- Webinar
Key Insights From the “Campus Capture vs. Cloud Classrooms” Webinar
When was the last time you rewatched a lecture recording? Was it for a quick refresher before an exam, or to catch up on a class you couldn’t attend? Chances are, the value wasn’t in the live lecture itself, but in the flexibility of accessing it later.
That simple shift between the “room” and the “recording” is at the heart of higher education’s evolving relationship with video.
At the recent Panopto webinar, “Campus Capture vs. Cloud Classrooms: Where Is Higher Ed Video Headed?”, leaders from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and Eastern University joined forces to explore this question. What emerged wasn’t a debate with winners and losers, but a roadmap for the future: how institutions can balance physical infrastructure with cloud-first flexibility, all while keeping students and faculty at the center.
Why Campus Still Matters
At UNLV, investment in campus capture has been transformative. More than 175 classrooms are now equipped with Panopto appliances, creating a seamless lecture capture experience for faculty and students alike.
For Mark Kasselhut, Senior E-Learning Technology Program Manager, returning to campus post-pandemic proved one thing: students still crave physical interaction. Lecture recordings add flexibility but don’t replace the energy of being in the room.
Andy Borts, who oversees much of UNLV’s classroom technology, described the design principle that guides adoption: consistency. When every classroom “just works,” faculty focus on teaching, not troubleshooting. Meanwhile, students benefit from spontaneous peer interaction in class and the ability to revisit material later.
Best Practice: Design technology that fades into the background. Faculty want to walk into any classroom, press a button, and teach. The smoother the system, the higher the adoption.
The Cloud-First Advantage
Contrast that with Eastern University, where Kyle Logan, Instructional Designer, helps run the “Flex Program,” a fully asynchronous, video-first model. Here, the priority is accessibility: students can study at midnight, during lunch breaks, or from across the country.
For Kyle, the shift has unlocked scale. Once bound to Philadelphia, adult learners now join from New York, Houston, and beyond. Every interaction (video watched, quiz completed, discussion posted) is tracked within the LMS, giving faculty rich insights into student engagement.
Perhaps most importantly, Eastern discovered that shorter videos (10-15 minutes) hold attention best, shaping new design standards across the institution.
Best Practice: Leverage analytics to inform design. Video data reveals where students engage, struggle, or drop off, guiding faculty toward the best formats.
Students as Creators, Not Just Consumers
While the conversation often centers on lecture capture, Alethea Inns reminded us that the real story is students turning into creators. At UNLV, student-generated videos, including introductory clips, group projects, and presentations, surged 44% in a single year.
This shift reflects more than numbers. It shows students actively shaping their learning, not just passively absorbing content. With Panopto’s interactive tools: embedded quizzes, replay heat maps, and branching video, faculty can transform passive watching into active engagement.
Best Practice: Empower students to create. Video assignments, peer-to-peer discussions, and interactive elements cultivate ownership of learning.
Equity, Access, and Adoption
Every innovation brings challenges. For UNLV, permissions and usability remain sticking points. From platforms like YouTube, faculty and students need training to navigate Panopto’s structured content protections.
At Eastern, retraining faculty for asynchronous teaching is resource-intensive. Designing “videos” rather than “lectures” demands new skills and mindsets. Across both campuses, equity remains a non-negotiable: from laptop loaner programs to flexible viewing options, institutions must ensure technology doesn’t widen gaps.
Best Practice: Develop an adoption plan, not just implement it. Faculty training, student support, and equity initiatives are as critical as technology.
Hybrid: The Bridge Between Worlds
The reality is far more nuanced if campus and cloud sound like competing visions. Both UNLV and Eastern acknowledged the power of hybrid approaches: HyFlex courses that let students choose between attending live or online, or programs that start hybrid before moving fully digital.
Flexibility, once a perk, is now a baseline expectation. Students want options. Faculty want systems that support them without adding workload. Institutions want scalability. Thoughtfully designed hybrid models can deliver all three.
The Final Word
The debate isn’t really campus vs. cloud. It’s about creating an ecosystem where students can thrive: whether in a lecture hall, on a laptop at midnight, or somewhere in between.
Higher education’s future will be shaped not by choosing sides, but by weaving together the best of both worlds: the richness of human connection on campus, and the scalability and flexibility of digital-first learning.
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