Striking staff urged to delete recorded lectures so students can’t catch up

Newcastle UCU's Twitter have directed lecturers to delete old recorded lectures from Blackboard during the strike period, so that students are unable to catch up with content, The Newcastle Tab can reveal.

Their tweet states that some lecturers are suggesting to use older ReCap recordings throughout the strike period so students are still able to access course content.

The tweet says: "Hearing that some schools/programmes plan on running ReCaps and PowerPoints from previous years for students who miss out on teaching in the upcoming strikes. Whose intellectual property? Members might consider going into previous Blackboard sites and removing teaching material…"

Following the announcement of two weeks of strike action, Newcastle UCU's Twitter page followed this up their comments with a thread of tweets.

They say it is the staff's discretion to decide whether their teaching sessions are recorded, whether to edit their recordings, when to make recordings available to students and when recordings are deleted.

Their follow up tweet says: "Further to this – the University's own ReCap policy states: 'The University strongly encourages all staff to record lectures wherever possible but confirms that performance rights are retained by staff and therefore staff choose:

"'Whether their teaching sessions are recorded. Whether to edit their recordings. When to make recordings available to students. When recordings are deleted.'"

This is supposedly aiming to make the industrial action more effective, as students missing lectures due to strikes will have no way to locate the content elsewhere and learn independently.

The strike has had mixed opinions on the student population in Newcastle, some supporting the lecturers in their decision to strike and other frustrated with the disruption it will cause to their studies.

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