Finding Videos for Academic Purposes Using Web-based Video Hosting Sites

Last updated: 28 October 2009
Published in: Finding and using digital media
Tags: business & community engagement | finding moving images | video | web services | youtube

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Summary

This advice document deals with the potential of using web-based services for finding videos suitable to support academic work and business and community engagement (BCE).

Introduction

It is strongly recommended that this advice document be read in conjunction with the overview to this research: Using Web-based Services for Finding and Hosting Videos for Academic Purposes.

The research was conducted between 21st September 2009 and 30th September 2009, using a principal, standard search term of ‘Shakespeare’, supported by a range of other search terms such as ‘world war two’ and ‘physics demonstrations’ to compare the services and to test the breadth of their relevance to teaching and learning.

The research considered finding videos for four main academic purposes:

1. Short, attention-grabbing clips, possibly abstract to the main teaching and learning activity
2. Demonstrations
3. Comparison of approaches
4. For use in supporting an institution’s strategic objectives for learning, teaching and research and business and community engagement (BCE)

In terms of business and community engagement, the issues discussed later in this paper are relevant only insofar as finding videos related to targeted groups within business or community might be possible by refining search terms and making contact with relevant groups. The use of video for business and community engagement is addressed more fully in the paper on hosting videos.

Despite the established benefits of using video for academic purposes and the millions of videos available via internet search engines, these services should definitely NOT be viewed as a quick and/or easy way of finding relevant and suitable videos for use in teaching and learning. The main service, YouTube, is dominated by current popular culture, television clips and ‘cool’ and ‘amusing’ videos and, of course, these may be the very types of short clips considered useful in terms of an attention grabbing activity, and the careful use of search criteria can filter unwanted clips and limit the number of videos returned on any particular search. However, it is still very time-consuming to find, and review, relevant and suitable videos and it is also very easy to be diverted from the task of finding relevant videos by following ‘interesting’ links, ‘related’ videos and discussion threads.

All of the sites researched had some form of Help page, which included tips for searching. The tips given by the sites are quite simple and evident and include:

1. If you are sure of what you are looking for be as specific as possible in your search criteria to reduce the number of results returned. For instance, in searching for a particular speech from a Shakespeare play, detail the play and the Act numbers
2. To find the most number of videos in an area, keep your search terms as general as possible

It should be noted that all videos on these sites are described by the person loading the video. Apart from iTunes, which requires institutional approval before allowing uploading, the description of videos is not obviously standardised or moderated by administrative staff.  Thus, restricting a search to ‘educational’ materials may lower the number of returns for any given search criteria but this neither guarantees that all of these videos will be educational or that other, potentially useful, videos are not excluded.

In terms of videos that might be useful for longer demonstrations and/or pedagogic uses, it is debatable as to how relevant most material might be. Other institutions may have filmed just the demonstration or activity which is sought and have made it freely available on a site; however, this is far from certain. However, on following related videos following a search on the principal test search term of ‘Shakespeare’, it proved possible to quickly find a number of different interpretations of Marc Antony’s speech from Act III, scene ii of Julius Caesar. Clearly, these could be used to illustrate, or investigate, different approaches to this speech, allowing a greater insight. However, three important issues should be considered when planning to refer to such resources, either as a recommended resource, a reference in an essay or a teaching activity in a classroom:

1. The time taken to find and review suitable material
2. How the video will be accessed in the teaching and learning environment
3. The resilience of the link

In terms of accessing the video in a classroom, for instance, it must be determined whether the particular room will have internet access at the time required. This will clearly differ between institutions and, despite the ever-increasing ability to access the internet from educational establishments, should not be taken for granted. It is possible to download from some sites, and this is detailed in the findings on individual services, in which case ‘live’ internet connection would be needed.

If it is not possible to download the chosen videos, the resilience of a video link, even given internet access in the teaching and learning environment has two potential problems. The development of these services is still comparatively new and it is quite possible that some may not remain available indefinitely and/or may change their terms of access. Similarly, it is quite possible that an individual video owner may restrict access to a particular video at any time (see the linked paper on Hosting). This would render the video inaccessible either in a classroom or at home. For this reason, any planned use of online resources and any links given in teaching materials should be reviewed and tested on a regular basis.

