Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
EVERY CLIP ITS VIEWER?A mixed-method evaluation of the Regional Film Archive network
and associated 'Search Your Film Archive' resource.
A study submitted in partial fulfilmentof the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science in Electronic and Digital Library Management
at
THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
by
Richard Freeston
September 2012
1
Abstract
BackgroundThere are significant opportunities for the custodians of Screen Heritage to take advantage of the burgeoning popularity of online video to boost public access to collection content. The recently-launched 'Search Your Film Archive' (SYFA) union catalogue of Regional Film Archives' (RFA) holdings is designed to achieve this.
AimsThis study sets out to evaluate the functionality and performance of the SYFA union catalogue and of its constituent collections' online resources. It also seeks to assess users' approaches to viewing, discovering and managing online video
MethodsA mixed method is adopted. A comparative analysis of SYFA and two equivalent Cultural Heritage media content discovery resources is conducted, along with a similar evaluation of SYFA's constituent RFA collections' online resources. The discoverability of material from the individual RFA collections is then assessed, both within SYFA and at a web scale. Finally, a small predominantly student population is surveyed on the their online video consumption patterns, and on their approaches to content discovery and sharing.
ResultsViewers were found to watch significant amounts of online video, but despite an apparent interest in Screen Heritage content were largely unaware of dedicated online resources. YouTube is confirmed as the primary destination for both viewing and search activities. Users were found to actively comment and rate material they viewed, but at a relatively low rate. The SYFA union catalogue offers discovery functionalities comparable to more extensive equivalent resources, but there appears to a degree of inconsistency in the reliability of its search results. The available online video across the resources as a whole was found to comprise a very low proportion of overall collection holdings, and to be largely invisible to web scale video search resources other than SYFA. There is a high degree of variation in the usability of the constituent RFA collections' individual online resources.
ConclusionsSYFA provides a much-needed and broadly effective discovery tool for the online offerings of the RFA network. However, it suffers from low awareness, and a potentially worrying inconsistency of operation. Online video viewers, who profess a general interest in Screen Heritage content, may yet be tempted away from YouTube.
2
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr Paul Clough for his support and guidance throughout.
Word count: 15,039
This study is dedicated to the memory of Fiona Young.
3
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 1.1 Context ............................................................................................................................................................ 5 1.2 Aims and Objectives ........................................................................................................................................ 7 1.3 Research Scope .............................................................................................................................................. 9 1.4 Ethical Considerations of the Research .......................................................................................................... 9 1.5 Limitations of Research ................................................................................................................................... 9 1.6 Structure of Report ........................................................................................................................................ 10
2. Background to the Study ....................................................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Online Video .................................................................................................................................................. 10 2.2 Screen Heritage material ............................................................................................................................. 13
3. Previous Research ................................................................................................................................................ 15 4. Methodology ......................................................................................................................................................... 17
4.1 Comparative feature analysis ........................................................................................................................ 17 4.2 Discoverability Evaluations ........................................................................................................................... 19
4.2.1 RFA collection clip discoverability evaluation ...................................................................................... 19 4.2.2 Detailed evaluation of clip discoverability: "Ower Bit Bog Oil" ............................................................. 20
4.3 Survey of online video users ........................................................................................................................ 22 5. Results .................................................................................................................................................................. 23
5.1 Results of the Comparative Analysis ............................................................................................................. 23 5.1.1 RFA collections .................................................................................................................................... 23 5.1.2 Results of the comparative analysis of SYFA and the other Union Catalogues .................................. 30
5.1.2.1 Comparison of Functionalities ............................................................................................... 30 5.2 Discoverability Test Results ........................................................................................................................... 32
5.2.1 Union Catalogues .............................................................................................................................. 32 5.2.2 Video Search Engines ......................................................................................................................... 37 5.2.3 Detailed discoverability evaluation of SYFA, Video and Web Search: "Ower Bit bog Oil" .................. 38
5.3 Results of the User Survey ........................................................................................................................... 39 5.3.1. Survey response rates and durations ................................................................................................. 40 5.3.2 Overall survey participant demographics ............................................................................................ 41 5.3.3 Users' Internet connections ................................................................................................................. 44 5.3.4 Users' Internet usage ........................................................................................................................... 46 5.3.5 Users' overall online video behaviour .................................................................................................. 48 5.3.6 Users' approaches to finding online video ........................................................................................... 55 5.3.7 Users' approaches to viewing online video ......................................................................................... 56 5.3.8 Users' approaches to managing online video ...................................................................................... 58 5.3.9 Users' accounts with video hosting sites ............................................................................................. 59 5.3.10 ‘Screen Heritage Online Video’ survey results .................................................................................. 60 5.3.11 Users' attitudes to online video at the University of Sheffield ............................................................ 63
6. Discussion ............................................................................................................................................................. 65 6.1 Discussion of Comparative Analysis Results ................................................................................................ 65 6.2 Discussion of Discoverability evaluation results ............................................................................................ 66 6.3 Discussion of User Survey Results ............................................................................................................... 68
7. Conclusions and Further Research ...................................................................................................................... 69 8. References ............................................................................................................................................................ 71 Appendix 1: University of Sheffield Ethics Application Form ..................................................................................... 76 Appendix 2. Results of the Comparative analysis of RFA functionalities. ................................................................. 80 Appendix 3: Results of the Comparative Analysis of SYFA and Union Catalogue functionalities ............................. 82 Appendix 4: Results of the User Survey (presented in question number sequence). .............................................. 83
4
1. Introduction
1.1 Context
The amount of video being viewed over the Internet is exploding. YouTube, one of the largest online
video resources, recently reported that they now serve up over 4 billion 'views' daily, globally, and that
every second, 1 hour of content is added to their servers (YouTube, 2012). Put another way, every 10
days, a century of video content is uploaded.
Given that ever-increasing amounts of this consist of High Definition video, this represents a vast
amount of data being transmitted across the Internet. Indeed, it has been estimated that it already
accounts for over 50 percent of consumer Internet traffic, 'bit for bit', and that by 2015, 1 million minutes
of video content will cross every second (Cisco, 2011).
The phenomenal growth of this medium has been fuelled by the maturation of sophisticated video
compression codecs and the widespread penetration of high speed broadband connections.
It is now possible to watch online video on a wide range of platforms: not only traditional desktop PCs
and laptops, but increasingly via handheld devices such as mobile phones and tablets, networked
games consoles and Internet-enabled television sets. The imminent increase in mobile broadband
connection speeds is predicted to see a huge rise in the amount of online video watched on this
platform (Cisco, 2011), and the parallel growth of Internet-enabled TVs provides the means for online
video to challenge traditional broadcast TV as satisfying and social leisure activity.
Online video has thus become a powerful new medium for the dissemination of information, 'on
demand' for viewers. The umbrella term 'online video' covers a huge range of content types; the
medium is being embraced in a wide range of both professional and leisure-based settings. It includes
not only the 'amateur' User Generated Content uploaded in vast quantities to video-sharing sites such
as YouTube, but, increasingly, professionally produced content such as news, entertainment and
broadcast television. It includes video chat between friends on their mobiles, and more recently still,
provides a platform for the 'live-streaming' of current events from mobile phones to an Internet
audience. And it presents huge opportunities for use within the educational sector, with applications
ranging from lecture capture systems to peer-reviewed scientific 'video journals' such as the Journal of
Visualized Experiments.
5
However, large scale studies of actual user patterns of online video consumption patterns have been
relatively limited. Surveys on Internet usage have either tended to focus on the User Generated
Content element of the medium (PEW, 2007), or in very little detail (Dutton & Blank, 2011).
Online video provides a significant opportunity for opening up access to Screen Heritage (SH) content;
a particularly valuable and useful form of moving image material when set alongside the entertainment-
based content that seemingly dominates the landscape. Of great historical and cultural significance
(UNESCO, 2002), it has tended thus far to be largely inaccessible to the public, stored in dedicated
archives focusing on its preservation. At a national scale, extensive collections of such content are
held by the BBC, the British Film Institute (BFI), The National Archive and the Imperial War Museum,
whilst a huge network of smaller collections are held by industrial archives, municipal archives,
libraries, museums, galleries and a network of Regional Film Archives.
Digitisation initiatives, often undertaken for preservation purposes have brought significant portions of
the analogue-based primary material of these collections into the digital realm. However, the extent to
which this is further made openly available online remains somewhat unclear. Moreover, extracting
information about the ‘content’ of video is much more difficult than for text-based resources, and this
raises important questions from the user perspective about online video’s utility as a satisfyingly
discoverable format.
Kinder (2009:53) asks of online video in general "How do we avoid becoming lost within this growing
profusion of video texts?" The simple answer is: not easily. "If it has been stated once, it has been
stated many times: video retrieval and seeking is complex" (Albertson & Meadows, 2011). Within the
Screen Heritage sector in particular, users therefore need simple, functional tools to help them find the
content that is relevant to their search needs - be they targeted or exploratory, and whether for
educational use or simply to enjoy these rich historical and cultural documents.
In September 2011, as part of a commitment to extend such public access to digital Screen Heritage
content, the UK's umbrella body in the field, Screen Heritage UK, launched 'Search Your Film Archives'
(SYFA) (see Figure 1).
6
This dedicated online 'discovery' resource combines the catalogues of the BFI National Archive and the
network of 9 Regional Film Archives (RFAs) who are amongst the custodians of the UK's publicly-
owned, locally-themed film and video material.
This study sets out to identify and evaluate the effectiveness of the approaches being taken by this
small group of related resources to the online 'discovery' of their content. It seeks to establish their
visibility in a world of online users as "digital hunter-gatherers”, and ultimately asks how effectively they
are re-conceptualising Ranganathan's 'Third Law of Library Science'; in the era of online video, how
effectively can "Every book its reader" be extended to include "Every clip its viewer"?
1.2 Aims and Objectives
The aim of this study is to use a mixed-method approach to assess and contextualise the Search Your
Film Archive union catalogue discovery tool and the Regional Film Archive (RFA) network of online
video resources it serves.
It approaches this from two distinct perspectives: on the one hand, via a systematic evaluation of the
functionalities and performance of these and related resources, and on the other an investigation of
the behaviours and attitudes of the potential users of such resources. It is envisaged that together
these will result in a clearer picture of the current patterns of online video content discovery, user
enrichment of such content, and overall user engagement with the emerging family of online Screen
Heritage resources.
7
Figure 1: The SYFA interface on the BFI website
Three specific and related exercises are conducted:
● a comparative analysis of the functionalities and characteristics of the RFA group of
collections, the SYFA discovery tool, and a sample group of equivalent resources
● an evaluation of the discoverability of content from the Screen Heritage collections within
SYFA and alternative web-scale video discovery resources
● a survey of general user online video consumption patterns and attitudes towards discovery
and enrichment, with a focus on Screen Heritage resources
1.3 Research Scope
In a field evolving as rapidly as that of online video, a study of this scale cannot realistically encompass
the vast and continually growing range of online video resources, and the functionalities and
affordances they offer. It therefore focuses on a small but focused set of resources, on the basis that
findings may have a certain degree of applicability to the broader field of online video.
The study will not explore the complex set of financial, political and legal factors that have a major
influence on the viability of major digitisation projects; these issues are explored in detail elsewhere. It
is simply assumed that a certain amount of overall analogue Screen Heritage material already exists in
digital form.
1.4 Ethical Considerations of the Research
The comparative analysis and discoverability evaluation exercises raise no ethical issues. The survey
of online video viewers, conducted via an ‘open’ online questionnaire on a third-party website, does
have a significant ethical dimension. Care was therefore taken to ensure that the relevant University of
Sheffield research ethics guidelines were followed.
The 'invitation to participate' email made explicit the fact that the survey was voluntary, anonymous,
and that no personal contact details were required. It also clarified that participants were free to
withdraw at any time, but that by completing the survey they were providing 'informed consent' for their
anonymous response data to be included in the subsequent analysis.
