Telling Research Stories
Through SciVee
Philip E. Bourne
University of California San Diego
pbourne@ucsd.edu
www.sdsc.edu/pb
AAAS February 21, 2010
Agenda
• Motivation for founding SciVee
• A brief history
• What have we found along the way relevant
to researchers and educators
• How well does it tell the story?
• The future
Motivation
Motivation
The Research Article is Not Necessarily the Best Way to Convey the Science
Motivation
We Cannot Possibly Read a Fraction of the Papers We Should
• Abstract: 1-2 minutes
• Pubcast: 5-10 minutes
• Full paper: 120-180
minutes
Renear & Palmer 2009 Science 325:828-832
The Lab Experiment
• My students enjoyed the experience
• The shyest student was actually the most bold
in front of the camera
• “We will become a generation of
“sciencecastors”
• They liked the exposure for the most part –
rather than the PI it puts them out in front
A Brief History
Organic Growth
2+ Years Later
www.scivee.tv
• Some of their work viewed 20,000+ times
• Global audience of researchers, educators
and academic/research institutions
– 75,000+ unique visitors & 150,000 pageviews/month
– 9,000 registered users & 350 communities
– 3,500 uploads of video content (about journal articles,
conferences, research news and classes)
– Growing 4-5% monthly
– “YouTube of Science”
A Brief History
What Emerged?
{x}casts – A Mashup of Traditional and New Media
A Brief History
Products
Products:
{x}casts
Application Product
Primary Customers
Journals
PubCast
Journals, publishers, societies
Meetings
PosterCast
SlideCast
Societies, conference orgs.
Comm.
PaperCast
Podcast
SlideCast
Societies, journals
Education
PosterCast
SlideCast
Societies, universities
Books
BookCast
Publishers, book sellers
A Brief History
Content Synching-1
Content Selector
Video
Content
Confirm
Selection
Select content to be
synched w/cropping
tool…
A Brief History
What Have We Found Along the Way?
• “This will change everything” Pavel Pevzner
• “We should be doing more of this” NSF
Director
• “I will do one” many researchers (but a
relatively few follow through)
• After Ars technicha announcement millions of
page views
What Have We Found Along the Way?
Dissemination
Reward
Like it or not, dissemination often does not
bring the necessarily reward
PubCasts – 1-2 Years Later
Number of Views
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Abstracts
PubCast
Views
• It is not authors who
are the drivers, but a
limited number of
publishers
• Pubcasts do increase
access/interest in the
paper
• Led to new directions
What Have we Found Along the Way?
User Perceptions
• “Writers” strive for the highest quality
• “Readers” do not seem to care
• Synchronization only used in 50% of cases
– Perceived value is low?
– Web tools too cumbersome?
– Time is better spent on your next paper
What Have we Found Along the Way?
Services & Features Used
• Video competitions popular
• Communities popular
• Video only remains the most popular media
type
• Publishers increasingly interested
• Comments feature poorly used
• Embedding popular
• Occasionally some content will go viral
What Have we Found Along the Way?
How Well Does It Tell the Story?
• Experiment
• Gave ½ the class a
paper to read for the
same time it took the
other ½ to watch a
pubcast of the same
paper
• Multiple choice
questions on the paper
• Result
• Pubcast very slightly
better result – need
more tests for statistical
rigor
• Students liked the
pubcast more
There Have Been a Few Ah Hah Moments
How Well Does IT Tell the Story?
There Have Been a Few Ah Hah Moments
Discussion of
latest paper
We rediscovered what
TV discovered years ago
The interview format
is compelling
SciVee in Summary
• “Phil, not sure this will go the way you expect,
but something will come of this” David Lipman
– Uptake on Pubcasts has been slow
– Other {x}casts and video growing steadily
– Video competitions popular
– Business may depend on traditional publishers
and aggregators
Acknowledgements
SciVee Team
– Apryl Bailey, videographer
– Tim Beck, systems
– Scott Bourne, videographer
– Leo Chalupa, co-founder
– Lynn Fink, content management
– Marc Friedman, CEO
– Ken Liu, VP business development
– Alex Ramos, programmer
– Willy Suwanto, programmer
– Ben Yukich, systems
http://www.scivee.tv
pbourne@ucsd.edu
Questions?