We recommend pre-recording lectures and using class time for question/answer sessions, working example problems, and other interactions with students. It's possible that the students internet connection bandwidth and stability might cause interruptions during "live" lectures that could lead to them missing pertinent information. However, this is only a recommendation and you may proceed in any way that best enables your students learning. Below are some resources and tips for both pre-recording lectures with screencast software as well as hosting live lectures with Zoom.
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Captioning Accommodations
If you have deaf or hard-of-hearing student in your class, there is a captioning department on campus that transcribes materials such as videos and podcasts. To get this material captioned you will need to fill out a request form (found on their website: https://captioning.lib.utexas.edu/ ). You should let them know that this is for a Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing individual and an ADA request. They prioritize these requests and there will be no cost to your department. Please keep in mind that their turnaround is between 2-5 business days.
If you consider uploading your videos to YouTube as several of us do, you can use their speech recognition technology to automatically closed caption your videos.
Live remote lectures with Zoom
If you choose to perform "live" remote lectures via Zoom, consider requiring your students to have video cameras turned on (obviously special cases should be accommodated) to assist with engagement. There is also a setting called "Attention tracking" that allows the meeting host see an indicator in the participant panel if a meeting/webinar attendee does not have Zoom in focus during screen sharing. This is accessed from the web interface https://utexas.zoom.us then Settings → In Meeting (advanced) → Attention tracking.
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- Logging into The University of Texas Zoom web interface
- Scheduling a meeting from the Zoom web interface
- Scheduling a Zoom meeting from Canvas
- Using the Zoom Desktop Application to launch a meeting
- External Resources
- Zoom Help Center
- Using a mobile phone as a document camera
Recording students
Another reason for the recommendation to pre-record lectures are the legal and ethical issues associated with recording your students participation in a virtual lecture. We understand that you must have their consent to record them. You are not allowed to record students for general dissemination without their formal consent. There is a setting in Zoom that can ask students for consent when entering a Zoom session that is being recorded; however, the legalities of dissemination of the recording outside UT/Canvas is unclear.
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