UB and GSE offer a few “free” (no cost to faculty/staff) video recording options for faculty to record lectures, introductions, and other videos for online delivery. The options may differ based on your operating system, but regardless of if you are a MAC user or a Windows user, you have multiple options to choose from to best meet your needs.
Panopto (Windows or MAC)
Recording with Panopto gives UB faculty and staff tools for video and screen recording, editing and sharing, all in one place and from any device. Once up and running, you can request support any time for Recording with Panopto online. Panopto also offers online video tutorials, and step-by-step instructors for downloading and using the Panopto software are available from UBIT.
Screencast-o-matic (Windows or MAC)
GSE Instructional Design and Development has a Screencast-o-matic license that can be utilized by accessing the UB-GSE screencast-o-matic through your browser or on your desktop by downloading the installer. Screencast-o-matic allows you to record your screen, your webcam, or both allowing you to offer presentations and lecture style recordings.
Go to Screencast-o-matic for more information and to watch their tutorial videos.
Skype for Business (Windows only)
All GSE faculty, staff and students have access to the university’s Skype for Busines system which supports recording for Windows users. You can login to Skype for Business, click Meet Now, and then click Start Recording. Then, present your lecture to the empty Skype for Business meeting room as you would if your students were in there with you (load your PowerPoint, narrate over top of it, share your desktop, etc.). End and save the recording when you are done to upload the video to your course or to YouTube.
QuickTime (MAC)
The version of QuickTime Player included with the Mac OS allows you to record a movie from your camera, audio from a microphone or record the screen (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or MAC). QuickTime Player also offers several options for editing your movie and how to share your movie.
Accessibility Reminder
As if we could ever forget about meeting accessibility standards, right? But because this post is about recording videos for instructional use, I did want to emphasize the importance of including a “text equivalent for every non-text element provided in the course (“alt” tags, captions, transcripts, etc.)”. My recommendation for accelerating the closed captioning process for online lectures is to upload the video to YouTube, allow the YouTube auto-captioning tool to caption your video, and then edit the YouTube closed captioning to improve the accuracy.
If you have any questions about using any of the recording tools or about the closed captioning process, please contact the GSE Instructional Design team for additional support. We are here and happy to help!
