Encore is the Lecture Capture service in use by the University of Sheffield. Up-to-date information about what it is, what it means for you as a student and where to get help and support can be found on the university website: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cics/encore/students.

You can find Encore in each individual Blackboard page for individual modules.

Attending lectures, seminars and tutorials is a vital part of your education here in the Department of Philosophy. As this is how you will encounter the core knowledge and grasp the fundamental skills required on your modules and degree more broadly. Attendance at classes is, therefore, mandatory.

In order to help you learn from your lectures as effectively as possible, the University has invested in Encore, a lecture recording service. Encore enables you to attend to ideas more closely in your lectures; you can take less hurried notes, listen and participate more fully in the lecture session knowing that you can return later to a full recording of it after it has been delivered. Hence the name “Encore”: a repetition, a return, a recapitulation.

What Encore is not is an online lecture delivery service and it should in no way be regarded as a substitute for attending lectures.

The latest research into the effects of lecture capture in education has shown that students who stop attending lectures and rely solely on lecture recordings typically attain lower grades than those who first attend the live lecture event and then also use the lecture capture software. Students who attend lectures and then use Encore are, by definition, more reflective learners; they use lecture recordings as a means of refining their notes, returning to ideas, filing gaps or uncertainties. Such reflective learning is key to the successful completion of your degree in the Department of Philosophy.