8
Full confidentiality is ensured by undertaking to delete all data from the SurveyGizmo site upon
completion of the project. Overall, the investigative exercises were deemed ‘low risk’, and approval
given to undertake the study. See Appendix 1 for the Ethics Approval Application form.
1.5 Limitations of Research
The sample population of the survey is, from a statistical perspective, relatively small. It is also heavily
skewed towards a student population. Care must therefore be taken before extending the significance
of the results to a broader context.
Similarly, the additional resources that provide some comparative context to the group that form the
focus of the study have been purposively selected, and no probabilistic significance may be attached to
the findings on distributions of functionalities across these resources.
1.6 Structure of Report
Following this introductory section, brief backgrounds are provided on the characteristics of online
video as a format, and of the UK Screen Heritage sector. Following these, an overview of significant
previous research in the field is followed by a section outlining the methodologies of the investigative
exercises. The results of each of these are then presented, followed by a discussion on the
significance of the results in the broader context of online video as a format, and of current thinking on
Screen Heritage. A final section draws some conclusions from the findings of the study and identifies
some areas of potentially interesting future research.
2. Background to the Study
2.1 Online Video
The digitisation of analogue video has been ongoing for over 20 years, initially in the professional
broadcast sectors. More recently, consumer digital video formats have emerged, and more recently
still, protocols for the compression of digital video content down to file sizes consistent with effective
9
transmission across online networks. Early examples of these formats included the Mpeg1 and
RealVideo formats; more recently these have been replaced by the more efficient Flash (.flv) and
Mpeg4 formats. Many of these current compression formats (including the widely used Flash) are
proprietary. This has led to conflicts within the online video field, most notably the lack of native support
for the Flash video format by the increasingly popular Apple mobile and tablet devices. This in turn has
led to the emergence of 'open' video compression technologies, including the Ogg Theora and Google-
sponsored WebM formats. With support for the Flash format due to be discontinued within the next five
years, it is envisaged that gradually these 'open' standards will be broadly adopted. However,
uncertainty remains about the future direction of this highly technical and fluid aspect of online video
technology.
As with all digital content, online video comprises of both a primary digital object (or 'file', sometimes
referred to as a 'bitstream'), and various forms of metadata that provide additional information about
that primary file. Within the Digital Asset Management (DAM) community, this single, central 'master'
digital object is often referred to as the 'essence'. It is central to the strategic DAM philosophy that this
essence file be digitised at the highest possible resolution, and that various and multiple 'working'
versions are then created. These include straightforward duplicate 'back-up' copies (for digital
preservation purposes), and the creation of lower resolution 'viewing' copies. Transcoded versions may
also be created - with the content rendered into different video codecs depending on their intended
usage. An online video clip is therefore almost certainly just one of several different 'versions' of a
master digital file.
The metadata associated with a particular digital object (or family of related digital objects) includes
technical information about the standards and compression algorithms used within the digital file. It
also includes 'descriptive' metadata about the content of the file (Jain & Harumpapur, 1994). Stripped
of such metadata, digital objects lose a large amount of their value; conversely, rich descriptive
metadata adds considerably to the value of the digital object, providing it with a key means of both
discovery and circulation by systems, and of meaningful interpretation by humans.
There are a wide range of different sector-specific metadata standards; the Dublin Core standard of 15
key elements has been widely adopted and underpins most collections of digital content. It therefore
provides a vital framework for the interoperability of digital objects from a range of different sources
across a variety of systems. It can facilitates the 'discovery' of content including online video, at the
web scale, via OAI-compliant systems (Hunter & Iannella, 1998).
From a digital video perspective, the multimedia-specific MPEG7 and MPEG21 metadata standards
are playing an increasingly important role. They enable both time-specific and computer-generated
descriptive information to be 'embedded' along with with the digital object itself in a self-contained
10
'package'. This approach fundamentally underpins the functionalities that allow the full potential of
online video to be realised.
Several further key distinctions must be made about the provenance of both digital objects (the
'content') and their metadata. These are essential for an understanding of the online video landscape.
The term User Generated Content (UGC) has been used to describe video uploaded ('shared') to a
sharing site such as YouTube by users - often conceived as a member of the public. However, the
concept of User Contributed Content (UCC) is gaining traction. This allows a distinction to be made
based on the copyright status of the content. Thus, all material uploaded to such sites is described as
User Contributed Content (UCC), but only a subset of this is User Generated (UGC): that content for
which the user/uploader does 'own' the copyright (such as it exists). In the context of this study,
collections providing online video content are the copyright holders of their content.
A similar distinction can be made regarding the provider of the metadata associated with online video.
Fundamental descriptive metadata elements such as title and description associated with a clip can be
thought of as Owner-Contributed metadata. Distinct from this is what may be referred to as User-
Contributed metadata, which includes the additional information voluntarily provided by viewers of an
online video clip, which include Comments and Ratings.
FInally, the four main types of online video resource are described:
Collections
These are defined as the owners and hosts of the primary (essence) digital video files. Such
collections are usually institutional, and often thematically linked in some way. They provide the Owner
Contributed metadata about content, and decide where and how such metadata will appear as part of
the discovery process. To varying degrees they facilitate the additional of User-Contributed metadata,
by viewers, to their Owner Contributed metadata. In this study, the RFA resources are examples of
such collections.
Union Search Resources
These are online resources that neither host any primary digital content files, nor provide any metadata
of their own. Their role is to serve as a discovery resource for groups of collections, by collating and re-
presenting the metadata from the individual collection in the form of a central unified catalogue. "In the
digital world, small and independent collections [of data] are simply less valuable than large
aggregations" (Dahl et al, 2006: 118). Such union catalogues tend to pre-collate the data from the
constituent collections, enabling a rapid return of results in response to search request. If a user clicks
through on a particular result presented by the union catalogue, they are taken away from the union
catalogue, to view the desired digital object at its hosting collection. The Search Your Film Archive
11
(SYFA) tool evaluated in this study is such a union catalogue, comprising the metadata from the
individual RFA collection catalogues.
User Contributed Content Hosts
Sometimes known as video sharing sites, these are the massive collections of User-Contributed-
Content (UCC) such as YouTube, Vimeo and DaiyMotion. They share certain characteristics with
collections, primarily the need to support searching or browsing of their contents based on descriptive
metadata. They also share characteristics with Video Search Engines (see below) - in particular the
need to apply ranking to perceived relevant results, prior to dipslay to the searcher.
Video Search Engines (VSEs)
These are the video-based equivalent of the text-based web Search Engines. They are characterised
by a cross-modal search paradigm, returning specifically video-based results to user-submitted textual
search terms. Proprietary algorithms present the video-based results according to perceived relevance
to the user. VSEs may be characterised as either agnostic or non-agnostic. Non-agnostic VSEs are
thought to boost the rank of results from favoured content providers, whereas agnostic VSEs do not
(Gibbon & Liu, 2008). However, as with many commercial web search resources, precise details about
the spidering, matching and ranking processes of VSEs are scarce.
These four major types of resource may tgerefore be characterised by their distinct approaches to
content and metadata; see Table 1.
12
Table 1: The content and metadata characteristics of online video resources
2.2 Screen Heritage material
Despite its great value, access to Screen Heritage material in its analogue form has historically been
restricted. Often this an inevitable consequence of the fragility of the primary material (Wright, 2012).
The digitisation initiatives that have had a primarily preservation-related rationale bring with them the
potential for improved access. Despite being a cost-effective approach to preservation (Weber & Dorr,
1997; Owen et al, 2000; O’English & Bond, 2011), the overall volume of analogue holdings is such that
only a fraction has thus far been digitised (TAPE, 2008). It has been estimated for instance that the
Imperial War Museum has over 100 million feet of film in its collection (Enser & Sandon, 2002). In
addition to the daunting logistical issues, complex copyright problems exacerbate the situation (BFI
2009, O'Brien & Fitzgerald 2006).
Despite this, active programmes such as Prestoprime (http://www.prestoprime.org/project/index.en.html)
and TAPE (http://www.tape-online.net/ ) are seeking to co-ordinate international efforts, establish
guidelines for best-practice and advocate for continued funding for such digitisation work. And the
obligation to provide public access to this material wherever possible remains. As stated by Screen
Heritage UK, "the public are entitled to access, learn about and enjoy their rich screen heritage
wherever they live and wherever the materials are held." (BFI/UK Film Council, 2009).
The 'Search Your Film Archives' (SYFA) online union catalogue that provides the focus of this study
brings together the catalogues of the UK's 9 Regional Film Archives:
East Anglian Film Archive (EAFA).
Established in 1984 and based at the University of East Anglia.
( www.eafa.org.uk )
London Screen Archives (LSA).
A 'virtual' archive representing over 30 London-based collections including the Local Authorities.
( http://www.londonsscreenarchives.org.uk/Londo/Main/ )
Media Archive of Central England (MACE).
Established in 1995 and based at the University of Lincoln
( www.macearchive.org.uk )
North West Film Archive (NWFA).
Established in 1977 and based at Manchester Metropolitan University.
( www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk )
13
Northern Region Film and Television Archive (NRFTA).
Established in 1998 and based at the University of Teesside.
( http://www.nrfta.org.uk/ )
Screen Archive South East (SASE).
Established in 1992 and based at the University of Brighton.
( www.brighton.ac.uk/screenarchive )
South West Film and Television Archive (SWFTA).
Established in 1993, a non-profit making company based in Plymouth
( www.swfta.org.uk )
Wessex Film and Sound Archive (WFSA).
Established in 1988 and run by Hampshire County Council.
( http://www3.hants.gov.uk/wfsa.htm )
Yorkshire Film Archive (YFA).
Established in 1988 and based at York St John University.
( www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com )
Funding for these RFAs has variously been provided by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Creative England,
the BFI and more recently, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
Additionally, the SYFA union catalogue includes content from 2 further collections:
Amber Films (http://www.amber-online.com/sections/amber-films/pages/the-catalogue )
British Film Institute National Archive (BFINA). ( http://unionsearch.bfi.org.uk)
The SYFA union catalogue does not include catalogue information from either the Imperial War
Museum, the Scottish Screen Archive, the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales or the
Northern Ireland Digital Film Archive. Neither does it include The National Archive, which maintains its
own two distinct collections of online historical films:
Public Information Films: (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/ )
Focus on Film (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/focuson/film/ )
14
The SYFA union catalogue does not have a dedicated URL of its own, but is implemented as a search
option within each of the 11 collections outlined above. The 'cleanest' implementation is that at the BFI
National Archive website: http://unionsearch.bfi.org.uk/indexAdvanceSearch.dhtml
Having introduced the 11 collections and their related search tool that form the basis of this study, the
following section will review previous research in the field of video discoverability.
3. Previous Research
At the root of effective video search lies the difficult task of finding and returning relevant results from a
cross-modal query: textual search terms seeking video-based results. Research on a number of fronts
has been ongoing for over 20 years addressing the two broader issues: extracting meaningful
information about the content of the video, and understanding what it is that people are looking for.
The Content Based Video Retrieval (CBVR) community have sought to bridge the 'semantic gap' (Hare
et al, 2006) through the development of automated systems for the extraction of this 'aboutness'
information from the video. Yeo & Yeung (1997) pioneered work seeking "to overcome the sequential
and time-consuming process of viewing video" by focusing on automated techniques for shot- and
scene-change detection. The Informedia group at Carnegie Mellon University continued this, pursuing
speech analysis and image processing approaches to further develop techniques such as keyframe
detection (Hauptmann, 2005).
Naphade & Huang (2002) argued that automatically detected low-level media features could be worked
into higher level semantic concepts, which might in turn be built into broader taxonomies and
ontologies (Hauptmann 2004). Snoek & Worring (2005), working with the Mediamill system, identified
the importance of synthesising cross modal (text, audio and video) information to obtain the best
results. The TRECVID and more recently the Videolympics series of conferences have provided
benchmarks for the comparative evaluation of such competing CBVR systems by providing test video
collections and set retrieval tasks under test conditions.
