Video is now a ‘must have’ in Higher Education – but what are the implications for accessibility?

” Video is now a ‘must have’ in Higher Education”

A recent  tweet from @OpenEduEU (described as ‘Open Education Europa portal is the gateway to European innovative learning’) caught my attention:

RT @RECall_LLP: Video now a ‘must have’ in Higher Education? Report by @Kaltura ow.ly/vQeFk #lecturecapture #elearning #edtech

The article was based on a survey which received 550 responses. The respondents were drawn from IT, digital media, instructional design, senior administration and faculty departments of K12 and HE worldwide who completed an online surveyed between January and March 2014.

Is seems that this is broad agreement that “video has a significantly positive impact on all aspects of the student lifecycle, from attracting and retaining students to enhancing learning, boosting learning outcomes and building stronger alumni relations“.

Note that the full report can be downloaded after completing a registration form.

It should be noted that the report has been published by a company called Kaltura which describes itself as “The leading video platform: video solutions, software and services for video publishing, management, syndication and monetization“. A cynic might suggest that the company has a vested interest in commissioning a survey which show significant interest in use of video in higher education. I feel that the implications of the survey findings are worth considering but it would be helpful to have evidence of the popularity of video usage in the UK higher education sector.

YouTube Use in Selected UK Higher Education Institutions

Back in October 2010 in a post entitled How is the UK HE Sector Using YouTube? I explained how “It can be useful for the higher education sector to be able to identify institutional adoption of new services at an early stage so that institutions across the sector are aware of trends and can develop plans to exploit new dissemination channels once the benefits have been demonstrated“.

The post provided benchmark details on YouTube usage statistics for what appeared to be 15 official UK institutional YouTube channels which were easily identifiable at the time, together with details for the University of Bath and the Open University.

A comparison of the usage statistics recorded in the initial survey with the current findings is given in Table 1.

Table 1: Growth of YouTube Usage Across Selected Official UK Universities from October 2010 to April 2014

	Institution	Total Nos. of Views			No. of Subscribers
		Oct 2010	Apr 2014	%age change	Oct 2010	Apr 2014	%age change
1	Adam Smith College	25,606	1,063,820	4,055%	39	1,758	4,408%
2	Cambridge University	1,189,778	7,200,870	505%	6,921	37,030	435%
3	Coventry University	1,039,817	2,904,121	179%	1,147	3,668	220%
4	Cranfield School of Management	20,607	459,196	2,128%	82	1,502	1,732%
5	Edinburgh University	236,884	1,759,174	643%	1,280	9,338	630%
6	Imperial College	353,355	2,682,861	659%	859	8,131	847%
7	LSBF (London School of Business and Finance)	96,212	676,297	603%	244	2,778	1,039%
8	Leeds Metropolitan University	589,659	1,675,534	184%	512	2,465	381%
9	Nottingham University	284,820	2,151,187	655%	596	7,038	1,081%
10	The Open University	392,720	872,706	122%	2,944	16,562	463%
11	Said Business School, University of Oxford	660,541	1,545,331	134%	1,808	6,598	265%
12	St George’s, University of London	338,276	1,209,538	258%	825	2,650	221%
13	UCL	287,198	1,491,114	419%	810	5,718	606%
14	University of Derby	117,906	758,874	544%	106	1,144	979%
15	University of Warwick	90,608	439,492	385%	276	1,520	451%
	TOTALS	5,722,987	26,890,115	370%	18,449	107,900	485%

The survey carried out in October 2010 also provided statistics for additional UK University YouTube accounts which were found. A comparison with the current findings is given in Table 2.

