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- Are users actually watching the whole video? We just learned about a way to do this - see this video: Google Analytics and .swf tutorials by Paul Betty.
- Who are they? MIT or not, grads or undergrads, etc. Also, are they library staff? There is a way to exclude internal traffic.
- Are short, quick instructional videos are better than long ones? The stats don't give us a clear answer, except to imply it's contextual. Both short and long videos are among our most popular - either length seems to be appropriate if it meets what users are expecting.
What type of videos work best - short or long? Depends what the user is coming for.
We are looking at our statistics for guidance. We use Google Analytics on our web pages.
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Managing the files
- Camtasia can produce videos in many formats, including Flash and QuickTime. We were adviced to produce Flash videos as the most ubiquitous platform.
- Flash files are fairly large: 1.5 minute video = 2.5MB, 10 minute video = 10MB
- We store all the files in a central location, which helps manage the special issues these files can have and to help gather use statistics.
- We also centrally store all the production files so they are available if we need to edit the videos.
TechTV
We are also putting our videos into MIT's TechTV
Originally we were going to use TechTV as the place our videos lived, but we had technical problems that delayed our ability to put them up (and so embedded them on .html pages on our own site). Camtasia doesn't just produce a single Flash file, it produces multiple Flash files (for tables of contents, the controllers, etc.). Camtasia 5 has an option to produce single Flash file, so we are putting them all up now.
how to market / where to link to
Managing the files
Fairly large files (3-10MB) for the Flash files, store them centrally on a designated server.
Production files used to create the Flash files are large too - keep them backed up centrally in case we need to edit the original. Camtasia uses a lot of files (separate audio files, images) and it's been hard to make sure we have all that are needed to recreate the video.
technical problems (audio)
Costs
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No IT staff directly involved in project, outside of purchasing and installing software.
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