Category Archives: Panopto

Welcome to new students (and welcome back to our returners) – some top tips on using our E-learning Systems

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Welcome to all our new students

We’d like to say hello to all new students and welcome back to those who are joining us again for another year. With the start of term approaching, we thought we’d provide you with some advice and top tips on using our E-learning systems. In this blogpost, we’ll be introducing our main services to you. E-learning support and advice is provided by the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit located in Information Services.

Here are some top tips to help you get started.

  • Use Chrome or Firefox to access our systems
  • Make sure you have your Aberystwyth username and password handy.
  • Over the next few weeks take time to familiarise yourself with these systems so that you are ready to use them

If you’ve got any queries regarding IT or library services, email is@aber.ac.uk or call 01970 62 2400.

Virtual Learning Environment

Blackboard Logo

Firstly, Blackboard is the University’s Virtual Learning Environment. You can access Blackboard by going to blackboard.aber.ac.uk. You’ll need your Aberystwyth Username and Password in order to login. Your language preference for using Blackboard is taken from your preferred language of choice in your student record (Welsh or English). Every module that you’re studying has its own Blackboard site. Here you’ll find materials that will support your learning and teaching.  In addition to this, you’ll be able to access your lecture recordings and submit your assignments electronically. You can navigate to the different areas of a module by clicking on the left-hand menu.

In addition to accessing your teaching materials, you might be asked by your lecturer to undertake some other activities in Blackboard such as tests or quizzes, wikis, blogs, or reflective journals. You’ll also have Departmental sites which will include important information regarding your assignments and further support that you might have.

E-submission

Turnitin logo

All text-based word-processed work will be submitted electronically whilst you’re here at Aberystwyth University via Blackboard. You’ll also receive your marks and feedback electronically as well. There are two different types of electronic submission available: Turnitin and Blackboard Assignment. We’ve got specific advice available on our FAQs for submitting via Turnitin and also via Blackboard Assignment. See below for some top tips on submitting your work electronically:

  • Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to submit your assignment before the deadline
  • Most of the work that you submit will be marked anonymously so don’t put your name on your assignment
  • Save and name your assignment as something meaningful to you
  • Double-check that you are submitting to the correct module
  • Check your emails after you’ve submitted to make sure you’ve got an email receipt
  • Give yourself time to read your feedback carefully after you’ve got your marks

Lecture Capture

Panopto logo

Aberystwyth University makes use of lecture capture software called Panopto. This means that you are able to access recordings from your lectures via Blackboard. There’s a great infographic by Nordmann et al (2018) on how best to make the use of lecture capture to support your learning. Their advice is summarised below:

Firstly, make sure you attend your lectures. Whilst lecture recordings are available for you, this is no replacement for being live at the teaching session. Here you’ll have opportunities to ask questions and also learn from your peers. Think of the lecture capture as supplementing the live teaching sessions. In your lectures, make sure that you make notes and attempt to summarise the discussions in your own words.

When watching the lectures back, be specific and go to the bits that you don’t understand or don’t remember. Don’t watch the lecture as a whole – you should ideally do this within a few days of the lecture taking place to see how much you do remember. Make sure you have your lecture notes handy so that you can add to them.

If you are unable to attend the lecture for valid reasons, make sure you watch the recording within a week so that you can keep up to date with the content – don’t binge watch at the end of the semester. If you are making use of the recording, make sure you watch it at its normal speed and don’t fast forward. Give the recording your full attention and don’t do other tasks such as the Go back to the bits that you don’t understanding and re-watch these sections.  You can find the full article online.

References

Nordmann, E., Kuepper-Tetzel, C. E., Robson, L., Phillipson, S., Lipan, G., & Mcgeorge, P. (2018). Lecture capture: Practical recommendations for students and lecturers. [online]. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/sd7u4. Last accessed: 03.10.2019.

Using Lecture Capture Effectively: Tips for staff and students

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In this blogpost we will be looking at how we can use lecture capture more effectively to enhance learning and knowledge retention. We will build on our previous blogpost Making use of the captioning and quiz function in Panopto.

