Principles for recording classroom activities (“class recordings”)

September 2021. Prepared by; Simon Bates, Brad Wuetherick, Christina Hendricks, Paul Hancock

Implications for faculty: recording classes is a matter of instructor choice, but if you do so there

are implications to notify students and (potentially) seek consent, depending on how you

intend to distribute the recording. Recordings are the IP of the person presenting in the

recording (usually the instructor).

Implications for students: where recording of classes are made available, they are generally for

your academic purpose within that particular course, and must not be shared or copied without

explicit permission of the instructor. They offer flexibility in ways you can review material, but

are not intended as a substitute for regular attendance.

Preamble

For the purposes of this document, class recording is defined as the recording of lectures and /

or other live classroom activities. Class recordings may include audio or video of instructors

and/or students, as well as digital materials projected on a screen such as PowerPoint slides.

They may involve contributions from third parties beyond the teaching team (e.g. guest

lecturers and / or students).

Class recording may be accomplished using a variety of different equipment. UBC has significant

in-room recording and streaming capabilities in teaching spaces, as well as provisioned mobile

recording kits for other locations. using their own equipment (e.g. using Zoom to record slides

and audio during a class meeting).

Class recording can be a valuable component of the design and delivery of a course: it provides

flexibility for students, together with the opportunity to review materials after the class or for

study purposes; it can also provide greater accessibility of learning materials in a course (e.g.

through automated closed captioning, which is possible in Zoom, Kaltura, and Panopto). It is

not generally a replacement for regular attendance at in-person sessions, though can offer a

way to ‘catch up’ on the odd missed class.

Some programs / units have implemented requirements around class recordings. In other

cases, whether and how a class is recorded is a matter of instructor choice. Notwithstanding

the flexibility and benefits for students, instructors may have valid reasons for not wanting to

record lectures or other classes, including (but not limited to) the nature of the material and

discussion topics (and how recording may constrain these), or workload considerations.

The following principles are proposed to inform and guide class recordings. This document

focusses mainly on class recordings by instructors; for recordings by students, refer to

paragraphs 14 and 15.

Intellectual property, privacy and consent

1. Recordings made of lectures and other classroom activities are usually considered to be the

intellectual property (‘IP’) of the instructor who makes those recordings. However, if the

recording includes presentations made by guest presenters (including student presenters),

they own the copyright in these presentations. Permission to record this copyrighted

material is granted through a combination of notification and consent (see paragraphs 6-9

below).

2. It is important to keep in mind that the recordings may contain third party copyrighted

material. For example, presentation slides may contain images that are copyrighted by third

parties. Also, Permission to include excerpts of copyrighted material is generally granted by

the “fair dealing” exception in the Copyright Act. See the UBC Copyright Website for more

information.

3. Individuals appearing in class recordings also have a right to privacy under the Freedom of

Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Permission to disclose personal information is

generally granted through a combination of notification and consent (see paragraphs 6-9

below).

4. Reuse or revision of recordings requires permission from the IP owner, unless:

a. the recording is licensed with an open license that permits reuse (e.g. Creative

Commons), or

b. there is other permission to reuse indicated in the recording

5. Classroom recordings would not fall under the provisions of UBC Teaching Materials Policy

(LR12)

Notification/consent of students and third parties

6. Students must be notified that the class will be recorded and how they plan to distribute

the recordings. Ideally, such notification will be in writing (for example, in the course

syllabus) but it is acceptable to provide oral notification before the recording starts.

7. Wherever possible, students should also be given the option to sit where their image will

not be recorded (in the case of recording of in person session) or turn off their cameras

(online session).

8. Students are not required to sign a consent form if the recording is only made available

through Canvas to other students enrolled in the same course instance. However, if the

instructor wishes to make a recording more widely available (e.g. by posting it openly on

YouTube or making it available to another class, or a subsequent year of the same class),

then the students who appear in that recording should be asked to sign a consent for use of

image form that specifies how the recording will be used and disclosed. If they do not wish

to sign this form, their images must be removed or obscured before the recording is posted.

9. Guest lecturers must always be notified that the class will be recorded and must always sign

a consent for use of image form to provide a license for the recording of their presentation,

and to address privacy concerns. Here is an example of a form for use by a visiting speaker.

Storage and distribution of class recordings

10. Normally, recordings must be stored in a secure location, either on a UBC-maintained server

or in a secure (Canadian) cloud service that has received approval under a UBC Privacy

Impact Assessment (PIA). It is acceptable to store recordings on UBC’s instances of Zoom,

Kaltura, or Panopto, which have received PIA approval. If instructors want to store or

distribute recordings in a publicly accessible system such as YouTube, they must secure

consent from all students who appear in the recording, as outlined above.

11. It is recommended to distribute recordings via Canvas, such that only students enrolled in

the course during the same term as the course recording can access them, as this is the

least privacy-intrusive option. Please see instructions for setting up and recording a Zoom

section through Canvas, and instructions on recording and/or uploading through Kaltura for

sharing in Canvas.

Analytics and data from class recordings

12. Analytics on recording views or other such metrics cannot be used to evaluate the

instructor’s teaching. The instructor may choose to use this information in a teaching

dossier but is not be required to do so.

13. Data about student use of class recordings is considered Learning Data and can be used /

accessed in accordance with principles and procedures established by the Learning Data

Committee.

Class recording by students

14. Students who wish to record a lecture themselves must seek permission to do so, either

from the instructor or through the academic accommodation process. If a student is

permitted to create a personal recording of a class, the instructor should notify other

students in the class that a recording of the class is being made together with what will be

recorded, without revealing the individual making the recording. Such recordings are made

for personal academic use, and are not for distribution (within or beyond the course),

uploading to third-party content sharing services (e.g. CourseHero) or copying without

explicit permission of the instructor (and/or others who own the copyright in the recording).

15. Similarly, recordings made available through Canvas (or other system where there is a

defined cohort of students with permissions to view the material) must not be distributed

beyond the course or reposted elsewhere, without the explicit permission of the instructor