Hi Pete,



Our general (informal) conclusion was that there was no link. We found that lecture capture had a negligible impact on attendance (~1% difference between attending and non-attending students where a recording was available), with students who attended teaching events having slightly higher use of lecture capture than non-attending students. Those who failed to attend the lecture also failed to listen to the lecture recording (where available). This was taking university-wide use of lecture capture and attendance for 2015/16 and approx. 7,000 students.



Whilst we’ve published no formal research of our own. We did dig out other recent research on the subject:



“In general, access to recorded lectures has little to no effect on student attendance at live lectures (Von Konsky et al. 2009; Holbrook & Dupont, 2009; Pursel & Fang, 2012). However, some studies have found that recorded lectures do seem to have a slight negative effect on lecture attendance (Gorissen et al. 2012), which may be explained by natural declines in student attendance over time, the maturity of students, and inability to attend live lectures due to disability.“

- http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/50929/1/Karnad_Student_use_recorded_2013_author.pdf 



“We have also analysed the impact of lecture capture on students’ attendance at scheduled teaching sessions.  Whilst there are some local exceptions, the overall picture is that lecture capture does not affect students’ attendance at lectures, which I am sure will be welcome news to academic colleagues.”

- http://www.leeds.ac.uk/forstaff/news/article/4919/my_week-12_october_2015-professor_neil_morris 



“In fact, whether or not a lecture is recorded seems to have no impact on student attendance at lectures. The vast majority of Oxford lecturers interviewed noted that there was no change in the number of students attending their lectures after they began recording them.”

- http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/lecture-capture/2015/09/14/worried-about-student-attendance/ 



“But analysis of attendance figures revealed that lectures on a programming module, edited highlights of which were put online, had higher average attendance – 86 per cent – compared with a databases course, where highlights were not put online. The average attendance for the databases module, which was taken by the same cohort over the same semesters, was 81 per cent.”

- https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/videoing-lectures-has-no-impact-attendance-says-study 





People are very keen to point the finger at lecture capture when looking at low-attendance figures, and it’s not helpful that both staff and students are saying that the availability of lecture capture is a contributing factor. However, the data seems to prove that lecture capture isn’t the sole or main contributing factor to low attendance. Anecdotally, our students have said that they rely on lecture capture rather than attending the lecture when the lecture is inconveniently timed (4pm Friday), the lecturer is unengaging (PowerPoint karaoke), or the module has minimal supporting materials available elsewhere (eg. within VLE); and eyeballing the data seems to support this.





Best,

Ben



-----Original Message-----

From: Peter Bowcott [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 

Sent: 12 October 2017 16:30

To: [log in to unmask]; Steeples, Ben <[log in to unmask]>

Cc: Peter Bowcott <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: "But it discourages students from taking part!"



Ben,



could you please point me to the work you did 'after we disproved lecture capture’s impact on attendance' I have asked people who have said that it would have a negative impact on attendance to show me their research ... as I can't find any ... so to actual have some that proves that it doesn't would be very useful.



Pete