White papers

Research for the people who run online programmes.

Long-form papers on what lecture video really costs, who owns quality, and how institutions can produce courseware at scale. Free to download, with sources and assumptions listed.

Read the papersGo to the blog

Published

Two papers, one argument.

Recordings are not courseware. The first paper is about the cost and the handoffs; the second is about the one check nobody owns.

Cover of the white paper Academic Production Intelligence

White paper · October 2026 · 15 pages · 7 exhibits · PDF

Academic Production Intelligence

Turning faculty recordings into finished courseware at institutional scale: costs, stakeholders, bulk production and the multi-vendor AI stack.

  • A finished lecture typically passes through eight to twelve roles and four to six vendors or tools.
  • At 6 to 10 editor-hours per finished hour, a 400-hour programme needs 2,400 to 4,000 editing hours before captions, design or review.
  • AI tools have added vendors, not removed work: someone still has to assemble them, and nobody owns the result.

Written for: Heads of online learning, finance and procurement teams building the case for producing a whole programme.

Read the summary and download
Cover of the white paper Academic Accuracy in Lecture Video Visuals

White paper · October 2026 · 15 pages · 9 exhibits · PDF

Academic Accuracy in Lecture Video Visuals

Why academic accuracy is missing from most finished lecture videos, what a visual error costs, and a QA standard and policy template institutions can adopt.

  • Accuracy has no owner: editors aren't subject experts, faculty review under time pressure, and AI tools don't know the discipline.
  • A wrong diagram caught in a production plan costs a sentence; caught after upload, it costs a re-render, re-captioning and credibility.
  • Includes an Academic QA standard and a ten-point policy institutions can adopt as written.

Written for: Deans, quality and academic-integrity teams, and anyone deciding how AI may be used in course production.

Read the summary and download

Coming next

Studies in progress.

December 2026
The state of lecture video

A study of public lecture video from universities in six countries: length, sound, captions, structure and what students are actually shown.

Soon

Using our papers

Quote them, share them, argue with them.

You are welcome to quote figures and exhibits in reports, proposals and teaching, with a credit to Lecture Studio and a link to this page. Every paper lists its sources and the assumptions behind any estimate, so you can check our working. If you think we got something wrong, tell us; corrections are noted in the next edition.

Alerts

Get the next paper first.

One email when something new is published. No newsletter, no sequence.

Looking for shorter reads? The Lecture Studio blog has articles on cost, captions, pilots and what students finish.

We use these details only for this programme and never share them.