FEATURE Video publishing
Video enhances publications
Nicola Davies looks at the benefits and challenges of including video in scholarly resources and explores the future of this approach
T
here is a trend towards the inclusion of video in journal articles, databases and other scholarly resources. One company that is embracing this trend is SAGE; early next
year, the company will launch its first set of video collections. ‘The collections comprise educational videos for lecturers, academics, researchers and postgraduate students,’ said Kiren Shoman, executive director, editorial, SAGE. ‘Producing video content is a whole new method of engagement with the academic audience,’ she explained.
This is certainly the experience that the Institute of Physics Publishing (IOP) reports. In 2011 the publisher began publishing video abstracts for some of its journal articles; a trend it says has been received positively by researchers.
IOP author Germain Rousseaux of the Université de Nice Sophia Antipolis, France, said: ‘Research is a human journey. To meet a researcher through an internet video is to be part of this adventure. Video abstracts humanise this journey.’
Guillame Wright, publisher of Environmental Research Letters at IOP, added: ‘In making the video abstracts, our authors have an opportunity to explore and explain their work to a much broader audience. It helps them go beyond the formal structure of the journal article and helps bring their work to life, in essence to tell the story of their article. This is a critical service for many, especially researchers being asked to write impact stories of their research to justify their next grant. For others, it helps them engage with the public outreach requirements of many funders.’ He added that videos appeal to a broader audience as they help make complex science accessible
to non-researchers such as policy-makers, the media and the wider public. Video can also help to bring out human connections in other ways. Primary-source publisher Alexander Street Press has built its business around video. It provides historical video collections that, for example, enable researchers to see broadcasts from different sides during a war. For example, a documentary about the nuclear bombs detonated in Japan in 1945 includes archival footage of pivotal individuals and their opinions and fears concerning nuclear weapons, including Einstein, Oppenheimer, Truman, Stalin and Reagan.
Another way that video is being used in scholarship is to help engage with a wider audience and help with learning and
‘Some people learn better visually and, as such, video has
a great impact’ Kiren Shoman, executive director of editorial at SAGE
professional development. This is something that IET is doing with its
IET.tv broadband television service, which will provide downloadable videos by practising engineers, technologists and key industry speakers streamed on-demand. These programmes will include events, lectures, training videos, interviews, news, and presentations that can be synced with the speaker’s slideshows.
Enhancing understanding In addition, The Journal of Engineering from the IET has a video discussion on bridging the gap
22 Research Information DECEMBER 2014/JANUARY 2015
A screenshot of a video that was included in an article appearing in Healthcare Technology Letters, IET
between academia and industry with leaders in both fields. Helen Dyball, executive editor for Letters at IET, said: ‘In journal articles, the inclusion of a video can greatly enhance the reader’s understanding of the research.’ For example, a short video demonstration of the operation of an experiment or piece of apparatus gives an instant visual that otherwise often needs a significant amount of text to be described in the same level of detail. She also noted that journals might place restrictions on the length of text that can be included in a paper, or charge authors extra for additional pages. For this reason, the inclusion of a video is an attractive way to ensure that the detail is communicated to the reader. It can allow the author to present a more convincing case as readers can see the piece of research in action. ‘The reader can also benefit as a video can significantly cut down the amount of time that they need to spend reading the paper; an attractive prospect for the busy researcher who is required to keep up to date with the increasing volume of literature,’ said Dyball. Shoman, of SAGE, agreed on the benefits: ‘The quality of the journal article still stands for itself, but the increasing production of digital, video content alongside this supports both the impact of and accessibility of content – speaking to different researchers’ learning styles; for instance, some people learn better visually and as such video has a great impact,’ she noted. ‘The continued onset of digital
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