Importantly, when students do have this accommodation, students need to abide by certain conditions. Students need to sign an agreement with SAS stating that they understand and agree to the following:
- Before recording:
- Faculty must be notified prior to any classroom recording.
- The student and faculty should meet to discuss recording requirements and potential limitations or concerns prior to any recording.
- When recording:
- Ensure the recordings can be done in a way that is not obtrusive.
- Professors may request the recordings to be turned off if there is sensitive information where all students are asked to refrain from notetaking or if the professor deems it pedagogically inappropriate.
- Preclude recording of student presentations, unless necessary for learning as agreed with by faculty member.
- After recording:
- The recordings are strictly limited to the personal, educational use of the student.
- Recordings should be stored in a safe location and if stored digitally should be stored as sensitive information. Please see: Acceptable Use Policy for Information Technology Resources < University of New Hampshire (unh.edu)
- Students may not share the recordings with other faculty, students, or any other individual unless given specific permission by the faculty and anyone who might have been recorded or present for the recording.
- The recordings and/or quotes from the recording cannot be published, distributed, uploaded to social media platforms, or sold.
- Students are required to delete recordings after the completion of the course or relevant academic task.
- Faculty may specifically request for a recording to be deleted.
- In the event of a dispute or concern, SAS may request access to student recordings.
Key Things to Know
- Prior to recording, students must sign the Audio Recording Agreement and talk with their instructors. As needed, SAS can confirm for instructors that this agreement has been signed.
- Violations of the Audio Recording Agreement conditions will be governed by the rules of academic conduct at UNH.
- SAS does not approve a specific method of recording audio. For instance, a student may choose to record through their mobile device or a specific recorder. The type of recorder used should be discussed by the student and instructor. As needed, SAS can help make additional arrangements.
Student Responsibilities
Students are responsible for…
- Meeting all student accommodation responsibilities.
- Identifying the need for notetaking support.
- Signing and agreeing to all terms within the SAS Audio Recording Agreement.
- Discussing audio recording with the instructor prior to recording audio within the course.
Common Questions
If there is a pedagogical reason why recording is not appropriate, then you may ask the student to not record particular portions of the course. Since recording as an accommodation is generally provided when note-taking presents challenges, situations where recording will be inappropriate are also ones where you might advise all students to refrain from taking notes. In the rare circumstances where note-taking is permitted but recording is not, please discuss ways in which the student can still continue to access notetaking supports. If you have any questions about when a notetaking accommodation might be inappropriate, please contact SAS for additional supports.
If a faculty member feels audio recording might not be appropriate in their classroom, they can work with SAS to pursue other options including:
- Recording the lecture independently and sharing it directly with the student or uploading the recording to the UNH media site.
- Identifying a student willing to share their notes with the class.
- Designating a note-taker for each class and having that person share notes with the class.
- Sharing detailed instructor notes from the course.
Yes. Students are required to notify their instructor before recording. Consent must be provided.
Yes, but only if:
- The request to the student is specific to a circumstance where any notetaking would not be appropriate.
- Other students are also informed that notetaking is not appropriate
Please talk with SAS as soon as possible if there are concerns about utilizing the notetaking support.
Yes. You should inform other students that recording may be happening in the course, but it is also important to be sensitive to the privacy of those with accommodations when you do so. As a general practice, we recommend that information about possible recording is included in the course syllabus. If information is not included in the syllabus, then please consider ways in which students in the class can be informed, while privacy for the student recording can also be taken into account.
