Abstract:

We will present five years worth of institution-wide research evidence on the impact of a Lecture Capture System (LCS) at our university. Data regarding both student and faculty usage and attitudes toward LCSs, along with key academic indicators (e.g., grades and retention), will be presented.

In the last few years there has been a significant rise in both the development and use of Lecture Capture Systems (LCS) in the educational marketplace. While there are numerous technical distinctions among these various LCS technologies presently available, most of these tend to have certain common features: including the ability to capture a live lecture in a manner that integrates voice, video, and other media into a synthesized digital recording. This recording allows for the lecture material to be delivered in either a synchronous f2f manner or an asynchronous online process.

Educational institutions are attracted to LCS technologies principally due to their potential to address key academic variables such as retention, attendance, graduation, and academic performance. However, there is little empirical evidence available on the impact of a LCS on these variables. Our institution was an Early Adoptor of a LCS, and we quickly integrated it into the standard set of technologies available to faculty. We will discuss our experience with the use of a LCS, including our rationale for adopting this technology and how the academic outcomes have exceeded our expectations. The issue of the costs and benefits of adopting this technology for the various parts of an institution’s instructional sectors will be addressed.

This presentation will highlight data obtained from a five year study which evaluated the efficacy of a particular LCS technology at a mid-sized Historically Black College/University (HBCU) in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Like all educational institutions, students’ performance and retention is of grave concern to us. In our study, the use of a LCS was associated with statistically significant improvement in student success across all course delivery modalities. Furthermore, students report that pre-semester training in the use of this instructional technology was positively related to these and other key variables.

Our analysis of academic indices for several thousand students across five years show that key educational variables (e.g., grades and retention) are related to the usage of our LCS. These patterns were consistently found across course delivery formats. Furthermore, we have identified moderating variables that students and faculty report as being integral in their effective use of this technology. This presentation will help inform educational institutions as to the merits of incorporating a LCS into their IT repertoire. In addition it will assist them in developing their own research program to evaluate the efficacy of this technology at their institution.

Keywords:

Lecture Capture Systems.