Videos

Videos
Videos

Presenting Cochrane evidence as videos allows your audience to access both visual and audio content. This may help improve retention of information and allow people to develop a deeper connection with the evidence. Videos can be uploaded onto websites and embedded into slide sets to make presentations more engaging. Although the end product may be short, creating a great video can involve a surprising amount of time and effort. 

How to create a video
 

Creating your video

Keep it short! Experience shows that most videos hold people's attention for approximately 2-3 minutes. There are lots of external resources, such as this blog about turning research findings into a video that people want to watch.

  • Adobe Spark is a free online design tool that you can use to make your video, if you don’t already have access to a video creation tool or program.
     
  • Open Broadcaster Software is a free screen capturing program. It's great for capturing a voice-over while going through a slide deck. 

Adding subtitles to your video makes it easier for a wider range of people to understand it and allows it to be translated into other languages more easily (see below). 

  • The Consumer and Communication group and the Cochrane Schizophrenia group each have written blogs about their experience and lessons learned creating a video about systematic reviewing. Read the blog from the Consumer and Communication group, and the Schizophrenia group.
     
  • When creating a video it is important to understand public copyright licenses. Using a creative commons license allows videos to be translated and integrated into Wikipedia.

Top tip! Once you have a draft storyboard for your video, use the dissemination checklist to improve the draft.

Hosting your video

Most Cochrane videos are hosted on YouTube. A few countries restrict access to this platform and so choosing a platform which is right for your target audience is important. 

  • If your group already has a YouTube channel, the video can be hosted there.
     
  • Group-specific YouTube channels should only be created if you are planning on regularly posting content and establishing viewership. If your group is considering setting one up, please contact Sabrina Khamissa at skhamissa@cochrane.org to discuss.
     
  • If you would like it hosted on the established Cochrane YouTube channel, you can email Muriah Umoquit at mumoquit@cochrane.org with the file, name of video, and video description.

Vlogshots

Vlogshots are one example of a type of short video used to present information about a single Cochrane Review. They are an extension of the ‘blogshot’ format. More information is provided in the ‘blogshots’ section.

Videos in different languages

You can create videos in different languages, or you can “translate” videos that have been created by others. If you want to make existing videos available in your language, contact the people who created them to get their permission and access to the source video file for editing, and attribute them in your translated version. You can make a video available in your language in different ways:

1. Add subtitles in your language. You can do this in some video editing software programmes.

2. If the video has spoken audio, you can dub it. This requires a translation of the spoken audio, a speaker who records the audio in your language, and a person who can edit the source video file to replace the original audio with the new audio. Be aware that different languages take longer or shorter to say the same sentences, and that you may sometimes need to find quicker or slower sentences to say the same thing, so that the audio can be synced appropriately with the video visuals.

Be aware that videos may need visual and content adaptions so that they are appropriate for different local contexts. To do this, you will need the source video file to replace them with text in your language or locally appropriate images and graphics.

Sharing your video 

  • Consider writing a news item or blog post around your video – either for your group website, Cochrane.org or Cochrane Community website. Guidance on writing a news item or blog post can be found on this page.
     
  • Think of Cochrane groups or stakeholders who may have an interest in your video, and send it to them via email. We have a webpage on how to write more effective targeted emails.
     
  • You can boost your audience further by sharing your video on social media. For more information on social media platforms and how to use them effectively, visit this page.
     
  • To share your video using the Cochrane Central social media accounts, including the Comms Network Digest, contact Muriah Umoquit (mumoquit@cochrane.org). This webpage shares more about the Cochrane Central communications channels.

Evaluating the effect of your videos

Knowing whether your video is being viewed and whether people are finding it useful is important to determine if the time to produce it is well spent.

  • When the video is hosted on YouTube, you can easily see how many people have viewed the video, how many people have liked the video, and if there are any comments and engagement with the content.
     
  • If you own the channel where the video is hosted, you can get analytics from the ‘creator studio’, including: how much of the video people have watched; how they came to the video; and their country. More information is available on YouTube website.
     
  • If your video is hosted on the main Cochrane YouTube channel, email Muriah Umoquit at mumoquit@cohrane.org with the URL and information you are interested in.

Examples of videos from Cochrane groups

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