Big brother or harbinger of best practice: can lecture capture actually improve teaching?

Lecture capture is used increasingly in the UK, and has become a normal feature of higher education. Most studies on the impact of lecture capture have focused on benefits to student learning, the flipped classroom or student non-attendance at lectures following its introduction. It is less clear how the use of lecture capture has impacted on lecturers’ own academic practice. In this study, we use a mixed-methods approach to explore the impact of this intrusive yet invisible technology on the quality of teaching. We have mapped our findings to the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF). In doing so, our data paints a mixed picture of lecture capture’s Janus-faced reality. On the one hand, it enhances lecturer self-awareness, planning and conscious ‘performance’; on theother hand, it crushes spontaneity, impairs interaction and breeds wariness through constant surveillance. While the Teaching Excellence Framework rewards institutions for providing state-of the-art technology and lecture recording systems, our findings pose awkward questions as to whether lecture capture is making teaching more bland and instrumental, albeit neatly aligned todimensions of the UKPSF. We provide contradictory evidence about lecture capture technology, embraced by students, yet tentatively adopted by most academics. The implications of our study are not straightforward, except to proceed with caution, valuing the benefits but ensuring that learningis not dehumanised through blind acceptance at the moment we press the record button.