The History faculty have told disabled students to produce their own audio recordings of lectures this term, according to an email seen by Varsity.

While History lectures are normally recorded for disabled students, lectures for certain papers are due to take place in the Zoology lecture theatre this term which does not have lecture recording equipment. Students taking these papers who require lecture recordings according to their student support document (SSD) have been told to record the lectures for these papers with their own equipment instead.

Students have taken to 'Camfess' to complain about the change, with one student describing the attitude taken by the faculty as “tough luck we can’t record some of your lectures this term, but you’re welcome to come to the lectures and record them yourselves.”

This is not the first instance of departments rolling back lecture recording provision. Numerous departments have stopped providing recorded lectures after the university’s general board of education (GBEC) gave guidance that departments providing lecture recordings was an “expectation but not a requirement”.

An open letter produced last month called on the departments running the HSPS course to also bring back lecture recordings after the course organisers made lecture capture optional for lecturers. The letter received over 350 signatures.

The practice has become prevalent enough for the SU’s disabled students’ campaign to put out a statement criticising GBEC’s decision to drop the requirement. The statement criticised the decision by stating that it has created “an unfair disadvantage for disabled students by increasing the administrative burden they face, forcing them to disclose their disability, and endangering the health of immunocompromised disabled students.”

The Faculty of History have been approached for comment.