There are other possible considerations when deciding whether to show a video in a classroom environment online from a particular site. These include:

• Presence of adverts
• Quality of viewer available
• Advisability of directing students to a particular site (i.e. do you want them potentially wasting their time there?)
• Copyright - this is addressed below

Research findings by site

Odeo

Historically, Odeo was one of the first sites to make podcasting easily available to the general public. However, it appears to have been overtaken in terms of other more fully featured sites and, despite a re-launch in February 2008, appears not to have been developed or supported to any extent since. In fact, the original developers appear to have found different interests, leaving to launch Twitter.

Despite describing itself as making “it easy to find, play and enjoy the latest audio and video from around the web”, Odeo, in fact, no longer accepts videos for uploading and is dominated by audio podcasts.

Although there is content which is recent, and some of which is provided by educational establishments, Odeo is not recommended as a site to find video, for the following principal reasons:

1. It is not possible to limit searches to video content only
2. It is not possible to download videos for offline use
3. The player facility is not reliable
4. This appears to be a site withering on the vine:
   • a request for support with problems related to playing videos in the incorporated player was unanswered two weeks later
   • the blog’s last entry was over a year old
   • promised developments have not occurred
   • the site only accepts RSS feed links; this means any video is available elsewhere on the internet and therefore available through more advanced search engines or sites (NB In fact, the RSS feed facility was not tested and therefore may have been subject to the kind of ‘support’ not forthcoming for my problem
5. The continual presence of pop-up adverts

However, of the content that has been uploaded recently, much of this is educational content, although there is no way of establishing how much of this is video, and how much audio. There were (in early October 2009) 464 Education ‘channels’ (of which 118 were in the ‘Formal Education’ category, containing 67,122 videos. Whilst most of these videos - and certainly recent videos (as Odeo will not accept direct uploads) - will be available on other sites, and therefore almost certainly traceable using Google Video, this may be a source of some useful educational material.

It is also possible as part of the service to create lists of videos for later playback, to ‘share’ videos with other users, although this share facility merely opens an e-mail form to send a link, and to ‘follow’ other users in terms of what they are watching - this could potentially be useful in identifying new useful videos if a suitable other user is followed; however, the alert facility advertised did not produce any alerts to my e-mail account after three weeks of being registered on the site.

Membership also allows the creation of a QuickList, by clicking the ‘+’ sign on each video.

Google Video

Google now own YouTube and Google Video is now merely a directory of videos which exist on other sites on the internet. Although some of these videos are listed as being stored by Google Video, the site no longer accepts uploads to its site. The search facility is accessed via a link on the main Google page and is therefore easy to find.

In searching the site, it was found that:

• Search criteria can be modified by:
  1. Date
  2. Length
  3. Quality
  4. Source
  5. Type (for instance, playable in Google, as some videos can only be played on their host site, closed captioned)
• The interface is very similar to YouTube
• It is not possible to download videos from the site for use offline

Given the similarity to, and shared ownership with, YouTube, there seems little advantage of using this site, especially given YouTube’s dominance of this type of service and its de facto acceptance as the main provider of online videos.  However, there are some possible advantages to using Google Video:

• It is possible to sign up for ‘Recommended Videos’ based on your viewing and browsing history. However, this requires a Google account and signing up within this account for the Web History service. This in turn requires installing the Google Toolbar in your browser.
• Google Alerts could be used to track new videos uploaded with particular keywords
• It will list videos that are not on YouTube, and there appears to be no favouring of YouTube

YouTube

It is impossible to estimate the number of videos on YouTube or the astounding number uploaded every day. Most figures given may be exaggerated for commercial benefit, but YouTube is clearly the largest site for video searching and is the de facto leader for this type of service.