The tips and discussion below are based on a paper being published this year by psychologists from Glasgow, Dundee, Sheffield and Aberdeen Universities, in collaboration with staff from IT Services at the University of Manchester. The paper, entitled ‘Lecture capture: Practical recommendations for students and lecturers’, is written within the context of self-regulated learning and offers guidance to students and staff on how to make the most out of lecture recordings. Aberystwyth University introduced its Lecture Capture Policy in 2016 following the introduction of Panopto in 2013. As lecture capture has increased across the UK Higher Education sector,[1] focus is now shifting on how it works with learning.

The article is available online and is split into 4 sections:

  1. Introduction
  2. Self-regulated learning as a theoretical framework for lecture capture implementation
  3. Recommendations for students
  4. Recommendations for staff

In addition to this, the authors of the study have created an infographic with their main findings aimed at students:

Normann et al, 2018.

The full infographic is available online.

The E-learning Group discussed this paper as part of their regular team training hour. Below are some of the points that we would like to highlight to staff and students:

  • Students should view recordings only as supplement to their learning and not as a replacement of attendance. Studies have found that attendance at the live session had a stronger relationship with the final grade with lecture capture being used to support learning.[2]
  • Introduce students to the Cornell note-taking system and encourage them to take notes during lectures. Note-taking enhances knowledge retention, but it is a cognitively demanding task therefore using strategies such as Cornell note-taking system can help students to make most of it. There’s a video introducing Cornell notes here.
  • Incorporate reviewing video recordings into ‘homework’ activities, encouraging them to go through their notes and re-watching only targeted sections of the recordings. Students should re-watch the lecture within a couple of days of attending the session, but not directly afterwards. Making a break between revising increases knowledge retention. Watching the recording in full makes it more likely for the concentration to be lost, therefore students should focus on the sections which they do not remember or understand and use the recording to improve the notes they took in the first place. They should review their notes whilst watching the recording.
  • If student misses a lecture it is advised that they watch the recording in full as soon as possible and then revisit the recording within a couple of days watching only targeted sections as described above. They should watch the recording in its normal speed and take notes during watching as they would do during a live session.
  • Make use of the active learning activities – these might include peer discussions, practise questions at the end of the session, in-class voting. Evidence shows that more of the interactive activities as more likely students will want to attend the lecture rather than watch the recording. Consider using quizzes in Panopto to test their knowledge or check whether they have understood the material: https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/index.php?id=2771

We’ll be embedding the tips from this reading into our forthcoming training sessions. We’ve got the following coming up

  • E-learning Enhanced: Using E-learning Tools for Revision Activities (27th March at 3pm in E3, E-learning Training Room)

You can book onto this session here.

We’re always on the look-out for guest bloggers so if you use Panopto in a particular way, why not drop us an email.

References

Credé, M., Roch, S.G., & Kieszczynka, U. M. (2010). Class attendance in college: A meta-analytic review of the relationship of class attendance with grades and student characteristics. Review of Educational Research, 80 (2), 272-295. https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0034654310362998

Newland, B. (2017). Lecture Capture in UK HE: A HeLF Survey Report. Heads of eLearning Forum, retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx0Bp7cZGLTPRUpPZ2NaaEpkb28/view

Nordmann, E., Kuepper-Tetzel, C. E., Robson, L., Phillipson, S., Lipan, G., & Mcgeorge, P. (2018). Lecture capture: Practical recommendations for students and lecturers. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/sd7u4

[1] Newland, 2017 reports that 86% of HEIs have lecture capture technology.

[2] See Credé, Roch and Kieszcynka (2010).

Making use of the captioning and quiz function in Panopto

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Panopto is the University’s Lecture Capture software. In summer 2018, Panopto moved to a cloud hosted environment which means that in addition to fewer instances of downtime, we also benefit from regular updates and enhancements to the software. Whilst using Panopto for lecture capture remains its primary function, we have also seen an increase in innovative uses from across the University, including using it to record assessments, using it in the creation of assignments and also in creating performances.

