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Archive for the 'Lecturecast' Category

Removal of obsolete Zoom recordings stored in Lecturecast (Echo360) on 11th March 2024

By Silvia Giannitrapani, on 4 March 2024

As per the UCL retention policy, any Zoom-recorded content in Lecturecast will be deleted if it meets the following criteria: 

  • Zoom recordings that have never been shared with a Lecturecast course section 
  • Zoom recordings that have never been viewed.

Staff members impacted by this will be contacted with further details. Should they wish to retain these recordings, they are advised to ensure a copy is stored in their Zoom account, unless they have manually deleted them. Alternatively, a copy of the recording can be downloaded before the 11th March 2024 by following the instruction below.  

 Please note: Teaching events captured or uploaded to Lecturecast (Echo360) will not be affected. 

If you have any questions regarding this matter, please get in touch with the Lecturecast Support Team and we will respond as promptly as possible. 

The Lecturecast Clinic: Appointments now open

By Katy O Foster, on 6 February 2024

As part of the suite of support for users of Lecturecast available for UCL staff, colleagues from the Educational Media team will now be offering one-to-one consultations via The Lecturecast Clinic.

These one-on-one online appointments can be used to address any queries or topics related to Lecturecast, aiming to assist staff with their teaching needs.

Before booking an appointment, staff are also advised to complete the short online course Getting started with Lecturecast (Moodle) to gain a foundational understanding of Lecturecast.

To book, visit the booking page. New available sessions will be continually added.

Other Lecturecast support resources available:

Getting Started with Moodle and Lecturecast (self-paced courses)

By i.niculescu, on 5 September 2023

The ‘Getting Started with Moodle’ course has been updated in light of the Moodle 4.2 upgrade*. Additionally, we are pleased to introduce the ‘Getting Started with Lecturecast (Echo360)’ course.

These two self-paced courses cover the basics of using Moodle and Lecturecast (Echo360). They are aimed at UCL staff who are new to Moodle and Lecturecast as well as those wishing to brush up on their knowledge.

The courses provide a series of video and written guides, links to further resources and interactive activities. As they complete the course, staff are encouraged to practice using a Moodle Test course.

*Please note, the ‘Getting Started with Moodle‘ course does not focus on the Moodle 4.2 upgrade, for guidance and updates about this, please use the Moving to Moodle 4.2 self-paced course https://42-training.preview-moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=15

Getting started with Moodle

The estimated completion time is up to 2 hours or 3 hours if the assessment is completed. The course covers how to:

  • Navigate: overview of how to navigate the Moodle homepage and course page
  • Build: learn how to add resources and activities
  • Access: give students and colleagues access to your course

The course can be accessed via the following link https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=24915

Please note this is a self-paced course which you can complete in your own time. You also have the option to receive a certificate at the end of the course.

After completing the course, staff can get further support by getting in touch via email or by booking a 15 min consultancy session.

Getting started with Lecturecast (Echo360)

The estimated completion time is 1:30 hours, and the course covers the following:

  • Lecturecast Overview
  • 3-step training guide for beginners
  • Advance training

The course can be accessed via the following link Course: Getting started with Lecturecast (Echo360) (ucl.ac.uk)

Lecturecast online live training

In anticipation of the year ahead, we are also offering online live training sessions to those engaged in preparation for next year’s Lecturecast content. Moreover, we’re committed to tailoring this training to address other pertinent needs within the Lecturecast (Echo360) platform.

If you’re interested or know colleagues who could benefit, kindly complete the form, and we’ll contact you shortly.

Lecturecast sections for 2023/24 courses are available and Zoom integration is changing

By Silvia Giannitrapani, on 1 August 2023

Lecturecast sections for the new 2023/24 academic year are now available. All Lecturecast activity links in Moodle are copied over from the previous year’s course during a rollover, but students will not be able to open the links and view these recordings until the new Moodle course has been linked to its Lecturecast section.

Before making a Moodle course available to students, course teams need to link their course to the new 2023/24 section as follows:

  • Go to your new Moodle course and select any existing Lecturecast links.

  • Once you click on the link, you will be prompted to choose the new Lecturecast section. Use the drop-down list(s) to select the term, course, and section you want to link to.

  • Then select ‘Link to the Section Home’ to link your new Moodle course directly to the section class list.

