The first ever “podcasting” of a Harvard College lecture this semester marks a small but important milestone in the College’s sometimes halting efforts to enhance the student learning experience through the use of technology. The audio recordings of Quantitative Reasoning 48, “Bits,” available free in Apple’s iTunes library, join similar offerings from a number of other universities, including Stanford University, which in October became the first university to begin offering course recordings through iTunes. As educational technology ventures into yet another medium, it is an opportune moment to reflect on the value of lecture recordings, both audio and video, to students. While recording lectures can be an expensive undertaking for a department, the benefits to students are high, even when weighed against the almost certain decrease in classroom attendance.

Professors should recognize the numerous benefits of putting online as many lecture materials as possible. Even the most diligent note-taker in lecture can benefit from another chance to hear a difficult concept explained, especially in more technical courses where a single detail can be the key to understanding an entire concept.

As has been the case in the past, some professors will continue to be reluctant to post their lectures online, or even record them in the first place, fearing that lecture attendance will drop in the absence of any tangible harm from skipping class. Such concerns, however, are misguided. While students’ attendance at lectures is generally more pedagogically beneficial than their watching or listening to a recording, students are aware of the potential harms of choosing to download rather than attend a lecture.

Even with the tape rolling, those lectures that provide a genuinely interactive learning experience will continue to draw students. Others may suffer lower attendance. But a drop in the number of filled seats is preferable to students’ being coerced into attending poor-quality lectures due to the unavailability of online materials.

Moreover, even the best students miss lectures for innocent reasons and should have access to course recordings. The interests of these students should count at least as much as those of the students who take advantage of lecture recordings to skip class. In the absence of recorded lectures, conscientious students are effectively penalized when they miss class for reasons such as illness. While recordings may lack some of the benefits of live lectures, they far surpass PowerPoint slides and borrowed lecture notes as study aids.

Lecture videos have long been available online for some Harvard courses, but audio downloads have an additional advantage for students. As a cheaper alternative to video downloads, audio downloads allow smaller courses and departments to offer lectures online when the costs of making lectures available for video download are prohibitive, so professors should bear in mind this second option.

As a compromise, some professors allow their lectures to be recorded, but only release the recordings in the weeks before midterms and during reading period. This approach encourages cramming and poor study habits and does nothing to stop less motivated students from cutting class, safe in the knowledge that they can attempt to cram a semester’s worth of lectures into a few hours of reading period. The real solution to poor attendance at lectures is simple: high-quality, interactive, and engaging lectures. We should not deny students the fruits of new technology merely to force them into the classroom when that technology can substantially enhance their educations.