This is a submission based on the collated and collective views of the Human Geography Research Group (HGRG) in the School of Geosciences at the University of Edinburgh as our institution is considering adopting lecture capture by default. I am sharing it here as it might assist other academics who are confronting and concerned about mandatory lecture recording and it might help students to understand why default lecture recording is not necessarily in their interests.

The HGRG is strongly opposed to the policy of default recording on four main grounds:

• Pedagogical reasons
• Academic freedom
• Staff well-being
• Staff and student safety

Pedagogical reasons

We understand why stressed, anxious and highly indebted students might well believe that their interests are best served by having access to recordings of lectures, but it is our belief that for the majority of our students it will have a detrimental effect on their learning.

Many of…