Educational videos and streaming your lectures

The instruction belongs to the following themes

By selecting a degree programme you are able to see the general content as well as the possible degree programme-specific content.

This page contains information on the different tools that you can use to create and stream videos of your lectures.

Videos in distance teaching

There are a couple of ways to utilize videos and video conferencing and in teaching. Material can be recorded in advance with your tool of choice and made available to the students through the course platform. The other option is to teach in real-time by streaming, which also enables the use of interactive components depending on the system used.

  1. The Zoom web-conference system  is the primary alternative for real-time interactive distance education within the University of Helsinki. Zoom can be used to arrange distance teaching for a larger group of people (up to 300 participants per meeting). The sessions can also be recorded in Zoom and distributed to the students afterwards.
  2. Videos can be made for example with ScreenPal or Zoom. Creating videos usually only requires your own laptop as the very minimum.  Unitube lecture halls and -studios can be used to record high quality videos with the built-in equipment of those rooms. Mobile devices are perfectly all right for recording short educational clips.
  3. One-directional streams can be broadcasted using Unitube lecture halls and -studios. We recommend using a separate back channel for interaction, for example Flinga or Presemo

 
Recorded videos are easiest to distribute through the Unitube Uploader, in which you can create a video series linked to one or more Moodle courses.

On this page you can find instructions for the use of these tools provided by the University.  

Support addresses

ScreenPal

ScreenPal offers functionality for creating screen capture videos and video assignments as well as editing video and audio. Moreover, captioning videos is also possible either manually or through Speech-to-text. Thus, it also provides a way of meeting the accessibility requirements for videos through subtitling.

ScreenPal can additionally record video from a webcam and mix it with the screen capture. The audio quality of the recording can be improved by using an external microphone instead of the built-in mic of your device. However, recording in a quiet environment is by far the most effective way of improving intelligibility and reducing listener fatigue. 

Additional information

Unitube – the university’s own video service package

UniTube services include space for storing lectures as well as self-service studios and a platform for publishing and watching videos.

UniTube facilities

Certain facilities at the University of Helsinki have been equipped with UniTube lecture recording equipment that allow you to create recordings of your lectures and stream them. The recording equipment is not remotely scheduled. Instead, the organiser (lecturer) must always start and stop the recording device. List of the facilities.

UniTube Studios

You can use the UniTube studios to create instruction videos of presentations or group discussions. 

The facilities can be booked through the Office365 calendar. The studios can be booked by all members of the University of Helsinki staff. Use of the facilities is free of charge.

Studio at Aleksandria (A-studio): calendar
Studio at Exactum (K-studio): calendar
Studio at Info Centre Korona (V-studio): calendar

Unitube Studio user instructions

Publishing a video  

You can use the UniTube Uploader to make your video/audio recording public or share to a Moodle course with your students. Here you can find UniTube Uploader. The recordings can include videos recorded using a tablet, a smartphone camera or a video camera, or audio files created using a dictation machine. UniTube lecture and studio recording will be saved to your UniTube Uploader Inbox where you can administer them.

UniTube Viewer is a viewing interface for video and audio files. 

Further information:

Podcast facility

Note: The podcasting facility has moved to the Unitube studio in Viikki from Room 430 in Aleksandria, as Aleksandria will be renovated in spring 2024. A new podcast solution for the Central Campus is being considered as part of the renovation. 

From 1.1.2024, Viikki's Unitube studio will also feature a separate podcast facility consisting of a RØDECaster Pro recorder and four RØDE PodMic microphones including separate headphones so up to four persons can listen to their own audio tracks separately.

Based on about a year of test use, the equipment is easily accessible and can record audio from Bluetooth or USB in addition to the four microphones, so participants can be present, for example, via a telephone call or Zoom connection. Recording is possible both on the recorder's memory card and via a USB connection to a computer, if the user has one. When recording to the memory card, each audio source is recorded on its own track, making it easier to process the recording afterwards. When recording to a computer, the features depend on the programme and computer you are using.

The room is booked via Outlook (see booking of Unitube-studios). The most reliable way is to invite infokeskus.2026@helsinki.fi as a participant. If your booking is denied because you do not have rights to book the room, please contact edutech@helsinki.fi to solve the issue

Because the Unitube studio has the Video Communication functionality in the control panel, you can also use the studio's shooting lights and cameras in conjunction with the podcast equipment. However, the podcast hardware is not connected to the Unitube recording system itself, so use Zoom, ScreenPal, etc. to record video in this case.

More info on podcasts in Flamma from the communications department.