A scheduled Panopto update in December to version 6.0 saw the introduction of quizzes, captioning and better statistics so that you can see more information on how viewers are using your Panopto content. This blogpost is looking specifically at making use of the captioning functionality and also the use of quizzes (if you’d like more information on the increased functionality of statistics, see this blogpost and our FAQ).

Using the captioning function in Panopto

Although it’s not 100% accurate, you are able to import automatic captions for your recordings. To do this, go to the video in abercast.aber.ac.uk that you wish to get captions for and follow the guidance in this FAQ. In addition to providing transcripts for those who want to view the lecture, those who conduct interviews as part of their research or dissertation might also find the automatic captioning useful as a basis for transcription. If you’d like to record an interview, download Panopto, create a recording and import the caption.

Using the quiz function in Panopto

In addition to being able to caption recordings, Panopto now also has the ability to add quizzes so that viewers can interact with lecture recordings in a more meaningful way. There are currently three types of questions and the ability to stop a viewer progressing through the recording until they’ve answered the questions. You’ve also got the ability to download the results so that you can view progress. We see a massive increase in Panopto usage during exam time. From the end of term in December 2018 until the end of the examination period in January 2019, 768,594 minutes of recordings were viewed. This equates to 12810 hours or 534 days. Adding quizzes to Panopto recordings will mean that viewers will be able to test their knowledge as they’re watching. If you’re interested in using quizzes then we’ve got this FAQ and also this guide.

If you’ve got any questions about using captioning or quizzes in Panopto then get in touch (elearning@aber.ac.uk / 01970 62 2472). We’re also running an E-learning Enhanced Training session on Using E-learning Tools for Revision Activities on Wednesday 27th March at 3pm. You can book onto that course here.

Panopto Viewer Statistics

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To see who’s watching your Panopto videos, for how long, when, and which portions take a look at the statistics for your Panopto videos.

From September 2018 Panopto users with Creator access can see the number of views by date for a recording, the length of time a recording has been viewed, a list of users who have viewed the recording with the number of views they have made and the amount of minutes they have viewed, and a heat map, showing which points of a video viewers have engaged with for their Panopto videos.

Users can view the number of views per day, including unique visitors and minutes watched and viewer engagement with the video, check which users have viewed their video, how many times and for how long as well as downloading Excel reports of views per day, viewer engagement and top viewers.

To find and review the statistics for your Panopto videos see Faq 697 .

Note: Users can only access statistics for videos they have created or uploaded.

E-learning Support for Learning and Teaching Activities

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The E-learning Group hope you had an enjoyable break over holiday period. As we begin to enter into the examination period, we thought that it would be useful for us to identify what support is on offer for colleagues who provide administrative support for learning and teaching activities.

Our FAQ, What FAQs are useful for providing administrative support for E-learning systems?, might be a good starting point. This is a FAQ designed specifically to bring all our FAQs pertaining to administrative support together so that you are able to find an answer to your question as quickly as possible.

In addition to our FAQs, we also have E-learning Guides available on our webpages. These guides are designed to guide you through the entirety of a process from beginning to end and are useful for those who would like to gain an understanding for a whole process. We’re also happy to meet you face-to-face and of course we provide help and support over the phone and via email. We’re also happy to provide training to yourself and your colleagues. If you and your colleagues would like to request a training session, just get in touch. There may also be some training sessions that you will find useful. Our full training programme for 2018/19 can be found on our webpages.

elearning@aber.ac.uk

01970 62 2472

www.aber.ac.uk/en/is/it-services/elearning

E-learning Blog

 

Training and Support

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This year’s E-learning Training programme is well underway. You can book onto our training sessions via the CDSAP booking pages. This year, our training is split into 3 different levels so that the training that we are offering you meets your needs.