However, it has been argued that automated CBVR techniques are not well-suited to the task of
processing video content for discovery at the web-scale (Hauptmann, 2005). Others are more
confident, feeling that collaboration between the fields of information retrieval, computer vision,
machine learning and human–computer interaction still offer a positive future for CBVR approaches
(Snoek & Worring, 2008). The Multimatch project successfully developed a prototype multilingual
multimedia-dedicated Cultural Heritage Search Engine (Carmichael, J et al., 2008). However,
15
Tjondronegoro & Spink (2007) identified that content-based retrieval functionality amongst web video
search resources remains minimal.
User-based alternatives to such purely machine-based techniques for approaching video search have
emerged. Lee & Smeaton (2002) identified varying user preferences for video browsing interfaces
while designing the Fischlar system; Enser and Sandom (2002) at the VIRAMI project found that tacit
human knowledge of collections plays an important part in successful search strategies. User-
annotation of video content within a semantic framework may provide a way of categorising the huge
volumes of online video (Hauptmann, 2005) and Marchionini (2006), through work at the OpenVideo
project, stressed the importance of supporting exploratory search (browsing behaviour) amongst users.
The creation of effective 'surrogates' and visualisations of the video content enables viewers to rapidly
assimilate clip content and establish relevance (Christel, 2006). Yee et al (2003) found that users
preferred a faceted metadata approach to the presentation of image-based search results compared to
alternative approaches.
Multimedia search behaviour does seem to differs from standard web search (Spink & Jansen, 2006) -
largely in the search terms that people tend to use (Halvey & Keane, 2007). More recently,
Cunningham & Nichols (2008) have investigated what video searchers look for 'in the wild’ (i.e. on the
open Web). Christel (2008) has continued to develop novel approaches to interface design to better
support exploratory search patterns, whilst Alberston (2010) highlighted the need for flexibility in the
designs of such interfaces. Vallet et al (2010) developed the ViGOR system, which harnessed
collaborative user feedback to offer a recommendation-based approach to explorative video search
tasks.
Large-scale studies of the actual behaviour patterns of online video users have been relatively limited;
PEW (2007, 2010) have provided insight into the demographics of such viewers and their content
preferences, whilst OFCOM (2012) document the ongoing growth of online video consumption across
a wide range of platforms.
16
4. Methodology
Overall, a mixed-method approach is adopted within an inductive research paradigm, seeking to gather
quantitative data from three separate investigative approaches: a comparative analysis, a
discoverability evaluation, and a survey of online video viewers.
4.1 Comparative feature analysis
In this investigative method, a set of related resources is systematically scrutinised for the presence or
absence of given features; where present, the characteristics of given features are recorded, and the
overall results tabulated. It has relevance for both the design of online resources (Goto & Cotler, 2005)
and also for the evaluation of existing resources such as multimedia search engines (Tjondronegoro &
Spink, 2008).
In this study, features specifically associated with the discovery, viewing and user-enrichment of
collection content metadata are evaluated across the RFAs, whilst the discovery functionalities of the
SYFA union catalogue are evaluated alongside two similar union catalogue-based discovery resources.
In each case, an iterative approach is taken to the identification of features for inclusion in the
evaluation. The precise characteristics evaluated differ for each type of resource (collections, union
catalogue), but there is a considerable degree of overlap.
The following features were assessed across the 11 RFA collection websites:
• Location of online collection
• Basic search mode
• “Online clips only” search option
• Advanced search options
• Thumbnails in search results
• Re-ordering of search results
• Alternative views of search results
• Related content recommendation
• Curated playlists
• Descriptive metadata (description, context etc)
• User-contributed information
17
• Presence of 'SYFA' union catalogue search option
• Online video format
• Online video playback software
• Full-screen playback option
• Variable video resolution
• 'Watermarking' in online clips
• Accessibility options
• Registration with site
• Total number of individual collection holdings (using the SYFA union catalogue 'all content'
option)
• Number of collection holdings available online (using the SYFA union catalogue 'online clips
only' option)
Using the same approach, SYFA was evaluated alongside Europeana
(http://www.europeana.eu/portal/explore.html ) and JISC MediaHub ( http://jiscmediahub.ac.uk/ )
Europeana is an EU-funded union catalogue providing access to the catalogue metadata from a wide
range of cultural institutions around Europe; JISC MediaHub is a union catalogue for the academic
community, bringing together the catalogues of diverse media-based resources from a range of UK-
based collections.
The following content discover functionalities were systematically evaluated:
• Basic search mode
• Option for 'available online' content only
• Advance search option before basic search
• Advanced search: specific fields
• Search results: default view
• Search results: alternative views
• Search results: thumbnails
• Search results: re-order (sort)
• Search results: filter
The results of these evaluations are presented in the Sections 5.1.1 and 5.1.2.
18
4.2 Discoverability Evaluations
Following on from the comparative analysis of the functionalities provided by the RFA collections, two
related exercises were undertaken to evaluate the 'discoverability' of sample clips from the each of the
collections within web-scale video search resources and dedicated Cultural Heritage union catalogues.
4.2.1 RFA collection clip discoverability evaluation
Sample clips known to be online were identified in each of the 8 RFA collections that provide data to
SYFA. The correct title of the clip was noted, and a mis-spelled variant generated by deleting one
character from one of the words in the title (see Table 2).
Searches using these clip title-variants were systematically undertaken within the SYFA, Europeana
and JISC MediaHub union catalogues. The same set of clip title variants were also tested within the
'Bing Video', 'Blinkx', 'Google Video' and 'Yahoo Video' Video Search Engines (UK-based variants
where available). In each case, both correct and incorrect title spelling were used as search terms, and
each variant was searched both with and without quotation marks (" ").
19
Correct Spelling (Online Clip Title) Mis-spelling (Online Clip Title) Correct clip URL within Collection
Amber Films The Witing in the Sand
BFI National Archive x x x
East Anglian Film Archive Crafsmen: The Tide Miller
London Screen Archive The Tae of Elsie Bossing
MACE Silver Joy Nlons
North West Film Archive x x x
Informal Guring Contest at Whitley Bay
Screen Archive South East Sevenoaks Scapbook
Film Shw Compilation
Wessex Film and Sound Archive x x
Yorkshire Film Archive Ower bt bog oil
The Writing in the Sand http://amber-online.com/archives/the-writing-in-the-sand
Craftsmen: The Tide Miller http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/334
The Tale of Elsie Bossing http://www.londonsscreenarchives.org.uk/includes/public_content.php?origin=unionsearch&content_id=lsa194
Silver Joy Nylons http://www.macearchive.org/archive.html?Title=143
Northern Regions Film and Television Archive
Informal Gurning Contest at Whitley Bay http://www.nrfta.org.uk/explore/nrfta/15148.html
Sevenoaks Scrapbook http://sasesearch.brighton.ac.uk/view/?film=1141
South West Film and Television Archive
Film Show Compilation http://swfta.org.uk/search/public_content.php?content_id=42715&searchstring=
Ower bit bog oil http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/ower-bit-bog-oil
Table 2: Correct and mis-spelled RFA collection online clip titles for Discoverability evaluation
For successful retrievals of the target clip within the discovery resources (union catalogues and VSEs),
the 'rank' position and type of resource resulting from the search were noted. If available, results were
ranked by the 'relevance' assigned by the discovery resource. A search was categorised as a fail if
either no results at all were returned for the title-variant search term, or multiple results were served
without the target clip appearing in the top 20 results.
4.2.2 Detailed evaluation of clip discoverability: "Ower Bit Bog Oil"
One specific online clip was used as the basis for a more detailed evaluation of the retrieval
capabilities of the SYFA resource. The performance of the major Video Search Engines previously
introduced, and their textual 'Web-search' equivalents were also evaluated.
A specific online clip with a distinctive title was selected: "Ower Bit Bog Oil" from the Yorkshire FIlm
Archive (http://www.yorkshirefilmarchive.com/film/ower-bit-bog-oil )(see Figure 2). This URL will
hereafter be referred to as the 'clip description page'. being the text based page on the YFA website
on which the actual video stream (in flash format) is embedded, and which contains much of the clip's
associated descriptive metadata.
This clip was selected because of its unusual vocabulary (thereby maximising the chances of obtaining
highly ranked results) and because, in addition to the the official YFA-hosted version, an
independently-created UCC version also exists in YouTube (with the title "Ower Bit Bog Oil - Knur and
Spell / Tipping")(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGvTiZOKfyI) (see Figure 2).
20
Figure 2: Screen-grab of "Ower Bit Bog Oil" at the YFA collection
Two further incorrect title-variants were created, providing 4 basic search terms: "Ower bit bog oil"
(correct), and three incorrect: "Oer bit bog oil" (the previously-used mis-spelled version), "bit bog oil" (a
partial title) and "bit oil bog" (partial title, and words inverted).
These four variants were used as search terms within the following resources: the SYFA search tool,
Bing Web Search, Bing Video Search, Blinkx Video Search, Google UK Web Search, Google UK Video
Search, Yahoo UK Web Search and Yahoo UK Video Search.
Each of the four title variants was searched (as previously) both with and without quotation marks; the
rank and resource-type of the resulting search results were noted.
The results of these evaluations are presented in the Section 5.2.3.
4.3 Survey of online video users
Web-based questionnaires provide a valid yet cost effective means for gathering such quantitative data
(Pickard 2007)(De Vaus, 2002). A range of possible survey-hosting websites were evaluated, and
SurveyGizmo.com selected for this study. This offered free student accounts, the widest range of
functionalities and the greatest scope for number of questions.
Previous large-scale surveys of Internet usage (PEW, 2007; Dutton & Blank, 2011) were used as a
framework for designing the questionnaire, in particular sections where 'absolute' frequencies of a
given user behaviour was sought. Best-practice guidelines were followed in the design of the online
questionnaire (Lumsden & Morgan, 2005). Where possible, ‘closed’ questions were used which sought
to be as clear and unbiased as possible (Gillham, 2000). The use of radio buttons as a response
mechanism was prioritised (Graham, 2000). Seeking to maximise completion rates, Participants were
provided the option to save and resume the questionnaire at a later time, and the stage of progress
through the survey clearly indicated at all times (Best & Krueger, 2004).
An attempt was made to make participation as rewarding as possible for users (De Vaus, 2002) by
introducing an interactive element early on: asking users to check their current broadband connection
speeds via a link to the BBC iPlayer Diagnostics Speed Tester
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/diagnostics ). Similarly, in lieu of financial compensation, participation
was encouraged by offering access to a set of interesting and legitimate online video resources upon
completion of the survey.
21
As a result of the potentially complex nature of the field, Participants were given guidance during the
questionnaire on the types of online video they should consider.
Despite evidence that long survey duration is not a significant factor in causing participants to abandon
before completion (De Vaus, 2002) it was designed so that completion should take no longer than an
estimated 25 to 30 minutes.
The focus of the questions moved from the general to the specific. Following the connection speed
interactive element, Participants' were asked about their connections to the Internet, and their use of
different platforms (Internet-enabled device). It then focused on the viewing of leisure-base online
video, with sections on approaches to finding, viewing, managing and sharing online video. The main
part of the survey concluded with short sections attitudes to Screen Heritage online video, and online
video as an adjunct to academic studies. Participants' basic (and where applicable, University of
Sheffield) demographic information was sought at the end of the survey (James 1999).
The ethical aspects of such a survey were discussed in the Introductory section of this report; it was
explained to potential participants before starting the survey that it was anonymous, and that by taking
part they were implying 'informed consent' to the analysis of their data.
The survey was pilot tested, and appropriate modifications made. An invitation to participate was then
issued by email to a University group and to friends and family of the author. The survey was kept open
for 15 days; upon closure of the survey, data was downloaded for analysis and deleted from the
Surveygizmo.com website.
See Appendix 4 for the full list of survey questions (presented with the survey results).
22
5. Results
The result of the comparative analysis of RFAs is presented first, followed by the findings of the
discoverability tests, and finally the results of the user survey.
5.1 Results of the Comparative Analysis
5.1.1 RFA collections
The comparative analysis reveals a high degree of variability in the approaches taken by the 11
individual RFAs within SYFA to providing online access to their collection content. See Appendix 2 for
the full tabulated results.
