The ACU Lecture Capture Enhancement Project Team has been recognised with a Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for their work to introduce lecture capture technology across the University.

The cross-collaborative team comprises members from the Learning and Teaching Centre, Student Administration and IT, and includes Michael Sobek, Paul Wagner, Nik Linnell, Adrian Lemus and former staff members Cyntia Franco and Cecelia Hollis-Jones.

The project was implemented under the banner of ACU Learning for Life.

The Excellence in Student Experience Award is granted to individuals and teams who have shown the highest level of service to students and outstanding achievement in the support of the student experience.

The ACU Lecture Capture Enhancement Project was initiated in 2015, and was prompted by student feedback and the University’s commitment to Learning for Life.

The enterprise-wide adoption of lecture capture at ACU was considered an essential element of improving students’ learning experience.

"The whole project really recognised that there’s a changing environment in the tertiary education sector,” Nik said.  ”Students want to be able to access content in a variety of modes.”

To date the team, with the assistance of IT Service Delivery, has installed and upgraded approximately 400 learning and teaching spaces across seven ACU campuses. An average of 275 lectures are captured each day, with recordings made available to students within 24 hours.

"“What has made this project special in my mind is how different divisions have worked together to achieve this outcome,” Michael said.

Ms Cyntia Franco, Mr Michael Sobek, Mr Nik Linnell, Mr Adrian Lemus and Mr Paul Wagner

The project’s success required collaboration from a range of areas across the University, including Student Administration, the Learning and Teaching Centre, Properties and Facilities, Information Technology and Human Resources, along with external software vendors.

While the project has helped to improve the student experience at ACU, Nik said one of the unexpected benefits of the initiative was providing academics with the ability to look at their quality of teaching.

Since rolling out lecture capture across ACU, Michael said the team has received contact from other universities asking about the project.

"At the moment, we’re an industry leader in this space in Australia,” Michael said.

"Nik added: “There’s a lot of interest in how we achieved this outcome. So it’s not just a great result for ACU, but across the sector people are looking at the work we’ve done when considering how they can implement it at their own universities.”

And the team aren’t stopping there, with the next phase of the project to deliver greater automation, making the system even simpler to use, and providing greater opportunities for student engagement.

Visit the lecture capture web page to learn more about the project.