According to the Terms and Conditions of YouTube it is not allowed to upload video to which the user does not hold full copyright, including clips of film and television. However, a simple search in YouTube shows that there are still many videos of this sort uploaded by individual users. Until recently, this practice led to many videos being removed from the site, with obvious resilience implications for planning to use a video link in teaching and learning. However, disputes between YouTube and major media producers seem to have been resolved recently by the introduction of a capacity for copyright holders to ‘claim’ their videos, for which YouTube then sells advertising, splitting the revenue with the copyright holder.

According to the Terms and Conditions of YouTube, it is only possible to watch videos using the embedded viewer, although this may be linked and embedded on other sites, the coding for which is made available and for which clear and easy links are given. This means downloading is not allowed from the site for viewing offline. However, third party applications are widely and easily available free of charge to allow downloading of YouTube videos, although none of these were tested as part of this research.

Membership

Membership of the site can be through an existing Google account or through a separate YouTube account, and offers the following stated benefits:

• Uploading and sharing your own videos
• The ability to comment on, rate and make video responses to other videos
• The ability to build playlists to watch later

Most practical benefits of membership apply to users wishing to upload videos, which is addressed in the parallel paper. However, membership does give two benefits in terms of organising videos for later showing:

1. Videos can be saved to Favourites or Playlists for easy retrieval later; videos could be ‘cued’ for user in a preferred order in a teaching activity.
2. These playlists can be shared with other users; this could be useful in terms of activities outside of the classroom.
3. When a playlist is created it offers other suggestions for adding videos to this playlist; this may be a quicker way to find other suitable videos.
4. The QuickList feature can be used. By clicking on the ‘+’ on the video it is added to a QuickList, a link for which is provided at the top of each page in YouTube whilst logged in. Videos from this list can then be quickly and easily organised into Favourites or Playlists.

Customisation of searching

NB Every time a new search is entered all the filters are removed.
From the Home Page, no advanced searching is possible. However, once a search term returns a list of results, a number of options to limit and/or reorganise the search are possible.

• By default, ALL videos matching a search term are displayed. However, it is possible to limit this to:
  1. Channels, or
  2. Playlists
• By default videos are displayed in order of ‘relevance’ but can then be organised in order of:
  1. Newest
  2. Oldest
  3. View Count
  4. Rating (as assigned by other viewers; it is only possible to rate a video once logged in)
  5. Uploaded Anytime (default)
  6. Uploaded Today
  7. Uploaded This Week
  8. Uploaded This Month
• Or by Type:
  1. All (default)
  2. Partner Videos
  3. Annotations
  4. Closed Captions
  5. HD

By clicking on the Advanced Search option, more customisation of results is possible:

• Type (as above but with added options of Programmes or Films)
• Duration
• Language
• Category
• Location

It is also possible to use a more advanced form of term searching, by choosing one of the following options:

• All these words
• This exact phrase
• One or more of these words
• None of these words

It is also possible here to ‘Filter videos that may not be suitable for minors.’

Using advanced search options can have dramatic effects. Using a search term of ‘world war 2’ with filters of not suitable for minors/less than 4 minutes/English/YouTube EDU reduced results from 386,000 to 103,000.

Similarly, using a search term of ‘Shakespeare’ with filters of not suitable for minors/less than 4 minutes/English/YouTube EDU reduced results from 37,500 to 18,500.

Once a video is chosen, statistics are given of the number of views by other users. It is possible using this facility to make contact with other users, which may be a method of increasing business and community engagement by establishing contacts with relevant groups.

Customisation of viewer

It is possible to view videos as full-screen.

It is possible to ‘dim’ all the adverts and other web content on the page so that the viewer is the only really visible object on the screen - this could be particularly useful in a classroom environment.

Other potential benefits

As well as merely showing the videos from YouTube, there are other potential benefits in terms of teaching and learning:

• Use of the comments trail can give useful insights, although they tend to be mundane, potentially offensive and combative.
• Related videos are shown next to the video chosen - this can lead to opportune discoveries.
• It is possible to leave ‘videos comments’, i.e. comment on a video by uploading or linking to another video. This could appeal to different learning styles.
• It is possible to ‘subscribe’ to other users; thus, if a particular user makes a lot of useful videos, you are notified when a new video is uploaded by them.