Collection Locations
2 of the 11 RFAs (Amber Films and Londons' Screen Archives) were found not to implement 'in-house'
video archiving at all, opting instead to use YouTube to host the few online elements of their
collections. The remaining 9 collections do host their own online video. Moreover, the content from
Amber Films appears to be of a different type to that of the other 10 RFAs, being predominantly
recently-filmed community-based documentaries. It is not clear why this this is included within the
SYFA union catalogue. For this reason and its YouTube-based hosting, Amber Films is excluded from
further evaluation during the comparative analysis. Londons' Screen Archives is also excluded from the
analysis on the same basis - its YouTube-based hosting of online content.
The following results relate to the search and discovery functionalities on the individual RFA collections
online resources; SYFA is discussed in the following section. See Appendix 1 for the full set of
comparative analysis results.
Search Parameters
All 9 of the remaining RFAs provide a basic 'free-text' search field, which appears to search all the
metadata fields associated with catalogue records. However, only MACE, NRFTA and YFA offer their
own additional option to add an 'online records only' option to such a general search. 6 of the RFAs
offer an advanced search mode of one form or another, whilst 3 do not (BFINA, SWFTA and WFSA).
All 6 RFAs offering such advanced search options allow refinement by Date, Category/Subject (in 23
some cases referred to as 'Keyword') and Location/Place. 3 of the 6 (MACE, NWFA, SASE) offer a
professional/amateur content type search refinement, and 3 of the 6 (NRFTA, SASE, YFA ) offer
content sound/colour characteristics as an option.
EAFA alone offers a 'People / Professions' advanced search option. 3 of the 9 provide interesting
alternative approaches to advanced search; MACE and YFA offering graphic-based interfaces for
refining location, whilst EAFA offers a graphic timeline for date refinement (see Figure 3), and a
dynamic Google Maps based interface for location-based refinement of results (see Figure 4).
24
Figure 3: The EAFA date refinement interface
Presentation and refinement of search results
Turning to the information presented as the results of either a basic or advanced search, 4 of the 9
RFAs (EAFA, MACE, NRFTA and YFA) provide a 'screen-grabbed' thumbnail image from those
catalogue items that are available as online video. SASE provides such images for some catalogue
items seemingly unrelated to whether the clip exists in online form.
2 of the 9 (EAFA, YFA) offer the means to reorder results; in both cases the options being to sort by
relevance, date or title. 3 of the 9 provide the means to switch to an alternate 'view of search results:
EAFA and NRFTA offering different numbers of results per page, whilst MACE instead allows switching
between a list-based and thumbnail based view of results.
'Recommendations' and 'Curated' Content
At the individual 'clip description page' level, 5 of the 9 (BFINA, EAFA, MACE, NRFTA and YFA) offer
suggestions for other clips 'related' to a the clip under consideration. 4 of the 9 offer some form of
content 'curation'; EAFA and YFA offer sets of thematically linked content, whilst NWFA and SASE
allow for browsing through discrete 'collections' of donated material.
25
Figure 4: The EAFA location refinement interface
Descriptive metadata
All 9 RFAs provide descriptions of varying length about the clip content, at the 'clip description page'
level. They also display title, duration and some of the 'archival 'metadata associated with film-based
holdings including catalogue number and credits. Additionally, SWFTA provide a breakdown of clips
into a detailed shot-list, and YFA provide a downloadable PDF of the description along with a separate
field of clip 'context' information.
User Contributed Metadata
Just 2 out of the 9 RFAs (NRFTA and YFA) facilitates any degree of User augmentation of descriptive
information, allowing viewers to add their own comments about clips. However, a registered account
with the site is required to do this. A brief systematic evaluation of this feature on the YFA site (28 of the
281 clips available online) reveals that uptake by viewers appears to be low - with an average of just
0.67 comments per clip tested (a total of 19 comments on 28 tested clips)
Presence of 'SYFA' union catalogue search option
The presence and 'visibility' of the SYFA union catalogue search option on the individual RFA sites
varies considerably, being present on 8 of the 9 RFA sites (EAFA the exception). Visibility could be
classified as 'high' for 3 out of the 9 collections (BFINA, SWFTA and WFSA), with the SYFA option
appearing on the main collection homepage. Visibility could be classified as 'medium' for the majority of
the RFAs (5 out of 9: MACE, NWFA, NRFTA, SASE and YFA), with the SYFA option only appearing
once users have clicked through from the homepage to a search-related subpage. Visibility could be
classified as non-existent on the EAFA site, where there is no SYFA search option/module present.
Online Video Playback
7 of the 9 RFAs sites provide online video in the Flash (.flv) format. NWFTA use the .mov Quicktime
format, and SASE use the .wmv Windows Media format. Of the the 7 RFAs providing video in Flash
format, 5 use 'jwplayer' (http://www.longtailvideo.com/players) and 2 use 'flowplayer'
(http://flowplayer.org/ ) - both being open source Flash and HTML5 video players that support a wide
range of playback features. NWFTA and SASE do not provide specific video playback software;
viewers of content from these collections must use web browsers that natively support the .mov or
.wmv formats. The 7 RFAs using Flash players support full-screen playback; playback of material from
26
NWFTA (.mov) and SASE (.wmv) within browsers does not allow full-screen functionality. Just one of
the 9 RFAs (EAFA) provides the means to switch between 'regular' and a higher resolution version of
the same online video clip. 4 of the 9 RFAs (EAFA, MACE, NRFTA and SASE) incorporate the
collection logo as a 'watermark' present in the corner of the screen of all online vide clips; the other 5
RFAs have not adopted this approach to 'rights management'.
Registered Accounts with the Collection
3 of the 9 RFAs (MACE, NRFTA and YFA) enable users to create an account. This allows NRFTA and
YFA users to save favourite clips, add clips to playlists, and upload comments about individual online
videos. At MACE, registered user accounts appear to be related to the purchase of of collection
content DVDs.
Accessibility options
Just 2 of the 9 (NRFTA and WFSA) have Accessibility options available, in both cases clearly marked
on the collection homepage.
Total Collection holdings, and numbers available online
SYFA was used to calculate the total numbers of individual RFA collection holdings, and the numbers
available online from each. RFA sites were separately evaluated to double-check the SYFA-generated
figures. The results of these numerical evaluations are shown in Table 3.
27
Viewed as a whole, out of a total of 375,153 catalogue records within SYFA (online and not), 3433 are
findable using its "Only records with video online" option - just 0.92%. The percentage of holdings
made available online by the individual RFAs varies considerably - from 0% by SWFTA to 34.9% by
EAFA. For 2 of the RFAs (BFINA and NWFA), it is not possible to calculate the actual number of videos
available online (either via SYFA or at the collection site itself). The percentage of holdings available
online is therefore unknown.
At 4 of the 10 RFAs (BFINA, EAFA, NWFA and WFSA), whilst SYFA includes data for all the
collections' holdings, a search for "Only records with video online" at these collections returns 0 results
- despite there being known online material at the collection. This suggests that the actual overall
number of items available online across the network may be higher than the figure of 0.92% stated
above. The effective number online however does not change, as these records may not be searched
by their 'available online' status.
28
Table 3: Number of clips/records at the RFAs and SYFA
The bulk of the material available online via SYFA is therefore provided by MACE (2861 clips; 5.9% of
its collection),YFA (231 clips; 7.2%), SASE (146 clips; 6.9%), and NRFTA (171 clips; 13.5%).
Other Functionalities
The following further range of functionalities associated with online video were evaluated across the 9
main RFA collection sites, but were not found to present at any of them:
• Embed codes (enabling viewers to 'embed' or incorporate video clips from the collections into
their own webpages or blogs)
• Like/Dislike (or 'Rate') functionality
• Display of viewing figures (the number of of times a particular clip has been viewed)
• Audio transcripts (either standard text, or 'time-linked' to the video clip)
• Option to download the video clip
• 'Visualisations' of video clip content other than a basic static thumbnail image
However, it was found that several of the RFAs have functionalities related to exploiting collection
content beyond the standard 'viewing' of material. BFINA and MACE have online 'modules' which
enable users to 'remix' content from within their collections. YFA are exploring novel ways of boosting
the visibility of collection content including the introduction of a 'Video Postcard' module, and NWFA
have launched a 'Manchester Time Machine' iPhone app which combines archive footage with
handset-based GPS data. These initiatives are discussed further in the following discussion section.
5.1.2 Results of the comparative analysis of SYFA and the other Union Catalogues
5.1.2.1 Comparison of Functionalities
The content discovery functionalities of SYFA was evaluated alongside that of Europeana and
JISCMediaHub. See Appendix 3 for the full tabulated results of the comparative analysis.
Both Europeana and JISCMediaHub union catalogues include records for audio, images and video
(with Europeana additionally including records for text and 3D resources). SYFA is unimodal, i.e.
designed solely for the film- and video-based content records of its provider collections. The
comparative evaluation therefore focuses solely on the video-related facets of Europeana and
MediaHub's functionalities. Moreover, Europeana is by design a multilingual resource whilst SYFA and
29
MediaHub incorporate data solely from UK-based collections and consequently are monolingual.
Europeana's language-related functionality is therefore also excluded from the comparative evaluation.
All 3 catalogues provide a basic 'free-text' search option which searches all catalogue item metadata
fields. SYFA alone offers an option to specify at this basic search level for just content that is available
online. SYFA and MediaHub both provide an advanced search option as an alternative to basic search.
Europeana alone does not have a specific advanced search option, choosing instead to rely solely on
refinement of results after an initial basic search has been conducted. Both SYFA and JISCMediaHub
offer this functionality in addition to advanced search.
SYFA's advanced search mode allows for the searching by an item's date; MediaHub's does not. SYFA
also supports several text-based specific catalogue metadata search fields (Title, Cast & Credits and
Record ID) and film-specific characteristics (colour and sound) which MediaHub does not. Both allow
for the selection of specific content providers (collections) as part of an advanced search. Additionally,
MediaHub alone allows item 'subject classification' and 'genre' from defined vocabulary lists to be
incorporated into an advanced search, and moreover allows the use of Boolean logic to construct
complex combinations of these. It also incorporates a dynamic 'results number preview' mode, which
previews the number of results of a proposed search before the catalogue data is actually retrieved.
SYFA presents search results as a (widely-spaced) vertical text-based list without thumbnail images,
whereas the other 2 catalogues present results as walls of thumbnail images. Europeana uses a fixed
format of 4 across by 3 down, whilst the MediaHub 'matrix' of thumbnails resizes dynamically
depending on the size of browser window, and number of results-per-page selected (6,12, 24 or 48).
Along with MediaHub, SYFA also allow changes to the numbers of results per page (10 or 20).
Both MediaHub and Europeana (but not SYFA) provide a timeline-based view of results, with
Europeana alone also offering map view based on items' location metadata.
SYFA offers the most alternatives for the re-ordering of results, allowing 'relevance' and date, title and
collection in both directions. MediaHub offers relevance, and date and title in ascending order only, and
does not support re-ordering by provider collection. Europeana offers no result reordering functionality.
Finally, all 3 systems allow for the dynamic filtering of results results via a range of facet-based
characteristics. SYFA is able to do this for just colour, sound and provider-collection-name data,
whereas Europeana and MediaHub both extend this highly 'interactive' approach to refining date and
media type data. Europeana further extends it to location (country) and copyright status; MediaHub
instead extends it to genre and subject data. SYFA results are date-refinable only by typing and
submitting the required date range, a non-dynamic and un-faceted process.
30
Indeed, as mentioned previously, this faceted refinement of results is Europeana's sole means of
conducting, in effect, an advanced search.
It was also found that SYFA search module suffers from 2 minor design flaws within its advanced
search mode: the non-alphabetic listing of RFA collections, and the inclusion of a 'Test collection' as a
searchable collection.
5.2 Discoverability Test Results
5.2.1 Union Catalogues
The results of the RFA clip title discoverability evaluations within SYFA and the union catalogues are
shown in Table 4.
