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Making lecture materials available in advance: guidance published online

13 October 2017

UCL staff who teach or support teaching can now access online guidance for making lecture materials available in advance.

Students studying at a computer

UCL Digital Education published the guidance after the July meeting of Education Committee approved policy that lecture materials be made available to students 48 hours in advance. 

The proposal was put forward by the Students’ Union UCL in response to student feedback and will help to meet UCL’s obligations under the 2010 Equality Act and help disabled and dyslexic students as well as students for whom English is not their first language.

There had been concerns from teaching staff about the 48 hour timeframe and also questions about how comprehensive the advance material should be. Many staff did not wish to provide all materials in advance of a lecture, particularly where this might prevent the inclusion of “surprise slides” to add interest to a lecture. The timeframe could also add pressure to those colleagues, particularly junior academics, providing new material for lectures, or those providing one-off lectures or presentations. 

The online guidance makes clear that a lecturer does not need to include all the slides in advance, and that there would be space to add material for use at the lecture to enable a dynamic approach including ‘surprise slides’. The 48 hour timeframe is a principle and providing an outline of the lecture and material is acceptable. 

The guidance, published in the Moodle Resource Centre in the wiki, covers a range of topics, including how to make materials available (including conditional release and restricted access), how to alert your students, how to flip your lecture and how to integrate with Lecturecast.

For further questions or suggestions, contact the Digital Education team: digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk