Designing Resilient Video Tutorials: Video Development

The first step in video development is to create a script. Writing a script is necessary step. "Ad libbing" is not a good video practice. Script writing will allow you to craft a narrative around the learning goals you develop for the video tutorial.  

After you write your script, you should develop a storyboard for your script. This step involves thinking about the action on your video. You may end revising your script once you start thinking about the action on-screen.

There are tools to assist storyboarding, but the process can be as simple as segmenting your script and taking some notes about what will be recorded next to the script.

"Create the Story, Attention, & Learning" by Dean Meyers viia Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

Before the script and storyboard are produced any further, it is important for peer review to take place. This process will allow you to learn how others interpret the information you present, and will make the script more understandable for a wider audience. It's important that your colleagues know the video's learning objective, so they can help assess if the video script helps library users achieve the objective. 

Once your script has been peer reviewed and edited accordingly, it is time to begin developing the materials you will use for the video. This might be a slide presentation, stop motion pictures, film, a screencast or more. When you record video, or a screencast, make sure to do a practice walkthrough before your official recording. It may take several attempts before you are satisfied with the final recording. 

"Black clapperboard with black & white strips & labels" by horiavarlan via Flickr, CC BY 2.0

"Waveform" by Benderous via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

To ensure a high quality sound, record the audio for your video tutorial in audio editing software, such as Audacity. While video editing software has some audio editing features, you will have better control and be able to remove background noise better with the audio software. 

When you record, make sure to be in a quiet location and use an external microphone. The microphones built into devices rarely produce high quality audio. 

As you record, try to be relaxed and remember to smile. This will make you sound more natural and happier as you record. There's no point in sounding bored and monotone in a video tutorial that you are spending time to create.

If you misread a line, don't worry. Just pause and reread the line. You will be able to edit the misread lines quite easily in the audio editing software. 

Once you have your video and audio recorded, you will want to bring the two elements together in your video editing software. From here, you can align the audio track with the video, as well as make any necessary cuts or rearrangements as necessary. 

Sometimes it is helpful to incorporate a music track into your video at a low sound level. Doing so will help fill in any "quiet" gaps. There are plenty of public domain and Creative Commons music resources for you to use. 

"Improving the speed and quality of research via shared algorithm"  by Opensourceway via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0

Now that your video is complete, upload the video to openly available tools, such as YouTube. From here, embed the videos on the library website, research and course guides, and more. It is important to have developed a content strategy, so you can share your videos in places where they will be utilized. 

The process of building and refining videos needs to be a continual process. Information changes and so will the systems, tools, and interfaces that you used in your tutorial. It is important to evaulate the final product (through peer review), but also revisit the video tutorials after a set time frame. Looking at information such as usage statistics will let you know if the video is worth updating in the future. It may also require you to reconsider your content strategy. so the video tutorials reach their intended audience.