Q-Review (QMUL’s lecture capture system) contributes to the student learning experience through the provision of lecture recordings for review and revision, it also provides accessible versions of live lectures, particularly important for disabled students.

In focus groups, surveys and interviews at QMUL both students and staff who have made use of the system have found it valuable to teaching and learning.

As a lecturer you can record your lectures to –

• reflect on your teaching methodology, even if you don’t release your recordings to students you can still watch them and assess your teaching style.
• develop your portfolio by creating flexible learning resources and encourage innovative teaching by adding your selected (edited) lectures and releasing them to a certain group of users
• Promote excellence in learning and teaching in line with the Student Experience, Teaching, Learning and Assessment (SETLA) Strategy;
• create Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) using your recordings that can be used again and again saving your time
• provides valuable resources to help students with disabilities and learning difficulties engage with standard lectures

Of the teaching staff who have used Q-Review, 100% would recommend the service to others, with one user stating “Outstanding facility, outstandingly well supported”. Another lecturer commented that “Any form of multi-media that facilitates passing of information from teacher to student is a valuable tool both in learning and teaching” and that

I was quite nervous about doing this at first. Some of my lectures are quite complicated, and I was worried about mistakes that I may make, and also about student attendance. But so far, so good! Students thank me for participating so it is obviously very popular with them.

For more innovative uses we can suggest scenarios like:

• Pre-recording lectures and using the face-to-face time for knowledge building activities.
• Lectures can be supported by supplementary materials. For example, one academic uses the software on his own laptop and gives ten minutes of generic feedback recorded at home once a week.
• You can edit out bite-size ‘chunks’ where a specific concept was covered as part of a full lecture.

Students have been overwhelmingly positive in their support of the system. When asked “do you think that the recording of lectures are helpful to your studies?”, 95% said yes, and were very forthcoming with comments. There were near 500 additional free-text comments on this question which revealed a reasoned and critical awareness of the surrounding issues. Some of the benefits described by students are as follows –

1. can go back and listen to them more than once if you don’t understand a point
2. can listen to them in your own time
3. can make more thorough notes from them by pausing and playing them
4. can catch up on any missed lectures
5. helps to refresh memory during exam time

One student commented:

I find it difficult to absorb the entire lecture whilst sat taking notes. The recorded lectures have been invaluable to my current high grades.