Educational Video Policy Guidance for Staff

About this Guidance

This guidance will help you apply UAL’s Educational Video (EV) Policy (Canvas login required) to support student learning. Links to resources on how to create, edit, and share EV are provided where relevant.

About Educational Video

Educational Videos (EVs) are videos used to support student learning. EVs include lecture recordings, tutorials, assignment briefs, demonstrations, and giving feedback. This guidance:

applies to all forms of video recording for teaching and learning purposes.
supports an institution-wide approach to providing pre-recorded and in-session EV material, in person and online.
applies to all UAL staff and students engaged in supporting learning and teaching and should be read in conjunction with the Educational Video Policy (Canvas login required).

Guiding principles

The use of EV in education is most effective when students feel valued, supported, respected and included. To this end we encourage the use of compassionate principles to help staff and students feel safe when engaging in open, critical and challenging discussions by:

promoting agency and collective decision-making
nurturing a culture of trust and respect
protecting emotional, cognitive and interpersonal safety.

These guidelines outline five core areas for consideration:

Negotiate boundaries through respectful conversations: What elements are to be recorded? What are the opt out options?
Acknowledge purpose: What and how will the video be used, shared or reused?
Gain consent: Consent is non-judgemental, and editing is permitted to remain within consent granted.
Respect and protect: Consideration for UAL’s policies on Intellectual Property, Equality, Disability and Inclusivity, Performance Management, personal health and wellbeing.
Be Accountable: Respond promptly to complaints or requests to removal of recordings.

Negotiating boundaries

Before starting an EV recording, discuss with students what will be recorded and who it will be shared with (this includes the whole video, parts of it, or screen grabs). Addressing student concerns beforehand can help build trust and support students’ sense of safety by enabling them to take informed decisions about their level of participation.

What should be recorded?

Record as much as possible so students unable to attend can catch up and those who did attend can review and consolidate their learning.
Give students opportunity to opt out of being recorded (unless it is a mandatory part of assessment). This can be done
- In advance; e.g., by providing designated areas in the classroom away from cameras or by having their cameras turned off when online
- During a teaching session by giving students permission to turn their cameras and microphones off.
- Afterwards; e.g. by editing out part of the recording where students are present
To alert students of potentially distressing content, include a warning and the exact time in the video when it appears
In class, there may be discussions that are sensitive or personal in nature. If you think certain parts shouldn’t be heard again, you can stop recording or remove those sections before sharing the recording. Talk to your students to explain why certain parts may not be available for review.
Sessions such as those primarily involving group discussion may be unsuitable for recording. Negotiate this with your students and consider alternative approaches, for example providing a session summary as a short video

Acknowledge Purpose

Be clear on why you are making a recording of the session and discuss with your students how they can use it to further support their learning. Talk to your students about the importance of respecting everyone’s right to safe learning spaces. Remind them of their responsibilities in terms of downloading and only using the EV for their personal, educational use within the agreed boundaries.

Who can I share my recordings with?

As a member of staff, you have control over who you share your recordings with which will depend on the purpose of the EV:

EV recreated each academic cycle such as timetabled teaching sessions should only be shared with the relevant academic group or cohort.
Where appropriate consent has been obtained, EV can be shared across courses or student cohorts where necessary.
Where appropriate, recordings can be shared publicly. For example: guest lectures. These should be agreed in advance with the Programme Director and with consent from external contributors or participants.

How to guides:

How long should EVs be kept available?

As the member of staff who created the video, you have agency to remove EV at any time, subject to the EV retention policy:

EV created within each academic cycle will normally be retained for the current and the preceding academic year.
Content with more long-term uses such as technical demonstration videos can be kept as long as required. Panopto is the recommended platform for longer-term retention of EV content.

How-to guides:

How can I reuse my recordings?

Teaching delivered with each academic cycle should be recorded new with each delivery. If recordings from previous academic cycles are to be reused, check all information is still valid and correct.

Gain Consent

Obtaining consent is fundamental to a culture of trust and respect. Make sure you inform everyone in the original recording of the new purpose, audience, retention period and gain their consent before reuse. If consent is not granted, edit out their contributions before publishing.

What if I can’t contact the original participants?

If anyone present in the original recording has left UAL, review the rational for reusing the EV against the compassionate principles to ensure trust, safety and respect for all concerned is maintained. Where necessary, consult with your Course or Programme Director.

Respect and Protect

Those creating and using EV should respect the rights, safety and well-being of individuals.

Intellectual Property: Sharing and reusing EV should not infringe anybody’s IP. Please refer to UAL’s IP policy for information relating to staff, students and guest providing services to UAL.
Equality, Disability and Inclusivity: To comply with accessibility regulations EV must have closed captions. These may be auto-generated, but critical information (e.g. assessment information) must be checked to ensure accuracy. Alternative formats should be provided to support individual needs of students.
Performance Management: EV is a valuable tool to support staff in reflecting on their teaching as part of their professional development. EV cannot be used for performance management purposes outside of UAL’s Performance Improvement Policy.
Teaching and Learning Provision: EV is a recognised approach to ‘flipped’ teaching. Providing students with presentations, lecture material and other content in advance of the scheduled teaching time means scheduled class time can be used to deepen understanding through practice, activities and discussion. EV is intended to support and enhance student learning, and should not be used as a replacement for timetabled teaching.
Student health and wellbeing: Live engagement with tutors and peers can help develop students’ sense of belonging and enrich their educational and social experiences. Students should be discouraged from depending on EV as a means of balancing their studies with other commitments. Discuss with your students the benefits of attending live teaching sessions and how to integrate EV into their strategies for independent learning and well-being.

How-to guide:

Edit Panopto captions

Be Accountable

Following this guidance should mitigate concerns about how EV is created and used. Content that is inappropriate, defamatory, offensive, in breach of IP, Data Protection, or Equality legislation must be removed or deleted.

What should I do if a student requests removal of an EV?

Respond and take actions in a timely manner.
Listen with respect and without judgement and agree any action.
Discuss alternatives to removing the whole EV which may have educational value to the wider cohort, such as editing out specific sections, limiting access to the EV, or addressing concerns in class

Useful links

Contacts

For further guidance on the effective use of EV to support student learning and EV related platforms, contact your local digital learning team or submit a ticket to Digital Learning Support on MySupport.

Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon: ccw-digitallearning@arts.ac.uk
Central Saint Martins: csmdigitallearning@arts.ac.uk
London College of Communication: lccdigitallearning@lcc.arts.ac.uk
London College of Fashion: lcf-digitallearning@arts.ac.uk
Creative Computing Institute: cci.digitallearning@arts.ac.uk