The university has accepted a proposal to make the recording of lectures compulsory, following a unanimous vote by the student body in January.
The announcement was made by VP Education Matt Adie, who today released a statement declaring the announcement to be a “huge victory for the student voice”.
He said: “A few weeks ago, the university agreed to make the recording of lectures through ListenAgain a mandatory requirement in all lectures where recording is possible.
“This represents a huge achievement for the student voice and representatives, who have actively pushed for such a decision for a number of years. Students at a recent Education Zone Meeting overwhelmingly backed a motion to support the roll-out of lecture recording across the university”.
Historically this has been a divisive issue, with some staff refusing to record their lectures.
One of the main arguments against the recording of lectures is due to lecturers claiming copyright ownership over their lecture material. However, all rights to lecture materials are owned by the University of Stirling.
Other staff have levelled the complaint ListenAgain causes lecture drop-offs, but research is not conclusive on this.
Students with caring responsibilities, or who have ARUAs (Agreed Record of University Adjustments), are said to be negatively affected by lecturers failing to record lectures.
Matt Adie added: “In addition to the requirement to record, there is an expectation that staff will make these recordings available to students as soon as practical after the lecture has taken place. This will also tackle the unfair practice of password protecting audio files that has grown all to common in the past few months.
“Work will now begin on drafting a formal policy, but it’s important not to forget the milestone we’ve crossed on the path to creating a truly inclusive university”.
ListenAgain was adopted in 2010, and provides audio and visual learning content for students.
Featured Image Credit: University of Stirling
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[…] move onto his much-heralded “win” on ListenAgain being made mandatory in all courses. I wondered aloud if in the haste to congratulate ourselves, we have given adequate […]
[…] The current narrative is that Matt is likely to win, since he has been a pretty popular VP Education over the past year – he’s the one that ensured mandatory recording of lectures for Listen Again; a proposal that was accepted by the university yesterday. […]