FAQ

1. What is Lecture2Go?

Lecture2Go is the central online video portal of the University of Hamburg, where you can watch, listen and download recorded lectures. The lecture recording system, which was developed at the 'Regionales Rechenzentrum' (RRZ), makes it possible to synchronously record the speaker and his presentation.

2. How do I know a new video is online for a specific series?

For each series, there is an automatic notification, which is accessible via the RSS-link above the video list. You need an RSS reader to subscribe to the listed feeds, which will notify you whenever a new video is uploaded.

3. Do I need to login to use the website?

No. Only uploaders of content to log in.

4. Which lectures are recorded?

The decision for a recording is made by the lecturer, but due to limited ressources only a certain number of series can be recorded in one semester.

5. A lecture was recorded, but can not be found on the website!

In such case the lecture usually has restricted access and can only be viewed with a password. You should ask the lecturer for additional informations. Under certain circumstances the video is not online due to technical errors.

6. Can I download the videos?

Theoretically yes, but it depends on the decision of the lecturer. Downloadable videos have a 'Download' section below the video.

7. In which data format are the downloaded videos encoded? Which video player do I need?

The downloaded lectures are encoded in the widely used H.264/MPEG-4 format (file extension 'mp4'). All popular video players such as VLC Player or QuickTime can be used.

8. How may I use downloaded videos?

All video files available on the portal are subject to a license, which can be seen below the video. In general, the videos may not be used commercially or uploaded on other platforms.

9. Are closed captions supported?

For some media there are subtitles in German and English. The (automatic) creation and publishing is done by the person uploading the video.

10. Under which licenses can media files be published on Lecture2Go?

The author - in the case of lecture recordings the lecturer - decides under which license a media file is published. In addition to the usual Lecture2Go-license, which excludes duplication (citation, embedding and forwarding documents and web pages with the proper references is explicitly permitted), a medium can be provided with a less restrictive Creative Commons license. The choices are:

• CC-BY-SA (attribution - distribution under the same conditions): The material may be copied and redistributed in any medium or format. It may be remixed, transformed and built upon, for any purposes, even commercially. This is done on the condition that the author is credited and it is indicated if changes were made. The material or derivatives thereof must also be published under the same license if distributed.
• CC-BY (attribution): The material may be copied and redistributed in any medium or format. It may be remixed, transformed and built upon, for any purposes, even commercially. This is done on the condition that the author is credited and it is indicated if changes were made.
• CC0 (public domain): There is no copyright protection whatsoever, the work is in the public domain and can be arbitrarily used.

No other Creative Commons licenses are currently offered on Lecture2Go, as their restrictions (NC = non commercial, ND = no derivates) can be problematic. We are referring to a statement from the "Hamburg Open Science" program: "[We] [...] would generally not recommend using restrictive licenses (such as NC or ND) in the context of Open Access. The license restrictions can jeopardize the goals of Open Access. In particular, they often lead to unintended side effects because license restrictions of this kind lead to legal uncertainty and thus often to underuse. The license restrictions also often have excessive effects. For example, the ND clause prevents translations from being made and published without additional contractual agreements (translations are processing in the legal sense). The NC restriction precludes freelancers from using the material on the basis of the license. Registered doctors are not allowed to use NC-licensed medical material without an individual agreement." (openscience.hamburg.de)

11. Playing a video doesn't work without problems. What can I do about this?

Please try out one or more of the following actions: Use another browser and/or another device, clear the browser cache, deactivate add-ons like javascript-blockers or ad-blockers, update the browser.

12. Does a manual for Lecture2Go exist somewhere?

In the menu 'Help' there are instructions for the basic use of the portal ('Basic functions') as well as the management/ upload of media ('Media management').

We've made two tutorial videos - the first is for all users, but the latter is only interesting for uploaders: https://lecture2go.uni-hamburg.de/l2go/-/get/l/5143

13. Does another FAQ for uploaders exist?

Yes, uploaders can login and find another FAQ under "My Lecture2Go" / "Mein Lecture2Go".