As expected, SYFA performs reasonably well in returning relevant results from searches on the RFA
known clip titles. For correctly spelled titles in quotations, the correct clip was generally returned as a
31
Table 4: Discoverability of RFA clip title variants within SYFA and union catalogues
search result at Rank 1, the only exceptions being for clips from EAFA and SWFTA. In the case of
SWFTA this is probably due to the highly generic clip title ('Film Clip Collection'), and the sought clip
therefore appearing below Rank 20 in the returned results.
The JISC MediaHub returned a result from just one of the 11 RFA resources - presenting the relevant
clip at Rank 1 irrespective of quotation marks. Note that this is from a YouTube-based collection
(Amber Films), and that it was not possible to identify whether this result was a match with the
YouTube-hosted instance of the clip. Clip title searches within Europeana did not return any results at
all.
Returning to SYFA; taken across the full range of RFA resources, correctly spelled titles searches with
and without quotation marks seem to return roughly equivalent results. The results for mis-spelled titles
were marginally better when placed in quotation marks.
32
5.2.2 Video Search Engines
The results of the RFA clip title discoverability evaluation within the Video Search Engines is shown in
Table 5.
The most striking result is that neither the Blinkx nor Yahoo Video VSEs returned any results from clip
title searches - either for the correctly-spelled clip titles or any of the incorrect variants.
33
Table 5: Discoverability of RFA clip title variants within Video Search Engines
Bing Video was able to successfully locate clips - but only those where the collections host their online
video content on YouTube. Google Video also located these YouTube-based records, and whilst it
appeared to also locate genuine RFA-based records at EAFA, MACE and SASE , these were actually
recommendations from its standard Web Search mode. Its Video Search mode did not locate the RFA-
based content. Google Video did return a result for the YFA clip title, but this too was a YouTube-based
record. In fact it is for a User Contributed version of the RFA collection clip that is independent of the
actual YFA-hosted version. These results are discussed in Section 6.2.
5.2.3 Detailed discoverability evaluation of SYFA, Video and Web Search: "Ower Bit bog Oil"
The results of the detailed discoverability evaluation of SYFA, VSEs and WebSearch are shown in
Table 6.
The SYFA tool performed well; six title variants resulted in a Rank 1 result, whilst two resulted in a fail.
These fails both lacked quotation marks; one contained a mis-spelling and the other a word sequence
alteration.
34
Table 6: Discoverability of clip title variants in SYFA, VSEs and Web Search
The previous findings in the Bing Video Search engine were replicated: neither the correct or any of the
incorrect title variants generated a successful result. However, a Bing Web-search generated mostly
Rank 1 results for the YFA collection 'clip description page' itself. Whilst the pattern of successful
results differs slightly from that of SYFA, (as would be expected due to different ranking algorithm), it is
interesting to note the relative success of a 'Web' search for the clip, compared to a video search. Also
of interest is that one title variant generated results different to all the other successful Bing Web
search results - locating a 'dead' (no longer functioning) variant of the 'clip description page', and the
'viewing notes' pdf associated with the active clip collection page.
The ineffectiveness of the Blinkx VSE for this type of content was again demonstrated, with a
replication of the failed search, this time across all 8 variations. Google Video search does not return
any results relating to the YFA: solely to the YouTube version. Whereas its Web search generates both
the YouTube and the YFA clip description page - with the YouTube version prioritised.
The Yahoo Video search, as with Bing, fails in all 8 searches, whereas its Web variant behaves
similarly to Bing, finding the the clip description pages at the YFA but signally not returning any
YouTube results.
All the Video and Web search tools 'fail' when given a 'quoted' misspelling or word inversion;
interestingly, the addition of a mis-spell (oer) to a partial title (unquoted) is sufficient to cause a success
to become a fail.
5.3 Results of the User Survey
The Survey was conducted in order to identify patterns of User behaviour with regard to Online Video
as a medium in general. Within this, it also sought to focus on aspects that are pertinent to discovery
and interaction with Screen Heritage resources. Note that the non-probabilistic sampling approach
inherent in an Internet-based such as this has implications for the valid statistical analysis of the
resulting data (Lumsden & Morgan 2005, Hewson 2003, Best & Krueger 2004).
Respondent demographic data is presented first, followed by sections reporting on their Internet
connections, Internet usage and overall Online Video activity. Sections on the Finding, Viewing and
Management of online video are then presented. The next section enquired about registered accounts
with UCC Hosting/Sharing sites, followed by a section about ‘Screen Heritage’ online video in
particular. The final section presents the data from University of Sheffield respondents about the use of
online video in an academic setting.
35
For the purposes of the Survey, Internet usage is split into three main categories: work-based, study-
based and leisure-based. For questions seeking an ‘absolute’ frequency of occurrence for a given type
of activity, respondents were asked to try consider average activity over period at least several months.
Response data to some such questions is conflated as follows:
• Figures for ‘Never’ have been used to calculate the obverse, referred to as ‘Ever’ (representing
at least some degree of activity at some point in time)
• Figures for ‘Several times a day’, ‘About once a day’ and ‘Several times a week’ have been
conflated into a working definition of ‘Often’ (i.e. at least several times per week)
• Figures for ‘Several times a week’ and ‘Several times a month’ are conflated into a working
definition of ‘Infrequently’
Some questions sought information about the relative frequency of an activity, as a proportion of
overall events. Respondents were guided to use the following scale:
• 'Always' – to mean roughly 95% - 100% of events
• ‘Often' - to mean roughly 30% - 95% of events
• 'Occasionally' – to mean roughly 1% - 30% of events
In presenting the results, percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number. The relevant
survey question is indicated in brackets. The full results data is presented in question numerical
sequence in Appendix 4. The results are discussed in more detail in the following ‘Discussion’ section.
5.3.1. Survey response rates and durations
In total, 124 people visited the survey homepage. Of these, 57% (71 people) subsequently completed
the survey, whilst the remaining 43% (53 people) abandoned the survey before completion, thereby
generating only partial responses.
As a consequence of the demographic questions coming at the end of the survey, the 53 partial
responses were discarded due to their lack of such crucial contextual data. Of these ‘abandonees’,
71% abandoned within 5 minutes of first visiting the Survey homepage (see Section 1, Appendix 4).
36
The average time taken by the 71 respondents to complete the Survey was 22.7 minutes, whilst the
modal duration was 15 -19 minutes. Note that this excludes several outlying results, which appear to
be a consequence of the respondent taking a lengthy break whilst completing the survey.
5.3.2 Overall survey participant demographics
A small majority of the 71 respondents (57%) are female (Q72). From an age perspective, the largest
group (42%) fall into the 18 - 24 age range (Q73) (see Figure 5). 20% identify themselves as parents
(Q74). Current members of the University of Sheffield account for 73% of responses (Q59), consistent
with 68% having an ‘In Education’ occupational status (Q75). Just 8.5% of all respondents have a
‘rural’ based home (Q76). From an Accessibility perspective, 11% report using audio-based aids and
15.5% using visual-based aids (Q77).
Of the 52 respondents who report being a current member of the University of Sheffield (Q59), 56%
are Undergraduates and 44% are Postgraduates (Q67). The overwhelming majority (90%) are studying
Full Time (Q68), and a small minority (4%) are ‘Distance Learners’ (Q71). Of the 17% who report
37
Figure 5. Survey Respondents by age range. (N=71)
having ‘Overseas’ status (Q69), there appears to be no significant pattern to their Country of Origin
(Q70). The Science (29%) and Social Science (27%) faculties provide the most respondents, with
Medicine, Dentistry & Health (11%) and Engineering (10%) providing the fewest (Q66) (see Figure 6).
5.3.3 Users' Internet connections
This initial section of the survey seeks to identify the overall pattern of platforms and networks used by
respondents to access the Internet. Unless otherwise stated, N=71. 96% of respondents have a
broadband Internet connection at home, whilst just 1.4% (a single respondent) reports a mobile-only
Internet connection at home (Q4). The laptop emerges as the platform used most for accessing the
Internet at home, with 87% doing so ‘often’ (i.e. several times a week or more)(Q8). Mobile phones are
the next most popular platform for accessing the Internet at home (62% doing so ‘often’), whilst the
least popular platforms are TVs (6% ‘often’) and Games Consoles (6% ‘often’) (see Figure 7).
38
Figure 6: University of Sheffield Respondents by Faculty. (N=52)
93% of all Respondents have access to a WiFi network at home (Q5), and of the 73% who own a
Smartphone (an Internet-enabled mobile phone) (Q6), 73% connect to the Internet via the WiFi
network whilst at home (Q7).
Away from home, School/College/University and Mobile networks emerge as the most popular means
of getting online, both used by 59% of Respondents ‘often’. Only 27% have ever used a connection at
a Public Library (with just 1% doing so ‘often’), and a similar figure (28%) have ever used an Internet
café to get online(Q9) (see Figure 8).
39
Figure 7: Platforms used to access the Internet whilst at home. (N=71)
When asked which operating system (OS) they use (Q10), Microsoft Windows emerges as the most
prevalent Operating System (OS) for both laptops (with 72% of users) and PCs (52% of users). It is
hardly used on any other platform. 84% of Tablet users are running the Mac OS, with just 1% using the
Android OS. However, Android is more widespread on Mobile phones (43% of users), compared to
34% using the Mac OS. Several respondents report using the Linux OS on laptop and PC, whilst those
accessing the Internet via a TV or a Games Console tend not to know which OS they are using (50%
and 55% respectively reporting ‘don’t know’).
82% of respondents report completing the survey on a device they sometimes use to view online video
(Q1). Of this group, 11% report connection speeds of under 1Mb/s, while a different 11% report a
speed of 23Mb/s (Q3). The modal connection speed (reported by 12.5% of respondents) is 8 - 9 Mb/s.
5.3.4 Users' Internet usage
This section of the survey seeks to identify the different types of activities engaged in by respondents,
with a focus on video-related activity. Unless otherwise stated, N=71 for this section.
Just 1 respondent (1% of the total) has been an active user of the Internet for less than 12 months,
whilst 97% have been using it for more than 5 years (Q13).
40
Figure 8: Platforms used to access the Internet whilst away from home. (N=71)
All respondents (100%) use the Internet for leisure ‘often’ (more than several times per week). For
educational purposes, 83% use it for educational purposes, with 88% of these doing so ‘often’. 61%
report using the Internet as part of their job/work - almost all of whom (95%) do so ‘often’ (Q14).
75% of respondents spend more than 2 hours a day actively online, whilst none are online for less than
10 minutes daily (Q15).
When asked to classify and quantify their leisure-based online activity (Q16), email emerges as the
most widespread, engaged in ‘often’ by 97% of respondents. This is closely followed by
News/Weather/Local Information seeking (86% doing so ‘often’). 80% ‘often’ use Social Networking –
although 15.5% never do so. Shopping (‘often’ by 17%) and gambling (‘often’ by 3%) are the least
widespread activities, although the vast majority of respondents (96%) have engaged in online
shopping at some point (see Figure 9).
41
Figure 9: Frequency of Internet-based leisure activity. (N=71)
Viewing online video emerges as one of the more popular activities, with 96% ‘ever’ having done so. Of
these ‘viewers’, 79% do so more frequently than several times a week, with 34% doing so several
times a day. Indeed, 13% of all respondents use the Internet as the main source of their mainstream
broadcast TV (Q12).
28% of respondents have ever paid for online video content via services such as Netflix, Lovefilm and
iTunes, with just 20% of these doing so several times per week or more (Q20a).
62% of respondents have used ‘live’ video as a part of communication (‘video chat’ such as Skype
Video, Google Voice and Apple ‘Facetime’). 25% of those using this medium do so several times a
week or more (Q20b).
In terms of the Web browsing software used on different platforms (Q11), amongst the 45 respondents
on PC-based activity, Google Chrome (38%) and Mozilla Firefox (33%) emerge as the most popular.
