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The purpose of this paper is to report on how researchers at Penn State University used video screen capture technology to learn more about student usage of the library's databases.

The process of identifying and implementing a novel way to capture and analyze the human‐computer interaction is outlined and discussed.

Because of the drawbacks associated with both formal, direct physical observation of research participants and videotaping participants, video screen capture technology is chosen as a better way to track human‐computer interaction.

Video screen capture technology is an inexpensive, user‐friendly way to enhance electronic resource usability studies in any library. Research files can be easily exported into coding software for data analysis.

The paper examines a new, non‐invasive way to capture student research behavior. It shows how any library could use this same technology to conduct research on how their resources are being used by their user population.

To describe the use of a Composer’s Cut video as a tool for reflecting on and celebrating one’s experience creating multimodal compositions for personal and social audiences.

Two adolescents designed and produced digital video stories about their prior experience composing a webpage and a multimodal literary analysis hypertext in response to the Vietnam war novel, The Things They Carried.

Each student remixed Camtasia screen capture video, class video, and images, enhanced with text overlays and music, to showcase their unique vision as a multimodal designer and to highlight their composing processes. They viewed the Composer’s Cut video as a powerful vehicle for reflection and appreciated that their videos would have a public audience.

Reflection often tends to be oral or written. Digital video supports students in showing, as well as telling their experience through multiple modes. The Composer’s Cut video is one example of how video might be used for reflection that is both personal and social.

As the use of electronic library resources increases, the demand for online support also multiplies. Information literacy and 24/7 customer support are some of the urgent issues related to research in an electronic environment that many libraries are trying to address today. This article describes an approach in meeting these challenges, the Let‐It‐V (Learning E‐Resources Through Instructional Technology Videos) project at the Texas A&M University Libraries. This study combines the use of screen‐captured videos and a streaming media encoder to produce topic‐specific videos for task‐oriented demands. It is visual, interactive, and seeks to provide just‐in‐time solutions at a point of need. On‐demand streaming is a viable, cost‐effective alternative for low bandwidth delivery of video‐enabled library instruction. The technologies involved, key development issues, lessons learned and their implications for distance learning are discussed.

Presents a conversation between Grete Pasch and Quinn Stewart, co‐developers of the Web‐based version of “Information in Cyberspace” (LIS312g) at the University of Texas Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The developers recount their experience from the initial idea, to experimentation with technologies and selection of tools, to course development, converting the class to a Web‐based format, using streaming media for content delivery, e‐mail and discussion boards for student‐faculty interaction, and PERL‐based tools for course management. Emphasizes using a team approach, testing the materials, getting student feedback, and counting on effective technical support as critical success factors. Also emphasizes making the most of existing as well as unexpected opportunities (such as the reuse of tutorials for other courses). Above all, the authors see the creation of Web‐based courses as an opportunity for instructors to research and experience various technologies for content presentation, to stay in touch with student needs, and to look toward the future of digital materials.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the implementation of the flipped classroom method in teaching the course and to investigate the student’s perceived helpfulness, learning outcomes and satisfaction in respect of the pre-class learning videos.

Pre-class learning videos were integrated into a course to encourage students to acquire knowledge before lectures and workshops. Having completed the flipped classroom, a delivery questionnaire containing all items was distributed to all of the participants. The data collected were analysed statistically, using a structured equation modelling technique.

Findings indicate that the perceived quality of experience of using videos before lectures and workshops has a positive influence on the perceived helpfulness of the pre-class learning videos. Furthermore, the perceived helpfulness of the pre-class learning videos has a positive effect of the acquisition perceived learning outcomes. The perceived helpfulness of the pre-class learning videos also has a positive impact on the student satisfaction with the course. Finally, there is a positive and causal relationship between the perceived learning outcomes and student’s satisfaction with the course.

Analysis reveals that the learning process and student satisfaction are improved by using pre-class learning videos.

This paper aims to report on the design and creation of a knowledge management course aimed at facilitating student creation and use of social interactive learning tools for enhanced learning.

The era of social media and web 2.0 has enabled a bottom‐up collaborative approach and new ways to publish work on the web, promoted by tools such as YouTube video service. In this spirit a knowledge management course was designed aiming to facilitate university students to compose videos on different difficult concepts in the theory part of the course by searching for explanations on the web and by creating a Windows Media Player video focusing on the self‐defined problems. The videos created by the students were published on a wiki (Wetpaint) and the students were encouraged to actively share knowledge and learn from one another by familiarising themselves with the videos of the other students. In order to utilise cognitive and social constructivism, as well as problem‐based learning, the principles of the Jigsaw method were used to enable different students to create videos on different themes.

Based on the authors' experiences it is suggested that curriculum and syllabus planning should be transformed toward a more student‐centred approach. This is the most natural in the context of knowledge management, which emphasizes the meaning of participation and knowledge sharing. The social constructivist learning theory emphasizes the meaning of interaction in successful learning. By publishing videos created by the students themselves, by commenting on videos created by other students and by reading comments expressed by others the approach proved to be beneficial for learning in many ways.

