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Record a lecture in a Standard Teaching Space (Guide)

This guide will take you through the process for recording teaching activities in a Standard Teaching Room. You can choose the video walkthrough, printable quick-guide, or detailed guide depending on which suits you best.

Enhanced Teaching Spaces are characterised by their ability to support hybrid modes of teaching. They have advanced cameras, ceiling mounted microphones, lapel microphones, dual monitors and advanced touch-screen control panels (referred to as Dual-Mode design). This guide is for enhanced spaces.

Standard Teaching Spaces, in contrast, have comparably simple microphones and cameras and still have the old button-based controls. These rooms support regular lecture capture and you can find instructions for these spaces in the standard teaching spaces guide.

Walkthrough Video

(updated 12/09/2022)

Lecture Capture 22/23 Video Guide

Quick Guide

(updated 12/09/2022)

A Quick Introduction to YuJa

Don’t forget that you have to enable the link between yourself as instructor, your module, and YuJa. You can do this by going into your YuJa channel directly from your module page in My Dundee. You will only need to do this once, but you will need to do this for each module you are in.

YuJa is our video management service. It provides us with a complete video creation, management and distribution platform able to support range of media related activities. For the purposes of this guide, there are three key areas of functionality you should understand:

  • YuJa has a software client that is installed on all lectern machines (and can be manually installed on any computer). This software allows you to record a range of sources from your computer including video inputs, screen capture and audio, which can then be easily uploaded to the YuJa platform itself for editing, management and distribution.
  • YuJa your stores video content under your UoD account, allowing you to edit, share, distribute and manage these assets. Videos can be shared with specific groups or embedded in a different platform and shared universally.
  • YuJa is connected to My Dundee so that you can share videos to your module-specific channels. Videos published to a module channel will then become accessible to students enrolled on your My Dundee module.

You can find specific help in our YuJa knowledge-base area and general guides on YuJa’s help site.

Steps in this guide that don’t fit with the room you’re in? Different equipment? You may be looking for instruction for Enhanced Teaching Spaces.

Detailed Guide

We’ve broken the process down into five parts: Pre-Session, In-Room Setup, Recording, Ending your Session, and Post-Session. Follow the below steps and click on each section to expand for more detail as required.

1.0 Pre-Session

It's important to be clear about the role of lecture capture and what students can expect. Typically it is a backup of your sessions, intended for learning reinforcement and that the quality reflects that purpose (as opposed to a well produced, reusable asset). Students are typically still expected to attend class.

How lecture capture fits into your learning design may vary from module to module, so it is important that module leaders inform the students of how it fits into the course design. You can detail this is in your My Dundee module page as well as in person at the start of the semester.

It's also important to explain the availability of the recordings. By policy, lecture recordings are removed at the end of an academic year, but you may wish to set your own availability window for longer or shorter durations.

Obviously, you and your students need to be aware of when and where each session is scheduled to happen, and you can do this through the published timetable produced by Registry. You should also check which type of room you have been assigned to be sure it is appropriate for your needs (e.g if you are running a Hybrid session).

Remember that Standard Teaching Spaces have basic recording facilities that support lecture capture as well as the usual in-room AV equipment. Enhanced Teaching Rooms were created out of the Hybrid Project in 2021, and support much more quality and functionality, including hybrid modes of teaching. Both support Lecture Capture, but be sure you've read the instructions for the room you're going to use.


2.0 In-Room Setup

Once you are in the room at the appropriate time and your students have started filing into the room, it's time to get logged in. Wake up the computer and enter your university credentials in the usual way.

While the computer prepares the desktop, it's a good idea to have a quick check of the microphone and camera positioning.

Microphone

USB microphone mounted on an adjustable arm.

Typically, microphones in standard rooms are mounted on adjustable arms that are attached to the desk. You should move the mic to a position that covers where you intend to stand while delivering your session. Note that these mics have a limited range and the quality will drop off sharply as you get more than 2 meters away.