  • Click ‘LINK CONTENT’ to complete the configuration.
    • Once you link through, you are automatically enrolled as an instructor in the relevant Lecturecast section for next year.
    • All the Lecturecast links in the rolled-over Moodle course will now be linked to next year’s session in Lecturecast.

Please note that to reuse one or more recordings from the previous year, you still need to make a copy of the recording and then share the copy with next year’s section. Please follow the instructions available at Reuse recordings from previous years.

The Zoom/Lecturecast integration is changing…

As of Friday, August 4th 2023 the integration between Zoom and Lecturecast will be changing to an opt-in model. This means that by default your Zoom recordings will not be ingested automatically into your Lecturecast/Echo360 library unless you change your configuration settings.

What does this mean for you?
If you choose to opt-in, all your Zoom recordings will automatically be stored in Lecturecast for future reference and to be shared with your students (this is advisable only if the majority of your Zoom recordings are teaching related such as lectures or tutorials)
If you take no action, your recorded Zoom sessions will no longer be automatically stored in Lecturecast but you can still manually upload teaching related recordings by following the instructions in the ‘Zoom recordings in Lecturecast’ miniguide.

To opt-in, please visit the settings section of your Lecturecast account and enable the “Automatically copy Zoom recordings to Echo360” option. Please see the miniguide for detailed instructions.

Setting to Automatically copy Zoom recordings to Echo360
We understand that everyone has different preferences regarding the recording of lectures, and this change aims to provide you with more control over your Zoom recordings.

If you have any questions, concerns or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team at lecturecast@ucl.ac.uk

Login to Lecturecast is Changing

By Kolil Ullah, on 4 January 2023

On Tuesday 17th January 2023, the direct login to Lecturecast will change. If you access Lecturecast via Moodle, this will not affect you.

This change is part of wider ISD ongoing improvements to login, authentication and security across all of UCL’s platforms. Please note, minor service interruption is expected starting from 22:00 – midnight (GMT) on 16th January 2023.

Direct Lecturecast Login

Direct login via www.echo360.org.uk or Universal Capture with your UCL userID and password will now change to the following:

SSO and AAD diagram

Visit www.echo360.org.uk and you will be prompted with this page below and required to enter your UCL email address.

Lecturecast Login Page

When you enter your UCL email address, you will be taken to the login screen shown below that you will have encountered on other UCL systems. Once again you may be prompted to enter your UCL email and password, this will log you into Lecturecast as normal.

UCL Login

The important difference to take note of here is that you are now required to input your userID@ucl.ac.uk and not just userID.

For any questions, please email lecturecast@ucl.ac.uk.

Transcripts and closed captions in Lecturecast (ASR)

By Silvia Giannitrapani, on 20 September 2022

From 20th September 2022, media transcripts will be automatically applied to the closed captions track if they meet the 90% confidence score threshold.

We have activated automatic transcription and closed captions by default in Lecturecast as an additional supporting tool to provide fully accessible videos for our students as part of UCL’s digital strategy.

Aside from being an aid to viewers with auditory impairment, transcripts and captions can be extremely useful as a study tool.  Students often search large amounts of text using keywords to pinpoint passages of interest; Lecturecast transcripts, which are searchable and synchronised with the recording, allow similar searches of video presentations.

Lecturecast has built-in ASR (automatic speech recognition) to produce recording transcripts. Transcripts are automatically created for any media uploaded to Lecturecast and are available to viewers once a recording’s audio file has been processed.

Closed Captions use the same ASR file as the transcript but are not available if they do not meet the 90% confidence score threshold or until the ASR file has been ‘applied’ to a recording (until then the CC button in the player will be inactive).

Closed captions will NOT be automatically applied to:

  • New recordings with a confidence score lower than 90%
  • New Zoom videos automatically transferred to Lecturecast
  • Older recordings made prior to the 20th September 2022.

Closed captions can still be manually applied using the ‘apply to CC’ button in the transcript editor after review/corrections are made.

See below an example of what a transcribed lecture with closed captions would look like:

Lecturecast player with both transcripts and closed captions showing

Lecturecast player with both transcripts and closed captions showing

 

Further information and detailed instructions are available on the ‘Transcripts and closed captions in Lecturecast (ASR)’ mini guide.

Please contact lecturecast@ucl.ac.uk with any questions.