As members will be aware, the university is proposing to introduce a new policy on audio-video recording  (lecture capture) and has consulted UCU on its contents.

Many thanks to those members who responded to our request for feedback: you can find a summary of feedback here. As you can see, a range of views were expressed and the feedback was really helpful to help us understand the wider implications of the policy changes and the attitudes of members towards it.

Many thanks also to those who attended our General Meeting on 12th May. We took all the feedback we received, the motion that was passed at the General Meeting along with advice from national head office, and compiled a document to send to the university – you will probably need to read in alongside the original proposed draft.

Broadly speaking, our position is that we support drives towards inclusive education and particularly appropriate support for disabled students, and we recognise that many staff consider lecture capture to be a useful part of their pedagogy. However, we have significant concerns about the misuse of lecture capture for performance management or for replacing staff, and we know that many staff have pedagogic reservations about lecture capture (which should be respected as part of their academic freedom) and others have particular reasons why they are not willing to be recorded, and we consider that both of those sets of concerns need to be respected.

The University has now let us know that they will be amending the draft proposal in the light of our comments, and we are hopeful that some of our concerns will be addressed.

We have not yet seen, and therefore not agreed, any new draft and will be in touch to let you know what we think of it. We suspect that it will be an improvement but that some of our concerns may remain unaddressed.

This amended proposal will then be consulted on by the University, with staff and through the Learning and Teaching Committee structures.

Please engage with those consultations and, if you sit on School or Faculty Learning and Teaching Committees, make sure that the policy is discussed and make your views known. There is a lot going on and these kinds of things can get buried in meeting documents, but this is a really important policy for everyone.