As an open access institution, VIU is committed to meeting our responsibilities to accessibility for all students. Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in student requests and approved accommodations to record audio from lectures. Accessibility Services and the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning have partnered together to offer faculty simple solutions to support student learning, meet accessibility needs, and protect privacy.
Many students benefit from access to a recording or transcript of class sessions. Whether you’re teaching in a virtual classroom or a physical one, recording lectures and providing transcripts can make a meaningful difference for students who need to review material, process information at their own pace, or access course content in alternative formats. For students with an approved accommodation, you have a legal duty to accommodate an alternate format to a live lecture so these students can have an equitable learning experience.
Using VIU supported tools, you can securely store, caption, and share video, audio or written content with your students.
This guide will help you:
- Confidently use built-in tools to record and transcribe your classes
- Support students who have barriers related to note taking due to a disability
- Comply with VIU’s legal duty to accommodate students with an approved accommodation
- Maintain control over your recordings and protect student privacy
- Understand storage timelines and retention options for recordings
The steps below are designed to help you make informed choices that centre accessibility, privacy, and instructional goals when responding to an approved accommodation or proactively creating a more accessible learning opportunity for your students.
Ways you can record your classes at VIU:
- Microsoft Teams (desktop/laptop) – Capture audio only or audio and video during a live meeting, with automatic transcription.
- Microsoft Teams (mobile app) – Use your phone to record in-person classes while moving around the room.
- Use VIUTube’s screen capture software – Use the built-in screen recording tool to capture lectures or presentations.
- Upload recordings to VIUTube – Upload videos recorded in Teams, on your phone, or with other software to securely store, caption, and share with students.
Using Teams to record
Whether you are teaching online in Teams or teaching face to face in a classroom, you can use Teams’ Record and transcribe to record audio or audio and video of your teaching and provide students with a transcript.
Record on your VIU computer (Windows 11)
Whether you are teaching online or face to face, you can use Teams to record. If you need help setting up a Teams meeting, please review the Teams support resources from IT or contact CIEL at learnsupport@viu.ca.
- Start or join the Teams meeting.
- In your meeting controls, select More actions > Record and transcribe > Start recording
- A transcript is automatically begun with your recording. Only select start transcription if you want to create a transcript without recording the meeting.
- If you don’t want to record video, you can select More Options and choose an audio-only recording
- Select Confirm
- There is an option to record audio only under the more options before you click Confirm if you don’t need to capture video
- The meeting will be recorded. You can stop the recording manually or end the meeting.
- A link to the recording will be automatically shared in the meeting chat after the meeting is finished.
Teams recordings are automatically deleted after 60 days. If you wish to retain the recording for longer than 60 days, you will need to either download the recording or change its settings. Contact us at learnsupport@viu.ca if you need help with this.
Record on the Teams mobile app
When recording face to face classes, this can be a great option to allow you to move as needed while still capturing your voice. We recommend doing a bit of trial and error to determine the best set up for you. Options include wearing one Bluetooth earbud that has a microphone built in, putting your phone in an upper pocket with the microphone pointed towards your mouth or putting the phone down on a table at the front of the classroom and staying within close range of that spot.
- Start or join a meeting
- Click the three dots on the meeting controls to open a list of options. Find and click on Start recording
- You can stop the recording from the meeting options at any time or end the meeting to stop the recording
- A link to the recording will be automatically shared in the meeting chat after the conclusion of the meeting.
Teams recordings are automatically deleted after 60 days. If you wish to retain the recording for longer than 60 days, you will need to either download the recording or change its settings. Contact us at learnsupport@viu.ca if you need help with this.
Upload a recording to VIUTube
There is a screen recording program available through VIUTube, but you can upload recordings you do on your phone or using another software to VIUTube as well. This includes Teams recordings you have downloaded to your computer.
Upload from a VIU computer (Windows 11)
- Go to VIUTube and log in
- Drag and drop your video into your media library or click upload at the top of your media library to browse for your video
You’ll see an upload status in the lower right corner. The speed of the upload will depend on the available bandwidth and the size of your video. Once the video uploads, closed captions and a transcript will be automatically generated. This can take some time to complete. Once it is complete you will be able to see the captions and download the transcript from the Accessibility tab when you access the media details for your video.
Upload from your mobile device (phone or tablet)
VIUTube is created by the company YuJa. You can use their mobile app to upload videos recorded on your phone or tablet into VIUTube. To install the app, search for YuJa Lumina in your app store. Once you have installed the app follow the steps below.
- Open the YuJa Lumina app on your phone or tablet and sign in
- Enter viu.ca or Vancouver island university in the Enter your organization field and click Next
- Select VIU account from the drop down and then click Sign in the SSO
- Log in with your usual VIU credentials
- Click the plus sign at the bottom of the my media page and select the best option:
- Record Content – this allows you to record a quick video or audio recording. When you stop recording you will have the option to save the recording on your device in addition to uploading to VIUTube
- Upload from Library – this option allows you to select media already in your phone’s photo app
- Upload from Files – this option allow you to select media in your files app (for Android users this may include items that are in your photos as well as downloaded files, for Apple users, this will be downloaded files and media you have saved specifically to Files).
- Once you have selected the media you want to upload you will be able to give it a title (by default it will be called My Media Upload with the date and time added) and add a description. Click Upload to begin the upload.
- Keep your app running until the upload is complete. You should be able to switch between apps while this happens as long as you don’t close the YuJa app.
Captions and a transcript will be automatically generated. From the mobile app you can copy a link to your video and use that to share with others. You can also use your computer to find the embed code.
Once you have uploaded a recording to VIUTube, you can share it in your VIULearn course or send a link directly to a student who needs to access it.
FAQ
I don’t want my lecture recorded. Is there an alternative way to accommodate students?
If you want to control what is captured in a recording, we recommend that you record the lecture and share it with students rather than having them record. This gives you an opportunity to edit out any private conversations that might happen during class while still giving the student the opportunity to revisit information from the lecture.
You can provide a transcript or notes to the student in place of a lecture if this document includes all important information covered in the class, so the student is not disadvantaged over peers who are able to take their own notes during class.
Can I stop students sharing my video?
Students who need to record your lecture as an accommodation agree that they will use those recordings for their own personal study use only. Any other use of the recording is a violation of the student code of conduct. Their agreement also includes that they will delete the video at the end of the semester.
Recording your lecture for access does not give up your intellectual property rights. For students who need this accommodation, the recording serves the same purpose as notes taken by other students during the class.
I discuss sensitive information with my students. How do I meet accommodation needs without compromising the safety of these conversations?
If you control the recording, you can edit sensitive parts of conversations out of the recording before sharing to protect student privacy. In a transcript, you could summarize the important points rather than leaving a word for word transcription. This gives students equal access to the information they need to study without compromising privacy of other students.
You can also protect the privacy of the student with the accommodation by making this edited recording or transcript available to all students. Not all students who would benefit from a transcript or recording will have a disability that qualifies them for an accommodation. Making a recording available to everyone is a great way to start building Universal Design into your teaching.
I think I need help figuring out how to do this.
Not a problem at all! Our team at the CIEL is available to walk you through these steps. Email learnsupport@viu.ca and we’ll set up a time to connect.