The truth of the lecture recording matter is opaque. Both sides are correct and almost mutually exclusive. The best answer is, admittedly, ambiguous and disappointing.
Proponents of mandatory lecture recordings tout that they are a right of students in a college committed to diversity equity and inclusion. In contrast, others cry that they restrict academic freedom, are anti-worker, and promote social division.
Both sides have legitimate concerns that remain almost irreconcilable, and the most equitable solution is a bit of a split-baby. Lecture recording should remain voluntary (with the exception for students with accessibility requirements to record lectures themselves, as currently exists), established guidelines for their use, re-use, storage, and dissemination, and a ban of their use during industrial action.
It’s hard to deny the obvious benefits of recorded lectures. The last decade has championed understanding of the ways different students learn. Classic lecture formats may appeal to auditory learners, while kinesthetic or visual learners may be left behind. Moreover, with recorded lectures, students can look back on material leading up to exams or assignments. Furthermore, those with diagnosed learning disabilities, hearing impairments, or other disabilities should not be denied an equitable solution to barriers they may faultlessly face in education. Though, they are entitled to record lectures themselves (or generate captions/transcripts) with a valid LENS report. However, such students are not entitled to distribute recordings on a mass scale.
Those who work, are ill, or have caregiving responsibilities also benefit. 20% of students (about 3700) live more than 10km from campus (think: Dublin Airport), with 6% (about 1100 students) living 25km+ from college (think: further than Maynooth). The expectation that such students will be able to commute to Trinity daily is a demanding one, and the current housing crisis in Dublin city-centre is likely to make this number go up.
However, the above points (and more) are well-known and have been more eloquently articulated by a plethora of distinguished student activists and impressive accessibility initiatives. The argument against lecture recordings is more nuanced and less well-understood.
Lecture recordings pose a legitimate danger to the academic freedom of lecturers. The social media sphere mercilessly condenses, over-simplifies, and denigrates. Lecturers, under recorded conditions, know that anything can be taken out of context. When culturally relevant and contentious topics arise, as they often do in college (and especially the arts), lecturers should not feel like they have to self-censor. There is a protocol for professors breaking conduct requirements or behaving offensively– that is not in contention. But it is not only intuitively but objectively true that lectures under the threat of video documentation and mass distribution are more likely to shy away from controversial or experimental ideas for fear of misinterpretation or public backlash. With specific reference to the dangers posed by mandatory lecture recordings, the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) underscored the rights guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union that “The arts and scientific research shall be free of constraint. Academic freedom shall be respected.”
Beyond censorship, recorded lectures pose a threat to lecturers’s rights as workers. These dangers were expressed by the IFUT, and fall into the categories of covert monitoring, strike action circumvention, and uncompensated undue professional burden.
If lecture recordings are common practice, college has the ability to covertly monitor lecturer performance and “teaching quality.” Lecturers have the right to know when and how they are being monitored. The possibility of covert monitoring is clearly out of line with university best practices agreed upon by college and IFUT (among other staff organising bodies) regarding performance review. The possibility for this monitoring has been largely unaddressed by proponents of mandatory lecture recordings. Furthermore, there is no written guarantee to lecturers regarding the use of recorded materials by college, or enforcement mechanisms against improper use. Lecturers are not protected from being misrepresented or unjustly monitored.
Even more troubling is the possibility of previously recorded lectures being used to circumvent strike action. This is not a call from nowhere. In March of 2018, the University of Edinburgh used old recordings of lectures to keep classes going to break the ongoing strike over pensions. This possibility raises serious concerns about the ill-defined rights lecturers have over their own material. Mandatory lecture recordings pose a serious threat to the leverage lecturers have against college if not dealt with properly. There is currently no legal precedent regarding intellectual property rights of lecture recordings (i.e., to college or lecturers themselves). Until this is resolved, there can be no guarantee of protection for lecturers from anti-strike action by college.
It is also not a minor task to record a lecture. Digitising, organising, dealing with technical issues, uploading, and constant platform changes require labour. Or else, if mistakes are made, lectures have to be entirely re-recorded. Video files take significant portions of time to render and download. It is also plainly obvious the use of any centralised institutional digital platform is frustrating and agonizing. The labour and time investment in both training for and the every-day use of lecture recordings has not been met with corresponding wage compensation or time allowances.
There is also something to be said about the kind of culture bred from mass remote learning. This is not to say that lecture recording necessarily entails lower attendance or participation, but it is a worthy consideration. Over COVID 71% of students in Ireland rated their education “fair” “poor” or “very poor”. Classroom communities, how learning is done, and social capital are all important aspects and benefits of Trinity College. The experience of being in a lecture is just not comparable to watching one on a screen. People can make their own choices, and students are self-determined and can make their own choices about leaving their homes, but recorded lectures do intrinsically disincentivise physically being on campus. This has social and emotional consequences. The identification of this simple fact is not intended to paternalistically insinuate that the option of recorded lectures entails an empty campus with students holed up in their rooms, however, it is important to express that the issue is not simple.
Lecture recordings will not stop being contentious, and there is no undeniable correct answer. Lecturers are also self-determined individuals who did not go into academia to make student’s lives unnecessarily difficult or inhibit the quality of their education. We should trust lecturers to make a voluntary and informed choice to record or publish lecture recordings. However, the existing right of students registered with disabilities to record lectures themselves should stand. The greatest and most immediately necessary change is guidelines and best practices for the use, distribution, and property rights of recordings. The process to establish such guidelines should occur expeditiously. Lecturers and students deserve better.
Making lecture recordings mandatory is hasty, dangerous, and ill-conceived.
