Conferencing and lecture capture tools, like Zoom and Panopto, are powerful tools for engaging participants in your content. Students may find it helpful to refer to previous lectures, or to create an archive of group discussions. Because these tools can be used to stream, reproduce, and record content, hosts and creators should be aware of their responsibilities under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Intellectual Property laws, and accessibility requirements.
Guidelines for Using Conferencing and Lecture Capture Tools
Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
If you are using Zoom or Panopto to record in a classroom setting (in-person, hybrid, or virtual), the recording of students is considered an educational record under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, also known as FERPA. As a result, these may not be disclosed outside of your class roster. Additional FERPA information can be found on the Office of the Registrar’s website, under their page FERPA Basics.
For FERPA compliance, if you intend to record classroom sessions:
- Recordings that include an instructor are not subject to FERPA guidelines. Instructor-only recordings may be reused by the instructor as they wish.
- Ensure that you are providing an equitable educational experience for all students. It is essential that students who do not want to appear in a recording have the same experience as students willing to be recorded. If a student does not want to be on camera, they should not feel like they need to refrain from asking questions, feature themselves in a recording as a part of an assignment, or sit or position themselves in an area where the camera is the least likely to record them.
- Refrain from showing or recording students in an identifiable way, even if it is inadvertent. This will immediately constitute an educational record protected under FERPA.
- Should students appear, or be identified, in a recording, the video can only be viewable by those who are enrolled in that specific course. As long as the viewing audience is restricted to this group, no additional student consent is required for this use of educational record
- If students will be watching a video where students are identified, the syllabus must inform students that they cannot capture, copy, or share the recording(s) in any way, shape, or form. This is a serious violation and will lead to disciplinary actions
- If you plan to use this recording outside of your course, even if you are teaching the same course in a future semester, you must either 1) blur or cut out any portions of the video identifying a student, and distort student voices or 2) have students sign a consent form. A sample consent form is included in the attachment section of this article, entitled Sample Lecture Capture Consent Form.
- In your syllabus, inform your students that your class may be recorded, along with an explanation of why it will be recorded and who can review it. It is also courteous to remind your students, verbally, that your class will be recorded. For example:
Meetings of this course might be recorded. Any recordings will be available to students registered for this class. This is intended to supplement the classroom experience. Students are expected to follow appropriate university policies pertaining to access of this content. Recordings may not be reproduced, shared with those who are not enrolled in this class, or uploaded to social media/other online platforms. If the instructor plans any other uses for the recording(s) outside this class, students will be notified to request consent prior to such use.
Intellectual Property
Even when content is stored in university tools, all university and Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) policies regarding intellectual property are enforced. Refer to UNLV's Intellectual Property Policy.
Responsible Use of Tools
Tools provided to hosts and creator's primary purpose is to provide UNLV staff and students a place to connect, record, and access appropriate materials pertaining to Instructional, Educational Purposes Only. As a host or creator, you are responsible for all meetings hosted with your Zoom account and all content you upload and record into your Panopto account.
Inappropriate uses of Panopto include, but are not limited to:
- Utilizing storage space for personal videos, productions, or other materials not related to a course. Keep in mind that excessive use can be subject to investigation. Please use Google Drive, a portable hard drive, or an alternate source for excess video storage
- Using Panopto with non-enrolled UNLV students or non-UNLV students/community members
- Having someone else log in to your account to record for you
- Storing or utilizing materials that violate copyright laws and fair use guidelines. Please see UNLV's policy on Copyright and Fair Use
Captioning and Accessibility
We highly recommend UNLV instructors who create content add captioning to their videos once recording is complete. Captioning not only provides assistance to those who need it, but it also allows content to be fully searchable.
While captioning is a recommended practice, it becomes required if your class/session meets any of the following requirements:
- A person in class has requested accommodation
- The video or content is intended to be released to the public
- The video or content will be repeated in a future course
Panopto offers free, automatic speech recognition (ASR) captioning, which makes captioning your videos easy. The ASR captioning strategy is about 95% accurate, and takes about one quarter the time of the total length of the video. Once processing is complete, you should review the transcription and correct any errors within the video. All captions can be edited using the Panopto editor. More information on adding and editing captions can be found from Panopto Support, How to add ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) Captions into a Video, or in the video Captioning in Panopto.
If you have a request from the Disability Resource Center (DRC) regarding captioning accommodations, please contact their office regarding compliance with specific accommodations.
If there is a need for fully accurate captioning, or other accessibility requirements such as audio descriptions, please contact Office of Online Education or Office of Accessibility Resources for assistance with procuring such services.
Additional information regarding accessibility can be found in UNLV Accessibility Standards and Procedures.Additional information regarding Panopto captioning can be found
Need Additional Help?
For additional assistance, please visit the Panopto Knowledge Base for additional articles or our Services area to submit a support ticket. You can also contact the IT Help Desk via phone (702) 895-0777 or email (ithelp@unlv.edu).