Over two hundred students have signed an open letter, addressed to the heads of the Human, Social and Political Sciences department, which calls for lecture recordings to be consistently and easily accessible.

The letter criticises the decision, taken at the start of this academic year, that lectures in the HSPS tripos will not be recorded as standard. The letter especially attacks this move in light of the University’s own education committee recommending in July that the University should have an “institutional aim to provide recordings for all lectures as standard”.

The letter, written by the Student Union’s Undergraduate Access, Education and Participation Officer and Disabled Students’ Officer, alongside the student academic representatives for Part I of the HSPS tripos and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, argues that lecture recordings are useful for students to be able to review material at their own pace and prepare for exams.

The HSPS departments are also criticised on the grounds that lecture recordings are important for student wellbeing. The letter states that unwell students will either be forced to miss lectures entirely or attend lectures while ill, threatening the health of fellow students.

The writers of the letter also condemn the argument that ending lecture recordings increases lecture attendance, as they claim it “reflects a paternalistic view of students in which they are not afforded the agency to make decisions about their own learning”.

The letter notes that students who are registered with the Accessibility and Disability Resource Centre can request permission for lectures to be recorded. However, this decision is also condemned on the grounds that gathering and “sharing intimate medical information” can require “significant expense unavailable to many students”.

The letter concludes by calling on the departments of the HSPS tripos to record lectures consistently and make the recordings easily available.

At the time of writing, the letter had been signed by 149 students studying HSPS papers and a further 92 students from the wider university.

At the start of the academic year several University departments, including the HSPS, History and MMLL faculties, announced that lectures would only be given in-person due to the easing of Covid-19 restrictions. At the time the departments were widely criticised, including by the SU Disabled Students’ Officer, Elia Chitwa, who said the decision “shows a distinct lack of care and respect for disabled students”.

The History faculty also runs a similar policy to that which has been criticised in the open letter to the HSPS faculty. The writers of the letter have said that it is directed at the HSPS faculty because their policy “has been having the greatest negative impact on the most students”. However, in an email to students, the representatives behind the letter stressed that they “hope that working with the HSPS faculty will allow us to identify a solution that can be applied to other faculties and departments”.

The HSPS Faculty have been contacted for comment.