Demand For Lecture Capture Technology Increases
By Cheryl Knight, contributing writer
Learning institutions constantly seek easier and more convenient ways to provide education to their students. Lecture capture solutions provide one way to transport lectures to students outside classroom, mainly in a home setting.
And, according to a Campus Technology article, the use of lecture capture technology is on the rise, primarily as a result of the emergence of cloud-based storage solutions, which allows easier access to stored lectures and the ability to easily scale-up in size when necessary.
How Lecture Capture Works
Lecture capture technology allows students to record lectures given by their college or school teachers and professors. The lecture capture system includes both hardware and software, with recorded lectures kept on servers accessible by students from their own home or a computer located at the school they attend.
While traditionally lecture capture equipment is used for educational purposes, some other uses for the technology include advertising, recording meetings and conferences, and for employee training.
Equipment Associated With Lecture Capture Technology
The hardware used in lecture capture can include a variety of different devices and tools, including microphones, various cameras, and screen and presentation capture devices. The software used in these applications is used on both the capture hardware, the server where the lectures are stored, and on the viewer’s computer, and ranges from standalone software to Web browsers and video players. Most important, the software on the server and the capture hardware must be compatible with each other.
Growth of the Lecture Capture Market
According to Frost & Sullivan’s report referenced in the report of Sonic Foundry’s 2014 global lecture capture solutions market share leadership award, the lecture capture market is set to grow 24.1 percent by 2019. The Frost & Sullivan study encompassed the lecture capture hardware, the software, and the software-as-a-service.
“The global demand for LCS is on the rise, with colleges and schools alike recognizing that digital learning is a must-have feature for modern education,” according to Avni Rambhia, Frost & Sullivan digital media industry manager. “Once the value of anytime/anywhere learning becomes clear, and massive open online classrooms (MOOCs) and inverted classrooms gain favor among educators, LCS will become an indispensable tool for the education industry.”