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Best practice guidance: library skills videos

A guide to creating library skills videos

Summary of recommendations for online learning materials

These recommendations are based on feedback obtained from the 30 Day Get Searching Challenge (an online course for UCL library staff in the Summer of 2018, which looked at different forms of library skills online learning materials) and from a survey of Liverpool John Moore’s University (LJMU) students carried out prior to the rebranding and redesign of their online library skills materials.

Design

  • Step by step instructions to go alongside a video (e.g. PDF) could be helpful as it can be a lot to take in, and not always easy to find a particular part of a video again in order to replay it.
  • Need to consider whether lack of interactivity is an issue.

Content

  • Need to think carefully about the intended audience and what to include. Needs to be pitched at the right level, and need to decide on how formal or informal we make it. Introducing humour can be corny. Also need to ensure we are not being patronising.
  • Think about how we are presenting it in context – e.g. part of a Storyline where search theory is already covered so literally just explaining about the features of a particular interface.
  • Include objectives at the beginning so people know what they are getting from the video.
  • Needs to be kept up to date, and databases change a lot, so don’t be too ambitious in creating lots. Assign ownership of videos to particular library staff so they are responsible for keeping up to date with that resource and updating the video.

Audio / Voiceover / Text

  • Of 5 respondents, all felt audio is acceptable where appropriate as long as there are subtitles. There will be occasions when users are not able to listen to the sound. If there is an option to turn subtitles on or off that is good. It is difficult for videos to be engaging if they require a lot of reading of text. UCL’s branding guidelines specifies all videos should have subtitles, but we might get away with a transcript.
  • It’s important where there are captions / subtitles to make it clear if you are getting all of the audio or just selected parts. Captions can feel quite slow if they are not getting all the audio.
  • Audio can help with engagement as it stimulates more senses, and can help address additional learning styles.
  • Voiceover needs to be clear and to the point, no hesitations, not too fast. Conversational tone is good. Avoid monotone. There was a general preference to a ‘chatty’ and relaxed tone to voiceover – makes it more personal.
  • There’s a danger if you have voiceover and text that people miss part of the voiceover because they are reading the text.
  • On screen text needs to be visible for long enough for user to read it.
  • Animating text letter by letter can be annoying and infuriating if you are a fast reader and it is too slow, or if you are a slow reader and feel under pressure to keep up.
  • Music can be distracting and off-putting, and perhaps unnecessary.
  • It needs to be made clear whether there is sound so users know if they need headphones.

Length

  • Of 5 respondents, 3 felt videos should be 2-4mins long, and 2 felt they should be 4-6mins long.
  • In terms of maximum length of time, 2 said 5mins, 1 said 8 mins, 2 said 10 mins.
  • All felt it is better to split a video into a series of shorter videos rather than have one long one.
  • The time that people remain engaged will depend on who they are and their time constraints.
  • There’s a danger of a video getting too long if it aims to be comprehensive, so you need to think carefully about what to include and might need more than one video for a database. If it’s too long it will become boring.
  • If a video is fun and captivating it can be longer than one that is formal and passive.
  • We need to ensure the pace of videos is right, not too fast and not too slow.