Educational content

There is an ‘Education’ category, which has 103 channels, which are overwhelmingly American colleges or universities, and Stanford University has whole courses, filmed in their classrooms available through a dedicated channel. Users can easily tag their uploaded videos as ‘educational’ and there is much purely educational content freely available -  mainly in the form of practical tutorials, for instance of musical instruments.

Help

There is extensive help available, including ‘Tips for Finding Cool Videos.’ The wording of this may indicate that YouTube is not overly concerned with educational content or the quality of its videos.

Vimeo

Vimeo describes itself as “a respectful community of creative people who are passionate about sharing the videos they make” and this is clearly reflected throughout the website. The Home Page has three clear themed links which are Quality, Respect and Plus, the last of these being the premium, paid version of Vimeo, which is referred to below.

Vimeo’s Terms and Conditions not only forbid videos for which the user does not hold the copyright, as does YouTube, but there is little evidence of widespread flouting of this rule. Moreover, whilst small and unobtrusive advertising exists on the site, Vimeo forbids commercial videos, any form of advertising (including multi-level marketing) within videos and these Terms and Conditions seem to be adhered to and well policed, although there are clear examples of community, political and non-profit organisations loading videos for promotional purposes.

Respect is accentuated throughout the site and this is generally adhered to in terms of the comments which are posted against videos; criticism tends to be constructive and friendly rather than the aggressive tone found frequently on YouTube.

This is clearly a potentially very useful site for media, film and creative arts and industries teachers and students as it has High Definition, high quality art videos which can be used as a learning resource and potentially as a space to display their own work and receive helpful feedback. (See parallel paper on Storing) This would be consistent with the original mission of the site. Beyond this, because of the highly specialised and restrictive community, there is probably little chance of finding specific educationally relevant material, although the availability of high quality video could be a useful resource for use as an abstract, attention grabbing activity within a teaching session.

In comparison to the 37,500 videos returned on YouTube with a simple search term of ‘Shakespeare’, Vimeo has 838, the majority of which are not immediately obvious as being educationally relevant, being largely artistic re-imaginings of Shakespeare’s works.

However, educational institutions are making use of this site and there are therefore a large number of instructional videos - the usefulness of these would of course be dependent on the exact nature of the teaching and learning activity being planned. In this sense, there would have to be a certain amount of serendipity, although during the research a very artistic piece of slow motion punches to the face was found and could be considered an interesting introduction to, for instance, a lesson on anatomy.

Videos can be downloaded in their compressed format, as long as the owner has allowed permission for this, which is set as a default when uploading meaning most are. This would allow for confidence that the video will be available for viewing at a given time and place in the absence of internet access. There should be no copyright issues, given that Vimeo requires users to only upload those videos to which they hold copyright, although it is advised in the Help files that the owner should be contacted before the video is downloaded; this requires membership.

Membership

Membership is free and easy to obtain, although you must have an e-mail, which is used as your username. Whilst the main benefit of membership is the ability to upload videos (see parallel paper), it also gives the following benefits:

• The ability to download videos
• The ability to communicate with other users, in order to check permission with other users for use of their video, as detailed above.
• The ability to comment, tag or share videos on other sites
• Ability to group other users’ videos into ‘albums’ which could prove a useful tool for organising videos for future use.

VimeoPlus is available at a cost of $60 per annum, although the only benefits of this are connected with uploading and storing your own content.

Customisation of searching

There are no advanced search options available. However, it is possible to limit a search to areas/categories of the site as follows:

• Videos
• People
• Groups
• Channels
• Forums

It seems likely that, unless a user is familiar with existing people, groups or channels on the site then only the first will be used by a casual user.

Results are displayed and customisable by the following categories:

• Most relevant
• Newest
• Oldest
• Most played
• Most commercial
• Most liked
• Alphabetical

Results can be viewed in the following formats:

• Thumbnail
• Detail
• Video

It is also possible to explore, or browse categories or channels if a search term does not return immediately relevant results; a relevant channel may be discovered this way.
Once a video is chosen to view, the page also displays statistics of number of times watched by day and the number of ‘likes’ attributed by other members.