46% of Laptop-based activity is via Google Chrome, 25% via Mozilla Firefox, whilst 21% use Microsoft
Internet Explorer. Apple Safari is the most popular browser for both Tablets (59% of 22 Users) and
Mobiles (42% of 50 Users). Users of TVs and Games Consoles to access the Internet tend to be
uncertain about which Browser they are using, with 72% and 67% of such Users respectively reporting
they ‘Don’t Know’ what Browser they are using. ‘Opera’ web browsing software is used by just 1.4% of
respondents - solely on a Tablet device.
5.3.5 Users' overall online video behaviour
This section of the survey focuses in greater depth on the online video experience within overall
Internet activity. Unless otherwise stated, N=71.
79% of respondents ‘often’ watch online video as part of their leisure, falling to 18% ‘often’ as part of a
job, and 17% ‘often’ as part of an educational course. However, 100% of respondents have watched as
a leisure activity at some point, 32% at some point as part of a job, and 68% at some point as part of
their studies. (Q17)
83% of respondents have used the online ‘BBC iPlayer’, ‘ITV Player’ or ‘4OD’ time-shifted’ broadcast
TV services at some point (Q18). Of this group,100% watch missed programmes, 63% watch ‘live’ TV,
and 24% download missed programmes to a desktop application However, only 14% of this group
ever recommend programmes via Social Networks, with just 1.7% doing so ‘often’. Just 8.5% ever
42
create and share a link to a specific time point within a programme, with none doing so ‘often’ (Q19)
( See Figure 10).
Continuing to focus on leisure-related online video viewing, but excluding the traditional broadcasters’
online ‘time-shifted’ services (BBC iPlayer etc), the most popular viewing platform is the laptop
computer, having been used at some point by 90% of respondents to view content. Of these, 69% do
so ‘often’ (several times a week or more).
55% view online video on a mobile phone, amongst whom 34% do so ‘often’. Amongst the 48% who
view online video via a PC, 44% do so ‘often’. Just 21% of all respondents view online video on a
Tablet device, with a higher proportion (53%) doing so ‘often’ compared with the similar 20% of all
viewers who view it on a TV, of whom just 20% do so ‘often’. (Q21)
In terms of the total duration of video watched, 18% of respondents stated that they watched more than
120 minutes of content per day on one device or another (Q23). 7% watch over 120 minutes of
material on at least 2 different platforms on a given day. (See Figure 11).
43
Figure 10: Use of broadcasters’ online ‘Time-shifted’ TV functionalities. (N=51)
An estimation of the total duration of online video watched daily across all platforms was calculated by
assigning the numerical mid-point to each range-based value. Thus: 1-10 mins = 5, 10–30 mins = 20,
30– 120mins = 75, and more than 120 mins = 150. It is acknowledges that this methodology is non-
rigorous, but it does reveal an underlying pattern (see Figure 12).
44
Figure 11: Amount of online video watched per day by platform. (N=71)
Figure 12: Estimated total duration of online video watched daily. (N=71)
By this analysis, the average daily duration of online video viewed is 92 minutes (6530 minutes / 71
respondents).
In terms of awareness of the major UCC Hosting sites, 100% of respondents report being aware of
YouTube, with 96% using it to some degree. 82% are aware of Google Video, amongst whom 35% are
actual users. 73% are aware of Vimeo, amongst whom 43% are users. 53.5% are aware of
DailyMotion, amongst whom 32% are users. 22.5% are aware of Tudou, amongst whom 25% are
active users (Q26) (See Figure 13).
45
Figure 13. User engagement with major UCC Hosting sites. (N=71)
Music, ‘humorous’, and User-Generated content are the types of content viewed ‘often’ the most, whilst
technology-, sport- and travel-themed content is watched ‘often’ the least. Screen Heritage is the least
popular type of content by this measure (being watched ‘often’), with just 8.5% of all respondents doing
so.(Q22). (See Figure 14).
46
Figure 14: Relative frequencies of content types viewed. (N=71).
However, the relative popularity of Screen Heritage content increases when considered from an overall
perspective, with 53.5% of all respondents ‘ever’ viewing this type of content. By the same measure,
educational content emerges as joint most popular type (along with music), with 87% of respondents
‘ever’ viewing it - despite having the greatest proportion of ‘infrequent’ viewers (56%). (See Figure 15).
59% of respondents purchase music or video content as a result of first encountering it as an online
video. Of these, 79% do so several times a year, whilst the remaining 21% do so several times a
month (Q48).
47
Figure 15: Content types viewed ‘Ever’ or ‘Never’. (N=71).
5.3.6 Users' approaches to finding online video
This section of the survey focuses on how viewers find the online video content that they watch. Unless
otherwise stated, N=71.
When asked if there was a particular resource they would use as starting point if looking for online
video, 74% of respondents who provided an answer stated ‘YouTube’ (Q25). 22.5% did not provide a
response, indicating they had no single preferred resource for initiating such a video search. Just 3%
stated they would use the ‘BBC’.
The most widespread means of finding online video amongst respondents is to undertake their own
search for a particular topic, with 77.5% doing so ‘often’. 56% ‘often’ use recommendations by the
video hosting sites’. The ‘Social’ methods appear to be the least popular, with recommendations via
their Social Networks used ‘often’ by 39% of respondents, and recommendation received via an email
used ‘often’ by just 7%. (Q24) (See Figure 16).
Of the ‘Advanced Search’ functionalities available on many online video resources, a ‘Rating’ supplied
by other viewers has marginally the most widespread use, being used as a search parameter by 46.5%
of respondents (of which 39% do so relatively often). However, ‘Upload Date’ (used by 45%, of which
31% do so relatively often) and ‘Number of Views’ (used by 44%, of which 29% do so relatively often)
have a very similar level of use. ‘Clip duration’ is the least-used of such parameters, with only 25% ever
having used it. (Q27)
48
Figure 16: Methods of finding Online Video
To gauge general perception of the effectiveness of video discovery techniques, respondents were
asked their opinion of the following statement (Q28) (Figure 17).
'Finding just the right online videos that interest me is straightforward’
Based on the assignment of values between 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly agree), the
arithmetic mean is 3.54, and the median response is ‘Agree’. This indicates a general slight agreement
with the statement.
5.3.7 Users' approaches to viewing online video
This section of the survey focuses on respondents’ behaviour once they are presented with a clip – a
viewing ‘event’. Unless otherwise stated, N=71. When asked what information they check before
viewing a clip, 90% report sometimes checking the duration (11% among these always doing so). 73%
sometimes check user–supplied ‘ratings’ (10% among these always doing so), and 65% sometimes
check the comments uploaded by other Users (with just 2% among these always doing so) (Q29) (See
Figure 18)
49
Figure 18: Parameters checked before viewing an online video. (N=71)
Whilst viewing a clip, 41% have used the 'Captions’ (subtitles of dialogue in English), with 28% of these
doing so ‘relatively often’ (i.e. between during between 30 and 100% of viewing events) (Q30b).
35% of respondents report using built-in Translation features (subtitles of dialogue translated into
another language), with 28% of them doing so ‘relatively often’ (Q30c).
91.5% use the web-browser 'Full Screen' option to some degree, with 69% of these doing so either
‘always’ or ‘relatively often’ (Q30a).
62% only ever stream video content, whilst just 1.4% only ever download content. 6% of respondents
report being unsure of the difference between streaming and downloading (Q31).
Asked whether they feel they have sufficient information about what they are viewing at the different
stages of a viewing event (i.e. before, during, and after a viewing), 48% responded that they never, or
only occasionally, do so before viewing (Q33). This drops to 44% during viewing, and 27% after. A
significant number (6% before, 4% during and 7% after) report never having enough information about
what they are viewing.
Perhaps related to the above, only 13% report always viewing clips through to the end, with 16% doing
so only occasionally (Q34). Of those always viewing clips to the end, 33% never ‘jump around’ within
the clip. 10% report never ‘jumping around’ within a clip, whilst the vast majority (68%) do so only
occasionally (between 1 - 30% of the time).
84.5% reported ever viewing online video with family and friends, with 30% of these doing so ‘often’
(several times a week or more)(Q35).
35% reported experiencing pause/freeze problems during playback relatively often, with only 4% never
encountering such problems (Q36a). 70% reported being unable to play clips due to problems with
codecs some of the time – with 15% having such problems relatively often.
50
5.3.8 Users' approaches to managing online video
This section of the survey focuses on the techniques used to manage the details of online video that
respondents want to somehow keep. Unless otherwise stated, N=71 for this section.
The most popular method for ‘saving’ a clip (or rather its URL, not downloading the video file itself) is
by saving it as a browser-based bookmark; 61% of all respondents reported ever having used this
method. The next most popular method is by adding a clip to a ‘Playlist’ (curated set of clips) of their
own, followed by 25% who have ever used a Collection based ‘watch later’ function. However,
‘Playlist’-Users are the most persistent, with 59% of respondents using this functionality at all doing so
either always, or relatively often. This compares with equivalent measures of 28% for ‘Watch later’ and
19% for ‘Browser bookmark’ functionality users (Q32).
When asked about approaches to sharing OVs with their friends or family (Q37), 62% of respondents
report circulating a link via Social Networking sites (Facebook, Twitter etc) with 16% of this group doing
so relatively frequently (following 30% – 95% of viewing events). Emailing a link to the OV is the next
most popular method, with 48% having done so (and 12% of these doing so relatively often). 16% of
Respondents indicated that they had ever embedded a video in their own website or blog, with 30% of
these doing so relatively often). 16% of Respondents indicated they they use other methods for
circulating details.
41% have submitted a 'rating' or approval vote about an OV they have watched (Q38a); just 3% of
these report doing so ‘always’. Comments about online videos are submitted less frequently (Q38b),
with 31% ever having done so (and 9% of these doing so relatively often). 20% of Respondents have
at some stage flagged an OV as 'Inappropriate' (Q38c), with none doing so often (see Figure 19).
51
80% of Respondents have a Facebook account (Q39), and of these, 54% of these have uploaded
video material to be shared with their network (Q40).However, this is a relatively infrequent activity,
with just 5% of this group doing so several or more times a week.
5.3.9 Users' accounts with video hosting sites
This section of the survey asked about User accounts with UCC Hosting sites - required to use
advanced features such as adding comments and creating playlists.
YouTube has the highest proportion of account holders, with 65% of all respondents reporting having
an account. 7% have an account with Vimeo, and 1.4% with DailyMotion (Q41). The subsequent
questions about account-related functionalities were targeted at the 47 respondents who reported
having such an account with one site or another (N=47).
When asked about contributing their own material to these sharing sites, 23% reported ever uploading
material to YouTube (9% of these doing so several times a week or more). Use of this feature is much
more infrequent on the Vimeo and DailyMotion video-hosting sites, with just 4% and 2% of
respondents ever doing so. Just 4% reported ever uploading material to any other hosting site.(Q42)
When further asked about the type of material they upload (Q43a), just 8.5% had ever uploaded
material directly form a mobile phone. (52% of all Smartphone owners film video clips, with 8% of such
active 'filmers' doing so ‘often’ (more than several times a week) - Q47).
52
Figure 19: User Contributed Metadata: adding information to viewed online videos. (N=71)
No respondents had uploaded either a video response to an online video they had watched, or
participated in remixing content already on the site. 23% reported uploading their own material from a
computer (as opposed to a phone) (Q43b,c,d)
Provision of certain associated information with an uploaded video is relatively common (Q44a). 47%
of Respondents report ever adding Keywords (of these, 86% doing so relatively often), closely followed
a free-text ‘Description’ of the clip (45% ever; of these 86% relatively often) (Q44b). Unsurprisingly, a
Transcript of any dialogue is uploaded much less frequently, having been done ever by just 4% of
respondents (Q44c) (see Figure 20).
49% of UCC host site account-holders have ever created their own playlists (sometimes called
'channels'); of these, 30% do do 'often' (several times a week or more) (Q45a). 57% have ever
subscribed to other users playlists (Q45b), whilst only 2% have ever used editing functionality to 're-
mix' other users' content (Q45c). 21% have used the analytics information available to account holders
about their clips, with just 20% of these doing so often (Q45d).
8.5% reported occasionally experiencing problems as a result of trying to upload "Copyright" material
to a site (Q46).
