Petition to Guarantee Students Universal Access to Lecture Recordings
/VUWSA, the Students’ Assembly, Student Academic Committee and the National Disabled Students Association are asking Te Herenga Waka to guarantee in university policy from Tri One 2023 onwards: Universal access to lecture recordings - all lectures should be recorded, available online for the entire course, to all its students. We will have an open letter on the VUWSA website soon with more details.
As students, we know that universal access to lecture recordings enables an accessible, future-focused education for all tauira. The University has a responsibility under the Pastoral Care Code to meet the needs of diverse learners. Barring students’ access to lecture recordings undermines their agency to choose how they engage with their education, forcing engagement in-person.
As our University moves into a post-Pandemic era without a dual delivery mandate, universal access to lecture recordings is not guaranteed. We’ve seen movement at faculty, school and individual course levels that diminishes access to recordings. Hardship thresholds to access recordings, delaying upload of recordings, recordings being available for a limited amount of time are examples.
We know that the University is concerned about dwindling live lecture attendance and participation as an engagement issue. But barriers to accessing recordings will only disproportionately disadvantage the academic success of our marginalised students. Students who can regularly show up to their lectures in-person, over attending to employment or other commitments, tend to be the ones who are privileged enough to do so.
The University needs to acknowledge and respect that modern students aren’t just students anymore. We have multifaceted identities, experiences and obligations that mean we can’t attend every single live lecture. Many students would not be able to enrol, nor complete their degrees without lecture recordings.
In 2022, looking into a post-Pandemic era of learning and teaching, the University must move beyond this binary, fearful assumption of the availability of recordings equating a lack of in-person lecture attendance. In 2019, VUWSA’s Check the Rec campaign demonstrated that over 97% of THW-VUW students felt recordings made university studies more accessible and manageable. Students pay significant fees to study at Te Herenga Waka because they deserve inclusive, modern and high-quality learning and teaching practice which includes a variety of learning options, and cannot exclude lecture recordings.
Universal access to lecture recordings is a cornerstone of accessible education.