Our first level is E-learning Essentials. These sessions are aimed at people who have not used the systems before or who would like a refresher. A key aim of these sessions is to ensure that participants are able to adhere to the University’s policies. Whilst these sessions are technical, we ensure that there is always a view as to the pedagogical rationale surrounding them. Following this, our next level is E-learning Enhanced. The idea of these sessions is to begin to explore innovative ways in which you can use the E-learning software to support your learning and teaching. Our final level is E-learning Excellence. These sessions support the development of innovative approaches to technology-enhanced learning.

There are a couple of new sessions that we would like to draw your attention to:

  • What can I do with my Blackboard course? In this session, we will be looking at the interactive tools that can be used in Blackboard to enhance learning and teaching. There’s a special version of this session on 13th December specifically looking at how Blackboard can be used for Distance Learners.
  • Introduction to Skype for Business. This session will look at Skype for Business and how you can make use of it to create a virtual classroom. We will go through setting up the Skype for Business meeting and the interactive
  • Using Panopto for Assessments. Panopto is the University’s Lecture Capture Software. In addition to recording lectures, Panopto can also be used for assessments. This session will look at how you might use Panopto for student assessments.
  • Teaching with Mobile Devices. We will look at how you might use mobile devices in your teaching. As well as using mobile devices to teach, we will also look at ways in which you can use polling software to increase interactivity in your teaching sessions.

We’ll also be running sessions on the Component Marks Transfer tool that allows marks to automatically feed through from Blackboard into AStRA which may be of use to those who manage this process.

Our sessions are participatory and interactive. If you would prefer a one-on-one version of our sessions, or if you have any specific requirements, then please email elearning@aber.ac.uk.

Access to E3 Aber Academy has also changed. In order to access the E-learning Training Room, enter the Hugh Owen Building via the Language Labs on Level B. Proceed up the stairs until you reach Level E. You will need your Aber Card to swipe to let you in. E3, the E-learning Training Room, is just down the corridor on the right hand side.

Do you need assistance with Panopto?

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Panopto is the University’s Lecture Capture software and is installed on all teaching rooms across the University. In line with the Lecture Capture policy, all lectures require to be recorded using Panopto.

The recordings are widely used and greatly appreciated by our students. In order to ensure that recordings are of the highest possible quality and audio is successfully recorded, the E-learning Group offer the following support for using the software:

  • Panopto start-offs – a member of the E-learning Group will pop in to the teaching venue before the lecture and make sure all the settings are correct, it won’t take longer than 5 minutes
  • One-to-one consultations- we can meet you at a convenient place and time and give you brief training on using Panopto
  • FAQs – step-by step instructions with screenshots

We are happy to assist you with using Panopto in any way convenient for you.

Please contact us on #2472 or elearning@aber.ac.uk

Planning Downtime

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Downtime on the systems we rely on is never popular. Making the decision about when to take Blackboard out of service is one of the hardest parts of our job. Juggling the different areas of work at the University as well as making sure that all the relevant parties are consulted takes a lot of time. We try to avoid finishing maintenance on Fridays – it’s best that problems don’t emerge over the weekend when support staff aren’t here. Equally, we don’t do work during University closed periods (it’s hard to seek assistance from software companies as they’re often on holiday too).

We try to fix a date – we crosscheck with other commitments at team, departmental and University level. There are times we have to avoid – any time during teaching (including the PGCE students who start earlier and finish later than others, as well as those doing Distance Learner or Lifelong Learning Courses). Also, any time that students need to revise or Blackboard is needed for exam purposes is out.  Once we think we’ve found a suitable date, we ask a smaller group of individuals what they think – Faculty Registars, Senior Managers, Academic Registry and other key contacts. If they spot a problem then we begin again.

When the date is confirmed, we begin advertising the downtime. We will always put a message on a banner in Blackboard, use the Weekly Email and Information Services’ Twitter and Facebook accounts.

So we don’t organise into Blackboard downtime lightly. We ask people, we tell people, we plan it and we do our best to minimise its impact. We don’t always get it right for everyone, but we do our very best to balance all the competing demands of a complex institution.