The research limitation lies in the differences of quality, format and sizes of these videos produced and the efforts and time requirements for editing and use.

The present finding and report implies more of these resources could be generated by students in other courses in other study areas encouraging use of these types of resources, engaging students with the curriculum, and encouraging interaction amongst students promoting deeper understanding, more positive learning experiences and the generation of curriculum teaching materials by students for class work, making learning more student focused.

The paper focuses on a unique process that allows the use of social technology by students for the generation of materials for use in learning.

The purpose of this paper is to define and describe informal screencasting (i.e. capturing your actions on a computer screen with the goal of showing others how to accomplish tasks on a website or in a given software environment). Customer‐satisfaction survey results from 103 faculty, staff, and students are presented.

An online survey revealing customer satisfaction with informal screencasts was made available in Spring 2010 to faculty, staff, and students of a mid‐sized public university in Arlington, Texas, USA. Results are compiled, analyzed, and presented here.

Most participants' reactions to the librarian's informal screencasts were positive or quite positive, but many participants still noted that they would prefer to receive e‐mail instructions in answer to their questions.

The survey was not distributed to a representative sample of the population; instead, the author solicited participants via e‐mail, so the participant pool was a convenience sample, which could introduce bias in the results.

This survey is the first to assess academic library customers' attitudes toward informal screencasting as an instructional tool, as far as the author has been able to determine after an extensive literature search.

Software training is a new trend in software applications. A key problem with software training is that video tutorials are developed without considering the target audience. Although video tutorials are popular, little attention is given to their design features. This study aims to investigate how two multimedia research principles, visual cueing (VC) and practice type, influence task performance, mental effort and motivation.

Three video tutorials on non-linear editing were viewed by 118 Computer Science undergraduate students with high information communication technology experience. To analyse the relationships between the research variables, a 2 (non-VC versus VC) × 2 (post-video viewing practice versus stepwise viewing-based practice (SVBP) mixed factorial design was used.

The results indicated that neither VC nor SVBP influenced task performance; however, both practice type conditions led to higher levels of motivation.

The incorporation of VC and practice type in complex software training is less likely to be beneficial for domain experts. Future studies should record eye tracking data to capture learners’ behaviours whilst learning a software application. Moreover, practice targeted with immediate feedback should be incorporated as it enhances scaffolding.

Neither practice type was considered effective by experts. A practice strategy with user-controlled pausing (i.e. markers) could enhance retention by allowing users to practice tasks after locating the most relevant parts of the video tutorial.

This study contributes to the literature by investigating two guidelines: VC and practice type in the context of complex software training targeting domain experts.

Defining and describing research methodologies is difficult. Methodologies have similarities and resonances, and overlapping characteristics. Familiar labels of case study, action research and ethnography may not be adequate to describe new and creative approaches to qualitative research. If we simply transfer old ways to new contexts, we risk limiting our understanding of the complexities of real life settings. The call to set aside old dualisms and devise new methodological approaches has been sounded. Accordingly, this article sets out to describe a fledgling new methodological approach, and how it was operationalized in a small‐scale study of digitally‐mediated classroom learning.

The methodology combines elements of action research and case study with an ethnographic approach. It was devised for a study of the use of Facebook as an educational resource by five dyslexic students at a sixth form college in north‐west England. Its flexibility and attention to detail enabled multiple data collection methods. This range of methods enabled meticulous analysis of many of the group's online and offline interactions with each other and with Facebook as they co‐constructed their group Facebook page.

Reflexively combining elements of case study, action research and ethnography thus helped capture the “connected complexities” (Davies) of this contemporary classroom setting. This is necessary if researchers are to obtain any meaningful understanding of how learning happens in such contexts.

The author hopes to contribute to the discourse on qualitative methodology and invites other researchers studying similar contexts to consider a similar approach.

Playing back recorded lectures on handheld devices offers interesting perspectives for learning, but suffers from small screen sizes. The purpose of this paper is to propose several semi‐automatic post‐processing steps in order to improve usability by providing a better readability and additional navigation functionality.

Several rather simple (and thus fast) statistical indicators were implemented and evaluated to detect certain events in a lecture recording that can be used in a semi‐automatic post‐processing approach.

The evaluations verify the quality of the analysis. By presenting an actual implementation, the paper demonstrates how these results can be used to improve visibility of the content and provide further navigation options, thus increasing overall usability.

This paper provides practical information on how to build a useful system for everyday usage in normal teaching scenarios. The paper presents different approaches illustrating initial steps for achieving better visualization and navigation functionality for lecture podcast – two issues that are essential for their usability but have not found much attention so far. This implementation demonstrates the usefulness and feasibility of the proposed techniques. Although the purpose of this article is rather on practical aspects than on presenting new research results, some of the observations can have implications for research in this area and some results illustrate important aspects and interesting research opportunities.