Presence Camera

AverMedia webcam mounted on arm

Simple web cameras are provided to supplement the main sources (the audio and and the screen-recording). These are intended to give an additional sense of 'presence' to the recording as well as providing the ability to record other activities in the room. Generally, these cameras should be pointed at the front of the room, but you could also point them at a whiteboard or other in-room visual aid, for example.

Before you start setting up the recording, you should get any presentation content ready on the computer. This is so that when you hit record, it's an easy transition to start your slides or whatever visual aids you are using.

Most of you will likely be using PowerPoint, in which case you should open you file, check the presentation settings are how you want them and stop short of starting the slideshow.

YuJa should already be running on all lectern computers. To initiate a recording session, click on the YuJa icon from the notification area of the Windows Taskbar (next to the clock/date). If the icon isn't immediately visible, you may need to click on the 'show hidden icons' tool (a little chevron next to the clock/date). This will open the 'YuJa Software Capture' window, ready to setup and start recording.

Alternatively launch YuJa from the start menu like any other applications by typing ‘yuja’ in the search tool.

If prompted - Login to the capture application, select ‘University of Dundee’ from the drop down and login using Single Sign-On (SSO) and click ‘Sign In’.

Note that you can also launch YuJa from within My Dundee by opening your module's video channel and clicking on 'Create Recording'.

Once the YuJa software authenticates and opens, you are presented with a range of options for managing your recording:

Complete the Title field and open Share to select your module channel
YuJa Software Capture
  1. Enter a meaningful title in the white box. Note that if you leave this blank, it will automatically name the video generically with the time and date.
  2. Next, you can tell the software which channel the video will eventually be published to, i.e. your module in My Dundee.

Like when using Teams or Collaborate for an online meeting, YuJa allows you to select the screens, video devices, and microphones you want to record and share from. This allows you to configure your recording in various ways if you want to.

Each room has a pre-defined profile so you should be able to just leave everything as is, but it is recommended that you give these setting a quick scan to ensure they are correct. 

You can confirm that the setting are correct using the preview in the middle of the YuJa window, which displays the selected video and screen sources, as well as an audio meter to confirm the microphone is picking you up.

For more information on configuring the YuJa software capture options, see our YuJa documentation.

Now that you are ready to start, you need to make sure the class is aware that you will be recording. This is not simply good practice, it also keeps you and others aware that there will be a microphone picking up what people say. For example, students do grab opportunities to ask questions before and after classes, including personal queries that should never be recorded, so making everyone aware can reduce the possibility of this.

Now that you're prepared and ready, click the 'Start' button to begin recording. The YuJa window will disappear, you will get a three second countdown and a discrete recording toolbar will appear on the bottom right of the screen.


3.0 Recording

Once you've started recording, you can get on with your teaching as you usually would - start your slides, talk to your class etc.. While recording, YuJa will display a discrete toolbar in the bottom right of the screen, which allows you to control the recording throughout the session, including bringing the full control window back, pausing, stoping and monitoring the audio.

To PAUSE the recording use the pause button. You can press it again to restart the recording without ending the whole session, which is very useful for excluding segments that maybe aren't suitable for recording, like a discussion segment.

To STOP the session use the stop button. Doing this will end the recording completely, meaning that you would have to create a completely new recording if you want to carry on, resulting in multiple files.

The audio meter is useful to check that you are still being picked up.

Hotkeys

You can also control the recoding with hotkeys:

Start Recording: CTRL + SHIFT + S

Pause Recording: CTRL + SHIFT + P

Finish Recording: CTRL + SHIFT + F

As mentioned earlier in the instructions, it is important to be aware of the limits of the microphones deployed to standard teaching rooms. Even in Enhanced spaces, there are limits to what a microphone can do in noisy rooms with a variety of shapes, sizes and acoustic properties. However, if you ensure you stay within 2m of the microphone and speak in a clear voice then the lecture recording will serve its purpose.

You can move the microphone within the limits of its stand so again, it is important to position it optimally (please do not attempt to remove microphones from stands).

Currently, there is no mute button, so if you want to pause recording, use the pause functionality detailed ion the previous step.

With the default setup, everything you do on the screen will be recorded: If you are showing a PowerPoint presentation, then that will be recorded. If you bring up a browser window, that will be recorded. This means that the recording will contain a good record of the session for your students to revise from.

