1. Adding Pizzazz to your Website using Video Capturing Software
OLA 2005
James Watson
Information Services Librarian (Education)
Trent University
Jennifer Thiessen
Education Librarian
Brock University

2. Outline What is screen recording/video capture software? Why do it?
Drawbacks
Comparison of products
Planning
Conclusion
Questions

3. What Is Video Screen Recording?
Creating full-motion video of PC screen activity (basically what you see on the screen gets recorded)
Produce videos in one of many used formats for distributing streaming videos over the Web

4. Why Do It? Realistic and interactive Learning styles
Visual
Auditory
Psychomotor/Kinesthetic
Student characteristics
Reach off-campus learners
Good marketing tool for the library

5. Are There Drawbacks?
Amount of time needed for screen recording, editing, audio narration
Need to edit or totally redo recording if resource changes
Will students use the tutorials?

6. Comparison of Products
Qarbon Viewlet Builder/Cam
Macromedia Captivate
TechSmith Camtasia

7. Qarbon Products - http://www.qarbon.com

8. Macromedia-

9. TechSmith - http://www.techsmith.com

10. Factors to consider Cost Ease of use Compliance with Web standards
Prices vary; some educational discounts
Leading products all cost over $100
Ease of use
Personal preference
Editing callouts, arrows, boxes, etc.
Voice narrations
Compliance with Web standards
Produces videos in formats widely accepted and accepted, ie. AVI, Flash, Real Player, Microsoft Media Player
Ability to produce in more than one format

11. Factors to consider… cont’d
Ability to produce videos in different ways
Ready for Web publishing
Publish directly onto CD for distribution
Fit within organization's IT structure
Access to Web server and/or Webmaster?
Partnerships with other units
Compatibility with other software used
Staff and ongoing maintenance issues
Staff willing to learn to use technology?
Support for creation and maintenance of videos?

12. Comparison of features
Camtasia
Captivate
ViewletCam
Output formats
AVI, Macromedia Flash (SWF), Macromedia Flash Video (FLV), Windows Media, QuickTime, RealMedia, etc.
Flash
AVI, Flash, Animated GIF
Output options
CD, Web
CD, Web, Word, , FTP
Customize settings
Many
Some
Not many
Organize several videos
Camtasia Theater
MenuBuilder No

13. Planning Content Length Audio/no audio Publishing
Formats (e.g. Flash, etc.)
Content should match your instructional goals and objectives. If the purpose is to show the principles of boolean searching and basic search strategies to 1st year university students you’d probably want to use a database content covering many disciplines and a simple, easy to follow interface. For example, EBSCO Academic Search Elite or Premier would be a more suitable product to use than Web of Science. You may also want to think about how much is enough to show them. The inclination when first using Camtasia is to capture and demonstrate every possible feature and options available in a database. Is this necessary for demonstrating a basic search?
Content will largely determine resulting length. However, there is no reason you can’t take the content needed to be covered and split it into a series of small videos.
Callouts and text boxes are often adequate. Audio adds that extra touch that can be appreciated by those who learn better by listening to instructions. If you expect users to be opening these videos on machines with speakers in quiet areas be prepared and have earphones available.
Flash is usually included with most web browser installations. You can publish videos more than once and have the different formats available to your users. Publishing to CD can be great if you are providing instruction to users and you don’t have internet access in the classroom for the instruction session. If you are attending conferences capture and put on CD things you want to demonstrate.

14. Examples of Screen Videos
Trent University’s Thomas J. Bata Library
Gibson Library, Brock University
UBC

15. Conclusion Lessons learned Future directions Trent Brock
Too early to tell at Trent what the impact has been. I did receive positive feedback from a few students and faculty who looked at the PowerPoint presentation I did for Education. Here are some things that I have learned so far.
At first eager to create lots of videos, but then realization sets in that as database products change, search interfaces updated that the need for redoing videos can involve a lot of work. You want to use sparingly and effectively rather than having them for the sake of saying you have videos.
Beware of creating videos and putting them throughout your web site without keeping track of where they are. It can be easy to do a video, put it up on web page and then forget it’s there and it becomes outdated. This concern caused me to create single page where any videos we produce will be linked.
Adding narration adds a lot of time and effort to creating videos.
Easy to get librarians and staff to say having these things is a great idea, but getting people interested to do the work may not be that simple.
Fact that I got a few positive responses indicates that the videos can be useful and appreciated. The big question is the relationship between the time and effort to create them and the number of people that use them? This may be cause to have survey or other form of evaluation in future.

16. Questions??