5.3.10 ‘Screen Heritage Online Video’ survey results
When asked whether they had any interest at all in Screen Heritage (SH) video content (Q49), 72% of
the 71 Respondents stated ‘Yes’. When asked whether they thought they would watch more 'Screen
Heritage' online video if it was easier to find and manage (Q50), 67% said they would. 65% indicated
that they were both interested and would watch more, whilst 7% suggested they were interested - but
would not watch more if it were easier to find and manage
53
Figure 20. User Contributed Metadata: metadata uploaded with User Created Content. (N=71)
28% of all Respondents indicated that they were not interested in SH content; 25% being neither
interested in viewing more if it were easier to find and manage. However, 3% (2 respondents) indicated
that although not interested, they would watch more if were easier to find.
The 75% of respondents who answered yes to either of these questions (N = 53) were asked a further
short series of questions specifically about online Screen Heritage resources.
Awareness of, and engagement with, a set of 17 Screen Heritage resources was sampled (Q51).
These consisted of the 9 Regional Film Archives, the additional 2 collection included in SYFA: Amber
Films and BFI, SYFA itself, and five other national-scale online Screen Heritage collections (BBC
Archive, Imperial War Museum, Pathe News, The National Archive and The Space) (See Figure 21).
The most striking result is that awareness of the 12 RFA resources is extremely low. Whilst 77% in
total have heard of the BFI, only 15% of these actually use the resource. And indeed the BFI is in
actuality a national resource. The best-known of the genuine RFA resources is the Yorkshire Film
54
Figure 21: User engagement with Screen Heritage online video resources. (N = 53)
Archive, of which only 17% are aware and 2% have actively used. Both the EAFA and London Screen
Archive are known by 9% of respondents, with 2% actually using the EAFA. Awareness of the other
RFA collections hovers around 4%, with almost no recorded usage. The lowest awareness of all was of
the SYFA union catalogue - with just 2% (1 respondent) being aware of it, but not using it.
The BBC Archive is by far the best well known (by 91% of respondents) – although only 27% of such
respondents actively use it. 75.5% are aware of the Imperial War Museum collection, but only 2.5%
use it. Awareness of the National Archive collection is 55%, but only 7% of these use it. Finally,
although only 42% are aware of the commercially-based Pathe News resource, a higher proportion of
these (27%) actually use it. No respondents (0%) reported having set up an account with any of the 17
resources.
Respondents were then asked their opinions about a series of statements regarding Screen Heritage
video material. Based on the assignment of values between 1 (strongly disagree) and 5 (strongly
agree), arithmetic means and the median response identified.
“Archive film and TV footage is NOT useful for educational purposes”. (Q52)
Arithmetic mean = 1.49 ; Median response = ‘Strongly disagree’
“Publicly-owned archive film and TV footage should be widely and easily available online”. (Q53)
Arithmetic mean = 4.55; Median response = ‘Strongly agree‘
“If I was looking for Archive film and TV footage online, I would look on YouTube first.” (Q54)
Arithmetic mean = 3.79 ; Median response = ‘Agree‘
55
“If I could not find a particular clip on YouTube, I would not look anywhere else.” (Q55)
Arithmetic mean = 2.26 ; Median response = ‘Disagree‘
“A single, searchable catalogue covering ALL Archive film
and TV collections would be useful.” (Q56)
Arithmetic mean = 4.30 ; Median response = ‘Agree‘
“I would consider paying a reasonable price (e.g. £5 per hour of video) to buy a high quality DVD copy of
clips I had personally selected ('curated') from a range of Archive film and TV collections.” (Q57)
Arithmetic mean = 2.85 ; Median response = ‘Neutral‘
“Mixing up (re-editing) bits of Archive film and TV footage serves no purpose”. (Q58)
Arithmetic mean = 2.58 ; Median response = ‘Neutral‘
56
5.3.11 Users' attitudes to online video at the University of Sheffield
52 respondents (73%) reported currently being a student at the University of Sheffield (Q 59). Of these,
31% reported ever having watched content from a lecture capture system as part of their studies, and
of these, 25% do so ‘often’ (several times a week or more) (Q60a).
69% have watched “Recommended Viewing” online video – with just 11% doing so ‘often’ (Q60b). 52%
have watched some ‘other’ type of study-related online video, 10% doing so often. (Q60c).
Respondents were asked their opinion of the following statement:
“Lists of 'recommended viewing' online videos relating to study modules would be useful.” (Q61)
Arithmetic Mean = 3.71 ; Median response = ‘Agree’
Asked whether they had ever used the UoS Echo360 Lecture Capture system, 17% said they had
(Q62).
Just one respondent had heard of the 'JISC MediaHub' (Q64), but they had never used it (Q65). Note
that the University of Sheffield does not subscribe to this service.
57
6. Discussion
The results of the 3 separate investigative exercises are discussed in turn.
6.1 Discussion of Comparative Analysis Results
The RFA network
The variety of different approaches taken by the individual RFAs to both the discovery of their content,
and the options available for users to actively engage with it, are no doubt a legacy of many years of
these collections operating independently of each other. Whilst some (YFA, EAFA, MACE) genuinely
attractive options for exploratory search, others (NWFA, WFSA) have online systems that seem
designed to put users off from exploration of their collections. The launch of SYFA may potentially
highlight this discrepancy, if sufficient number take advantage of its distributed search functionalities.
Users may find themselves visiting any one of the sites following a SYFA -based search, and a more
unified approach to the design and information architecture of the sites as a whole might contribute
towards increased visitor numbers collectively. Indeed the absence of such improvements may
paradoxically drive visitors away form the individual sites, if they find the predictable and relatively
effective SYFA search alternative more satisfying.
Taking a broader view of the collections whose catalogues are incorporated into SYFA, it is unclear
why the Amber Films collection is included. If their catalogue is to included, why not those of other
organisations whose online video content is equally if not more relevant: The National Archive, the
Imperial War Museum, Scottish Screen Archive and the National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales.
In terms of the percentages of overall RFA holdings that are available online, at under 1% this does
seem low. However, the distribution of RFAs that provide the material may be more significant than the
overall figure. MACE alone provide a significant proportion of the overall online, and it is to be
wondered why there is such little material from elsewhere in the network. It seems possible that
political factors are adversely impacting on the simplified public access to content that the inclusion of
these institutions within SYFA would represent.
It is interesting to note that only 2 of the collections offer any degree of user augmentation of collection
metadata: both YFA and NWFA enabling users to comment on clips. However, neither have
functionality supporting the user application of descriptive keywords to content (folksonomies), an
approach which has shown promise in the evolution of crowd-based approaches to video discovery (
58
SYFA and Union Catalogues
All 3 resources have, to a certain degree, implemented a faceted approach to navigating the records in
their collections. This has been shown to be a popular approach to navigating such large collections
for exploratory search tasks, especially as users' precise needs are often vaguely-formed (Albertson &
Meadows, 2011). Whilst the MediaHub and Europeana interfaces have the appearance of being quite
'busy', they offer access faceted access to a greater number of metadata parameters that does SYFA,
the interact of which is quite simple. Design factors can play a major role in influencing user
satisfaction when interacting with such interfaces (Gerhardt-Powals, 1996) by seeking to reduce the
'cognitive load' on the user. However, from this perspective SYFA's clean design is undermined by
inconsistencies in its behaviour, and by a lack of clear feedback on the selected metadata parameters
that are generating the displayed results.
6.2 Discussion of Discoverability evaluation results
It is acknowledged that findings based solely on searches for a clip title cannot be used as a definitive
predictor of search results for other elements of RFA content metadata. It may be, for instance, that a
description field contains a richer vocabulary - which might generate a higher ranked result. However,
the findings based on searches for title might offer some insight into the visibility of the RFA content
within these discovery systems.
SYFA
The success of SYFA at locating clips from its constituent RFA catalogues is a positive outcome. That it
was more successful at locating mis-spelled titles when placed in quotation marks in counter-intuitive.
This may be explained by the fact that such mis-spelled titles do still include several correctly spelled
words. This indicates that, although SYFA's ranking algorithm behaves differently when quotation
marks are included, it does not interpret such quotation marks overly strictly. From a user perspective,
this is a beneficial feature.
However, this discoverability exercise revealed several problematic inconsistencies in SYFA's
operation. Searches for 'available-online' material at both EAFA and BFINA collections return 0 results,
when there is known to be material available online at the both collection sites. Conversely, it is not
possible to search the EAFA site for the 2289 'not online' items - despite the data for these being
available within SYFA (although not distinguishable from 'available-online' content).
59
The RFA collections as a whole also appear to have duplication of content. One brief example will be
outlined here to illustrate the nature of the problem.
Clip title: "Drifters"
Description "...this story of a commercial trawler off the west coast of Scotland is a crucial
film in the development of the British documentary..."
URL at BFINA: http://beta.bfi.org.uk/4ce2b69ebd8d5
URL at EAFA: http://www.eafa.org.uk/catalogue/178
Such duplication of material within a distributed resource clearly hampers the potential accretion of
useful User Contributed Metadata about any particular piece of content (comments, keywords and
ratings), should the resources at some future point implement this functionality. Further research would
need to be undertaken to establish the full extent of the duplication problem across the combined
SYFA catalogue resources.
Additionally, neither version is discoverable via by a SYFA 'available online' search, despite the
apparent historical importance of the item.
Europeana and JISC Media Hub
The lack of any RFA clip title results (either correctly spelled or not) within Europeana and JISC
MediaHub seems to indicate that metadata from the RFAs is not being 'published' to these resources.
This is an interesting result because both these resources do include Screen Heritage content from
other collections. It is not clear whether the exclusion of RFA content is by design, or the result of an
oversight.
Video Search Engines
It is acknowledged that this investigative approach has methodological limitations. Generally, repeated
use of the same search terms from the same IP address in a Search Engine would be expected to
result in above-average ranking of the results. However, in this case, the exercise is designed simply to
reveal whether the Search Engine has any form of record of the clip - or not. It does not seek to assign
significance to the ranking of any successful results.
It is therefore significant that none of the dedicated Video Search Engines managed to locate RFA-
based content via the title-variant searches. All positive results for clips hosted at RFAs were via
associated web search recommendations, detecting text-based information about the clips within the
60
RFA collections. This indicates that either the RFAs are actively hindering dedicated video-based
spidering by the VSEs, or that the RFA collection site architecture is inadvertently preventing the VSE
spiders from locating the content. It is welcome that, as Thurow (2008) recommends, there is adequate
text-based information for a positive search outcome of some sort, but the invisibility of RFA-based
content to dedicated VSEs is problematic from an overall discoverability perspective.
Detailed clip discovery: "Ower Bit Bog Oil"
That SYFA failed to locate just 2 of the 6 mis-spelled title variants demonstrates that it has considerably
more flexibility than many such discovery resources, and suggests that its algorithms are powerful
enough to generate relevant result sets even when its users submit inevitable mis-spellings as part of a
query. This helps ensure that such users are not needlessly put off by failed searches based on simple
typographical errors. For public-facing discovery resources such as SYFA, the importance of this
cannot be over-stated.
These results of these title-variant searches again highlight several interesting properties of the Video
Search engines. As previously, none of the VSEs located the target clip within the YFA collection,
confirming the previous results demonstrating the difficulties faced by VSE spiders. Again, web search
successfully detected text-based information associated with the clip within the YFA collection.
Interestingly, the non-agnostic character of Google web search is seemingly displayed by its favoring
the YouTube version of the target clip over the YFA-based text result.
The lack of any successful results by the Blinkx VSE are unsurprising because its primary focus is an
entertainment-based video discovery resource. Its inclusion in this study was based on its claimed use
of basic text-extraction CBVR; as Figure 2 (p23) illustrates, this clip clearly has a text-based version of
the query term within it. However, it is less likely that CBVR tried and failed to extract this information,
and more likely that Blinkx video spidering tends towards entertainment-based content providers and
did not encounter this clip at all - either at the YFA or on YouTube.
