiteboard andlectern close ups

The work required had to ensure no disruption to teaching, conferencesand Open Days with all works completed between March – July 2014 forusage from September 2014.

01274 200 280 0191 214 0650 01706 231834 Email: sales@universal-group.ltd Web: www.universal-av.ltd

Planning

Universal took a collaborativedesign approach to ensure thatthe solution identified by Leeds -Sonic Foundry, their MediasiteEnterprise Video Platform, wouldintegrate with existing analogue& digital teaching solutions.

The University decided that dueto time constraints there wouldbe no initial on site test room,only conceptual testing of theequipment by Vaddio, and thesolution was installed into everycentrally time tabled teachingspace across the campus.

Universal provided acomprehensive and detailedevaluation of the existing AVestate, competitive costs and aschedule for AV enablementworks in all 201 teaching rooms.This was carried out smoothlyduring a short contract periodand alongside live teachingUniversal worked efficiently tointegrate the Mediasiteinfrastructure to deliver efficient,reliable at scale lecture capturefor the University.

Installation

Universal AV delivered both aninnovative and challengingproject that went through thegears of project management todeliver what has been received asan outstanding success.Installations included 201teaching spaces, with a widerange of AV configurations, 10 ofthe rooms have auto-trackingcameras, 40 have fixed cameras,the rest are audio and slidecapture. The solution capturesrich video recordings of lectures,providing students with a flexibleapproach to learning.

The innovation and complexitywas taking varying AV standardsacross the estate and delivering afully secure automated solutionto capture, manage and deliverbroadcast quality lectures forstreaming or playback ondemand.

The AV work involved bringing allrooms to a comparable standard,replacing analogue switchers,adding additional ambient audiopick-up microphones, sub mixersand both static and auto trackingweb cameras in selected largerspaces.

“The commitment and professionalismdelivered by Universal wasoutstanding, the team were flexible,often at short notice, and always wentthe extra mile to deliver solutions toissues encountered along the way.

The installation was of extremely highquality and we have encounteredminimal technical issues since thelaunch of the service.

The few issues which have arisen havebeen dealt with swiftly andprofessionally by the team.”

Liz Brittain, Service ManagerFacilities Support Services,Leeds University.

System BenefitsThe software allows theUniversity to track exactly whatstudents are viewing, how longfor and how often. Thetechnology cues professors in tohow engaged a student is withcontent and how often specificrecordings are watched. Lecturecapture shapes the interactivedynamic between students andfaculty.

“We capture a great amount ofanalytics about how studentsview the lectures,” says GaryWeiss CEO of Sonic Foundry. “Ifyou log on as a student and viewa lecture from start to finish, aprofessor can observe and storethat behaviour as metadataassociated with the lecture. If youonly go 10 minutes into anddon’t watch any further we storethat… We keep a complete set ofanalytics that the educator canuse to better understand thestudents and how they’ve

used the material that’s been captured.”

The University has recorded 16, 500 lectures which have had 230,000 individualviewings. Students have been extremely positive about the service and it is a greatselling point when marketing the University to future students.

Neil Morris, Director of Digital Learning at the University of Leeds, says “ The lecturecapture installation has been a huge hit with students and faculty alike. The stats onstudents; usage have been high – one third of students have used the solution sinceits initial rollout last term.

“You can just tell from the numbers that the students are readily accessing thiscontent. The feedback that we’ve had from the students has been phenomenalabout how useful it’s been to catch up on material, review information they didn’tunderstand in class, or if they had to miss events.”

Even though academics can sometimes resist technological changes in theirclassrooms, Morris says the University of Leeds’ academics are excited about thenew lecture capture system.

“Overall, there’s been a lot of excitement from the academic community because ofthe potential it brings, and because people have been doing their own homemadelecture capture,” he says. “The beauty of this solution is its ability to be used fromfaculty perspective, and I think it’s actually almost shocked a number of academicsof how easy it is to use. The interaction can be as little as literally clicking a link in anemail and saying make viewable. That is all the academic has to do, they like thecontrol and flexibility. Everyone that’s given feedback has said the best thing aboutit is that it’s so simple to use.”

User Assessmentsand Quotations

Professor Neil Morris, Director ofDigital Learning at theUniversity:

“This is a significant investmentwhich will transform teaching andlearning here at Leeds. Not onlycan we capture all our audio andvideo assets, but this newplatform will allow us to store,manage and publish contentacross multiple channels. We areunique in having a digitalstrategy that encompasses all ofthese elements.

“We know our students learn indifferent ways, so as well asattending lectures, this givesthem the opportunity to engagewith the materials where theymay be and at their own pace.Whether that’s going over topicsthat are particularly complex orusing recordings to help withrevision, this new system willprovide over 3,000 students with

E D U C AT I O N

outstanding resources to support theirlearning.”

Biology lecturer Dr Christopher Hassall:

“There is a lot of excitement about the newlecture capture system – the system is notjust a simple and effective way of recordinglectures, but opens up a whole new world ofteaching techniques. For example, thetraditional model of teaching would be togive a lecture during class and send thestudents away to read around the topic.

“With the new system we can share pre-recorded lectures with students before classand use contact time for discussions andother activities that help to developlearning from the recorded lectures.”

Tom Dixon, education officer at LeedsUniversity Union:

“I welcome and am incredibly excited bythe new lecture capture technology andall that it will do to support students intheir learning.

“I believe the technology will help levelthe playing field for students who arelearning in a second language andaccess issues. This is really important tome as the education officer; it’s bothmine and the Union’s focus to makesure that lecture capture is being usedto benefit all members of the universitycommunity.”