Best practice guide for lecture recordings

Students with a wide range of disabilities may require access to lecture recordings in order to offset the impacts of their condition. Providing access to lecture recordings is an inclusive teaching practice and can benefit all students.

Lecture recordings are also needed to provide closed captioning services. Closed captioning involves transcribing lecture recordings and applying these as captions to the lecture recording via Echo360. This enables a student with a hearing impairment to have equal access to the content. Good quality captions rely on good quality recordings.

Tips on how to ensure the best quality lecture recordings for your students

Record all lecture content, where possible. If there are breaks in the lecture, please consider pausing the recording.
Use a lapel microphone at all times. Lapel mics allow the capturing of what you say in a clear way, while reducing the background noise that is recorded.
Clip the lapel microphone close to your chin while avoiding folds of clothing or jewellery which may interfere with the microphone. A guide to using microphones in the lecture theatres at Sydney is available.
Check to see if the microphone is working by lightly tapping or speaking into it.
If not working, check the microphone is not muted. Use the touch panel to navigate to the microphone page (via the microphone symbol) and touch on any red circle that is showing. If this does not resolve the issue, please contact AV services on 9351 2000 (option #2).
Consider your speaking style; keep to a moderate pace and articulate.
When walking around the room, make sure the signal is not lost.
Ask students to raise their hands before asking questions or contributing to the discussion and request that they speak one at a time.
Repeat audience questions before answering.
Repeat important points that have been contributed during discussion so that it can be captured by the microphone.
Stop the recording if the lecture finishes early.