It is not possible to search within Channels, other than from the main search box, where it is possible to limit a search term to channels. However, each channel is sub-divided into further categories which may assist in finding relevant material. For instance, the Education and DIY Category contains a ‘Universities’ sub-category. As at early October 2009, this sub-category contained 36 channels, 21 groups and 7,251 videos.

Customisation of viewer

The ability to watch the video full-screen is the only customisation possible.

Specific educational content

There is a category of Education and DIY, and this gives a clear indication of the nature of most of the videos categorised as this - they are demonstrations of practical activities. As detailed above, despite the continuing specialised nature of the site, some educational institutions do use Vimeo as a place to both store and disseminate their material and therefore specific, mainly instructional, videos may be found. As at early October 2009 there were a total of 46,285 channels, of which 3,469 were in the Education and DIY category, showing 12,447 videos.

It should be noted, of course, that educationally relevant material, especially in terms of creative and media related subjects may well be found in other categories.

Help

There are clear help pages available and an active members’ forum, most of which refer to uploading issues.

iTunes

Although iTunes is known overwhelmingly as a commercial distributor of music, there are a large and increasing number of educational institutions posting material via iTunes U (iTunes University). Although this is mainly addressed in our paper on storing videos - Using Web-based Services for Hosting Videos - it is worth noting here that videos of lectures and course materials, some seemingly especially designed for internet transmission from, for instance Oxford University and Harvard, are freely available from iTunes. There is a clear tab for iTunes U on the main page of the iTunes store

To use this facility, it is necessary to download iTunes, which is free, and to download the specific video using iTunes. In fact, by default, videos from this source download to a folder called iTunes U within iTunes and are therefore easy to find amongst other media files. This means that the video cannot be watched ‘live’, as is possible with YouTube and Vimeo, but it would be available with no internet connection.

The search facility is limited, not being capable of customisation beyond the keyword entered and the ‘Power Search’ option is also limited, allowing only restriction of results to TV programmes or iTunes U for example. Search results are limited to 10 in the initial instance but can then be expanded to ‘See All’ - no figures are given for the number of results returned. It is possible to browse by ‘Faculty’ to explore what is available in your subject area. It is only possible to restrict the search to video only by using Power Search and including ‘video’ in the Description field.

The only customisations of the viewer that are possible are to make it full screen and therefore omit the frame.

The help is full and commensurate with a large company providing software internationally, and there is a specific page which has a step-by-step guide to downloading from iTunes U.

No account is needed in the iTunes store to download a free video.

Conclusions

Generally, it is worth re-iterating that the use of any of these sites should not be regarded as a quick and/or easy way to incorporate video material into teaching and learning. Given that caveat, it is possible to use some of these sites successfully to find either abstract (from the particular teaching and learning activity) video pieces which may engage students or more specific materials in terms of their relevance as examples or as instructional videos.

• Odeo is not a useful site for finding video.
• Google Video is probably best used only if there is a specific video you think may be available but is not available via YouTube.
• YouTube is the place to go to look for serendipitous pieces or to find almost any video that is available on the internet. The disadvantages of using YouTube are the sheer weight of banal, injudicious and often potentially offensive comments.
• Vimeo is the place to look for creative and media students and also more widely for high quality video to use in teaching and learning. Its main disadvantage is the limited number of videos available.
• iTunes could be used for finding specific, mostly Higher Education level, material provided by internationally known and reputable organisations.

The resilience of none of these sites should be relied upon. The very nature of the internet means services start, change and disappear very quickly, so if a video is central to the delivery of a teaching activity then it should be downloaded it if at all possible. Similarly, if it is referenced in course materials, the persistence of the link should be checked regularly.

Last updated: 28 October 2009
Published in: Finding and using digital media
Tags: business & community engagement | finding moving images | video | web services | youtube

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