Table 2: Growth of YouTube Usage Across Selected UK Universities from October 2010 to April 2014

	Institution	Total Nos. of Views			No. of Subscribers
		Oct 2010	Apr 2014	%age change	Oct 2010	Apr 2014	%age change
1	University of Bristol	18,171	56,651	212%	27	83	207%
2	Coventry University (CovStudent)	1,036,671	2,904,121	181%	1,139	3,668	222%
3	RHULLibrary	3,847	8,000	108%	10	27	170%
4	Aston University	(89,080)	–	–	(132)	–	–
5	UoL International Programmes	74,017	1,522,574	1,957%	499	5,640	1,030%
6	University of Greenwich	9,254	388,501	4,098%	19	712	3,647%
7	Northumbriauni	6,226	389,268	6,104%	23	412	1,691%
8	Huddersfield University International study	24,195	76,373	216%	22	111	405%
9	The University of Leicester	246,986	2,304,959	833%	320	5,019	1,468%
10	University of Kent	26,996	178,207	560%	102	935	817%
11	Canterbury Christ Church University	25,439	60,755	139%	36	244	578%
12	Open University	391,625	872,706	139%	2,936	16,557	464%
13	University of Bath	252,850	675,769	167%	93	1,196	1,186%
	TOTALS	2,116,277	9,438,244	346%	5,226	34,604	562%

Note that the channel for Aston University from the initial survey no longer exists. In order to provide comparable statistics the data from the initial survey has been omitted. Also note that the data in the tables was collected on 7 October 2010 and 20 April 2014.

Reflections

The tables provide evidence of the, perhaps unsurprising, popularity of video usage in the UK higher education sector.

It should be pointed out that this information is based solely on use of YouTube. Institutions are likely to make use of a number of other video delivery services (the University of Leeds, for example, has an official YouTube channel which has 246,989 views and 949 subscribers and also a Lutube video service which currently hosts 3,447 public videos, although no download statistics appear to be available). Based on the sample evidence it would appear that we can agree with the statement “Video is now a ‘must have’ in Higher Education“.

This will have many implications for the sector including the question of what video management and delivery tools should be used. But in this post I wish to focus on the accessibility implications of greater use of video resources.

Accessibility Considerations

Institutional Accessibility Policy Statements

In a recent webinar on ‘MOOCs and Inclusive Practice’  I gave a brief presentation on Accessibility, Inclusivity and MOOCs: What Can BS 8878 Offer?.

In the presentation I suggested that institutional accessibility policy statements were likely to be based on WCAG conformance. A quick search for accessibility policies available at http:///foo.ac.uk/accessibility helped me to identify two ways in which WCAG policies are used:

1. The University is committed to ensuring the all web pages are compliant with WCAG guidelines
2. The University will seek to ensure the all web pages are compliant with WCAG guidelines

But are policy statements such as (1) achievable in an environment in which significant use is made of video resources? Will all video resources used on institutional web sites be captioned? In light of the greater use of video resources, it would appear to be timely to revisit accessibility statements – it should be noted, for example, that according to the Internet Archive the policy statement shown above is unchanged since at least September 2009.

But would a policy statement of the type shown in (2) be appropriate? Such statement do appear to be very vague. Are there not alternatives between these two extremes?

The Potential for BS 8878

In  my presentation on Accessibility, Inclusivity and MOOCs: What Can BS 8878 Offer? (which is available on Slideshare and embedded below) I suggested that the sector should explore the relevance of BS 8878 Web Accessibility Code of Practice, a British Standard which provides a framework in which appropriate policies can be determined for use in the development and deployment of Web products.

Due to the lack of time during the webinar it was not possible to discuss the details of how BS 8878 could be used in an elearning context. However at the Cetis 2014 conference on Building the Digital Institution I will be co-facilitating with Andy Heath  a session which will address the challenge of Building an Accessible Digital Institution. In this session we will “explore how the BS 8878 Web Accessibility Code of practice may address limitations of the WAI approach and see how BS 8878 may be applied in a learning context” and go on to “explore emerging emerging models of accessibility and developing architectures and technical standards“.

Note that the early bird rate (£100 for the 2-day event) for the conference is available until 1 May. I hope that those who have an interest in accessibility for elearning, as well as in the broad range of learning issues which will be addressed at the conference, will consider attending the event.  In the meantime I’d be interested to hear what your current policies and practices are for the accessibility of your elearning resources and, in particular, whether your practices reflect the policies. Feel free to leave a comment on this post.

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