Report an Unrecorded Lecture

All lectures at UniMelb must be recorded. There are two exceptions:

• where the lecture theatre or venue itself doesn’t have lecture capture technology (see here); or
• the lecturer has “opted out” in writing with the approval of the Faculty’s Associate Dean (Teaching & Learning).

This was a decision made by Academic Board in 2013 thanks to consistent activism by previous UMSU representatives.

You can access the current policy in all its glory here (you’ll need to log in with your student details, as you would log into my.unimelb).

Is my class a lecture?

In short, lecturing is “teaching by telling”, where an instructor delivers information to students, sometimes with the aid of visual information, to a classroom of students.

Importantly, a lecture can be interactive, but interactivity is not the substantial or predominant mode of instruction. How content is delivered is through the lecturer speaking to the students, usually supported by visual aids (like slides). Students take notes and ask or answer questions (when prompted, or of their own volition).

When can a lecturer opt-out?

In brief, there are only three reasons a lecturer can opt-out of automatic lecture capture:

• The class is an active learning session, making substantial use of questions and answers, discussions, and similar. Again, this must be the substantial or predominant way content is delivered. In this case, the reason for exemption is because of the impracticality of recording discussion.
• The scheduled time is being used for assessment (eg, an in-class test).
• A visitor or guest is delivering the lecture and doesn’t want to be recorded.

We help make sure that the University is only exempting lectures that should be exempted. If your lecture is not recorded, and either it’s not exempt or you think the exemption isn’t for the reasons above, let us know.

My lecture isn’t recorded. Help!?

Fill in the form below! Simple.

It’s important you tell us what the lecturer’s said about lectures not being recorded. If they haven’t said why it’s a good idea to ask them in an email first. If you’re not comfortable doing that, email us at EducationAcademic@union.unimelb.edu.au.

Then, why’ll we’re handling it, do a review in the Counter Course Handbook! That helps us let other students know when lecturers aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be.