However, this also means that just as you should be careful what gets revealed to your student on the projector, you should also be careful what could get recorded. Pause the recording and mute the projector if you need to do something in class that you don't want people to be able to see or review in the recording later.

Standard teaching rooms generally have a single monitor that is mirrored to the projector or room display. This makes the screen capture straight forward, but in rooms with multiple monitors/projectors, you should make sure you check and understand which screens are being recorded.

As mentioned previously, the so-called 'presence' cameras are not intended to be a central source of information for the recordings. They are intended to add a sense of 'being there' for viewers as well as offering another visual source in a pinch.

For example, you can angle the cameras, which are also mounted on flexible arms, to show a visual component of your session if required, such as pointing the camera at a whiteboard. This is another aspect of the design we hope to develop in future iterations.

Once you have completed your teaching session, you can stop the recording either by click on the stop button or using the CTRL+SHIFT+F hotkey combination.

This will end the recording and essentially close the file. Remember that when you press stop, you will need to start a completely new recording to continue, so remember to use Pause when you just want to take a break during the same session.

It would be a good idea to get into the habit of stopping the recording immediately when you finish your session, since students have a habit of leaping on the opportunity to come ask the lecturers questions, including personal ones. End the recording quickly so that you don't forget and end up recording anything that shouldn't be recorded.


4.0 Ending your Session

When you end the recording, you are presented with a windows saying 'Your capture session has ended'. This is where you must choose whether to immediately publish, delete or save your recording. Do not skip this step - you must choose one of the options or your recording may be lost. 

Post Now will upload and immediately publish the recording to the module channel you specified at the start. This is the easiest way to publish, but be sure that you're happy for everything that was recorded to immediately go to your students.

Delete removes your recording. Obviously, you should be careful with this as there's no going back!

Save will upload the recording but it won't publish - you will need to publish manually later.

Whether you choose to save or post your recording, it will then upload the recording to the server, where it will then appear in your My Media folder in YuJa. You will see a little status window in the bottom right of the screen:

You do not need to do anything at this point and even if you log off before the upload is complete, it will continue to upload in the background - so long as the computer is not switched off.

With the reassurance that your recording will continue to upload, feel free to log off and head for a well deserved cuppa. Do not switch computers off and please leave rooms in a good state with microphones and cameras left in place.


5.0 Post-Session

The moment your video finishes uploading, YuJa begins processing the file. This includes replicating the video at different quality levels to support play at different internet speeds, auto captioning the video, and generally optimising the experience of your content.

You can find the video by returning to your My Dundee module, opening the video channel and clicking on My Media:

If you didn't name the file manually at the start of the process, YuJa will name it 'My Event on [date]'. From here, you can hover over the video thumbnail and choose to Play, Share, Publish, Delete, Edit, or click More to open up the full video properties.

For lecture capture, this is where you might want to go to clip bits of the recording out that shouldn't be there or rename the file to something more meaningful to your course design. You can read more about these options on the YuJa support pages.

If you already selected a video channel in step 2.6 and chose to 'Post Now' in step 4.1, then your video should already be published.

However, if you wanted to delay publishing (or just want to check), hover over the video thumbnail and choose 'Publish' from the little menu. This will open a window where you can search for and select from all the video channels you are attached to.

You can also use this tool to check where the video is already published and un-publish videos if needed. Note that you can publish to multiple channels if you want, e.g. for courses with multiple modules/cohorts attached.

Recordings that are published will appear in the modules video channel in My Dundee. Students should login, navigate to the module and open the 'Video Channel (YuJa)' section.

However, depending on how your module is designed, you may want to add your module 'in-line' with your module content. For example, if using the week-by-week design recommended in the default module template, you can add the videos for each week into their respective folders. See our guide on embedding YuJa videos for how to do this.

Please note that YuJa automatically captions uploaded recordings. This process can take a time to complete after a video is uploaded and the quality of the captioning will vary depending on a variety of factors. For more information about captioning with YuJa, please read this guide.

Updated on 24/01/2023

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