6.3 Discussion of User Survey Results
The user survey yielded far more data than was realistically possible to systematically and statistically
analyze. It is acknowledged that the survey sought information which, in hindsight, was not particularly
germane to the overall aims of this study. However, useful information did emerge. For the purposes of
this study, general approaches towards discovery and participation are perhaps more useful than
detailed cross-demographic approaches. With this mind, the major themes will be briefly discussed.
61
Within the sample population, awareness of Screen Heritage resources was extremely low, whilst
there was considerable apparent interest in this type of content - 72% declaring so. Indeed 65% stated
that they were both interested and would watch more if it were easier to find. There was general
'strong' agreement that archive and TV footage should be widely and easily available online. Yet just 1
respondent was aware of SYFA, which does now represent probably one of the more straightforward
means of accessing this type of content.
Set against is the unavoidable fact that YouTube dominates the online video landscape - with 75% of
respondents identifying it as their first port of call for online video. However, these users report being
sufficiently independent-minded that 'their own searches' were a more popular way of finding content
than a recommendation via a social network. Amongst the majority of respondents who reported
having an account with either YouTube or one of the equivalent hosting sites, there are encouraging
signs of engagement with viewed content through rating and commenting.
7. Conclusions and Further Research
From a search and discovery perspective, the SYFA union catalogue appears to perform reasonably
effectively, and on this basis is presumably a major improvement on the previous lack of such a
centralised catalogue resource. The dynamic faceted approach to results refinement that it shares with
Europeana and JISCMediaHub is to be welcomed. This approach could be extended to other metadata
parameters. However, it suffers from inconsistencies in its operation, and an imbalance in the
contribution of content that a result of software issues, these should be ironed out in order that it
behaves consistently
There does appear to be considerable user interest in viewing Screen Heritage content, but despite
viewing significant amounts of online video in general, such users are largely unaware of the RFA and
SYFA resources - but are drawn to the YouTube.
The rationale behind not exposing RFA content to resources such as Europeana and JISC MediaHub
should be clarified, and RFA collection content needs to be made more visible to dedicated video
search engines. The provision of adequate SearchEngine friendly text documentation to accompany
clips within their collections may represent the cheapest and simplest way to achieve this.
Interesting further areas of research might include a more detailed evaluation of some of the more
interesting discovery functionalities currently implemented at some of the RFA collections. In particular
62
the date-refinement timeline and map-based location refinement tools at EAFA, and the YFA's user
comments system.
A query-log analysis of user searches submitted through SYFA might yield potentially valuable
information to the curators about how they may enrich the metadata of their collections to most
effectively match queries.
Indeed, such information might prove invaluable; as Prelinger (2009) states:
"YouTube gave new life to the moving-image heritage and exposed archival material
to a vast audience. It is now up to archives to decide how best to fulfill their
canonical missions in a changed world"
63
8. References
Albertson, D. & Meadows, C. (2011). "Situated topic complexity in interactive video retrieval". Journal
of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 62 (9), 1676–1695
Best, S. J., & Krueger, B. S. (2004). Internet data collection. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.
BFI. (2009). "Inview Final Report" [Online].
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/digitisation/bfi_inview_final_report_october_2
009.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
BFI/UK Film Council. (2009). "Screen Heritage UK Programme Overview". [Online]
http://www.bfi.org.uk/about/policy/pdf/shuk_programme_overview_09.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Cain, M. (2003). “Being a Library of record in a Digital Age”. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 29
(6), 405-410.
Carmichael, J et al. (2008). "Multimodal indexing of electronic audio-visual documents: a case study
for cultural heritage data". In: Proceeedings of 2008 International workshop on content-based
multimedia indexing. 93–100.
Christel, M. (2006). "Evaluation and User Studies with Respect to Video Summarization and Browsing".
In: Multimedia Content Analysis, Management and Retrieval 2006 [Online.] Proceedings of IS&T/SPIE
Symposium on Electronic Imaging. January 2006, San Jose, CA.
http :// repository . cmu . edu / compsci /376/ [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Christel, M. (2008). "Supporting video library exploratory search: when storyboards are not enough".
In: Proceedings of the 2008 international conference on Content-based image and video retrieval
(CIVR '08). 2008, New York. 447-456.
CISCO. (2011). "Cisco Visual Networking Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2010–2015". [Online]
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns341/ns525/ns537/ns705/ns827/white_paper_c1 1-
481360.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Cunningham, S.J. & Nichols, D.M. (2008). "How people find videos". In Proceedings of the 8th
ACM/IEEE-CS joint conference on Digital libraries (JCDL '08). 2008, New York, USA. pp.201-210.
ACM, New York.
64
Dahl, M., Bannerjee, K. & Spalti, M. (2006). Digital libraries: Integrating content and systems. Oxford:
Chandos.
De Vaus, D. (2002). Surveys in social research. London, Routledge.
Dutton, W.H. & Blank, G. (2011). "Next Generation Users: The Internet in Britain 2011". [Online].
Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/publications/oxis2011_report.pdf
[Accessed 1 August 2012].
Enser, P.G.B. & Sandom, C.J. (2002). “Retrieval of archival moving imagery - CBIR outside the
frame ?” In: Lew, M.S., Sebe, N., Eakins, J.P. (Eds.) Lecture notes in computer science Vol. 2383 -
Image and video retrieval: International conference, CIVR 2002, London, UK, July 18-19, 2002. 206-
214.
Gibbon, D. C., & Liu, Z. (2008). Introduction to Video Search Engines. Berlin: Springer.
Goto, K. and Cotler, E. (2005), Web ReDesign 2.0. Workflow That Works. 2nd ed. Berkeley: Peachpit.
Gillham, B. (2000). Developing a questionnaire. London: Continuum.
Halvey, M. & Keane, T. (2007). "Analysis of online video search and sharing". In: Proceedings of the
eighteenth conference on Hypertext and hypermedia (HT '07). 2007. New York. pp 217-226.
Hare, J. S. et al. (2006). "“Mind the gap: another look at the problem of the semantic gap in image
retrieval”, Proceedings of Multimedia Content Analysis, Management and Retrieval 2006, SPIE, 6073.
Hauptmann, A.G., 2004 . "Towards a Large Scale Concept Ontology for Broadcast Video". In:
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Image and Video Retrieval (CIVR'04), July 21-23,
2004, Dublin City University, Ireland. 674-675
Hauptmann, A. (2005). "Lessons for the Future from a Decade of Informedia Video Analysis Research".
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 3568, 1-10.
Hewson, C. (2003). Internet research methods: A practical guide for the social and behavioural
sciences. London: Sage Publications.
65
Hunter, J. & Iannella, R. (1998). "The Application of Metadata Standards to Video Indexing". In:
Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries. Heidelberg: Springer Berlin. 135-156.
Gerhardt-Powals, J. (1996). “Cognitive engineering principles for enhancing human-computer
performance”. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 8 (2), 189–211.
Jain, R. & Harumpapur, A. (1994). “Metadata in video databases”. Sigmod Record, 23 (4), 27- 33.
Janes, J. (1999). "Survey construction". Library Hi Tech, 17 (3), 321 - 325
Kinder, M. (2008). "The Conceptual Power of On-Line Video: 5 Easy Pieces". In "Video Vortex reader:
Responses to Youtube". Amsterdam: Inst. of Network Cultures. 53-62.
Knautz, K. & Stock, W.G. (2011). "Collective Indexing of Emotions in Videos". Journal of
Documentation, 67 (6), 975 - 994
Lee, H. & Smeaton, A. (2002). "Designing the User Interface for the Físchlár Digital Video Library".
Journal of Digital Information [Online], 2 (4). http://journals.tdl.org/jodi/article/viewArticle/54/57
[Accessed 1 August 2012].
Marchionini, G. (2006). "Exploratory search: from finding to understanding". Communications Of The
ACM, 49, 41-46.
Naphade, M. & Huang, T. (2002). "Extracting Semantics From Audiovisual Content: The Final Frontier
in Multimedia Retrieval". IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks,13 (4), 793 - 810.
O'Brien, D. & Fitzgerald, B. (2006). "Digital copyright law in a YouTube world". Internet Law Bulletin, 9
(6 & 7), 71-74.
O’English, M. & Bond, T.J. (2011). "Providing online access to historic films at the Washington State
University libraries". Library Hi Tech, 29 (12), 210-223.
OFCOM. (2012). "The Communications Market: 2 TV and audio-visual'. [Online]
stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr12/UK_2.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Owen, C et al. (2000). “Meeting the challenge of film research in the electronic age”. [Online] D-Lib
Magazine, 6 (3). http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march00/owen/03owen.html [Accessed 1 August 2012].
66
Petrelli, D. & Auld, D. (2008). "An examination of automatic video retrieval technology on access to the
contents of an historical video archive". Program: electronic library and information systems, 42 (2),
115-136.
PEW. (2007). "Online Video". Pew Internet & American Life Project [Online].
http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2007/Online-Video.aspx [Accessed 1 August 2012].
PEW. (2010). "The State of Online Video". Pew Internet & American Life Project [Online].
http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/State-of-Online-Video.aspx [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Prelinger, R. (2009). "The Appearance of Archives". In: Snickars, P., & Vonderau, P. (eds.), The
YouTube Reader, pp 269 -274. Stockholm: National Library of Sweden. [Online].
http://www.kb.se/dokument/Aktuellt/audiovisuellt/YouTubeReader/YouTube_Reader_052009_Endversi
on.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Snoek, C. G. M., & Worring, M. (2005). "Multimodal Video Indexing: A Review of the State-of-the- art".
Multimedia Tools and Applications, 25, 5–35
Snoek, C. G. M., & Worring, M. (2008). "Concept-Based Video Retrieval" Foundations and Trends in
Information Retrieval, 2 (4), 215-322
Spink, A., & Jansen, B. J. (2006). Searching multimedia federated content web collections, Online
Journal Review, 30 (5), 485-495.
TAPE. (2008). "Tracking the reel world: A survey of audiovisual collections in Europe". [Online].
www.tape-online.net/docs/tracking_the_reel_world.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Thurow, S. (2008), Search Engine Visibility, 2nd ed., Berkeley: New Riders.
Tjondronegoro, D., & Spink, A. (2008). "Search engine multimedia functionality". Information
Processing and Management, 44 (1), 340-357.
UNESCO. (2002). Memory of the World: General guidelines to safeguard documentary heritage.
[Online] http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001256/125637e.pdf [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Vallet, D. et al. (2010). "A multi faceted recommendation approach for explorative video retrieval tasks".
In: Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces. 2010, Hong Kong,
China. pp. 389-392.
67
Weber, H. & Dorr, M. (1997). "Digitisation as a Method of Preservation?". European Commission on
Preservation and Access, Amsterdam. [Online] http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/digpres/digpres.html
[Accessed 1 August 2012].
Wright, R. (2012). "DPC Technology Watch: Preserving Moving Pictures and Sound:". [online].
http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr12-01 [Accessed 1 August 2012].
Yee, K-P, et al. (2003). "Faceted metadata for image search and browsing". In: Proceedings of the
SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in Computing Systems. New York. 401-408.
Yeo, B.-L., & Yeung, M. M. (1997). "Retrieving and visualizing video". Communications of the ACM, 40
(12), 43-52.
YouTube. (2012). "Holy Nyans! 60 hours per minute and 4 billion views a day on YouTube" [Online]
http://youtube-global.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/holy-nyans-60-hours-per-minute-and-4.html [Accessed 1
August 2012].
68
Appendix 1: University of Sheffield Ethics Application Form
69
70
71
72
Appendix 2. Results of the Comparative analysis of RFA functionalities.
(continues on next page)
73
Appendix 2 cnt'd. Results of the Comparative analysis of RFA functionalities.
74
Appendix 3: Results of the Comparative Analysis of SYFA and Union Catalogue functionalities
75
Appendix 4: Results of the User Survey (presented in question number sequence).
Section 1 provides data about complete and abandoned responses, and the time durations associated
with them. Section 2 presents the survey response data in question number sequence. Actual
response numbers have been converted to percentages.
Section 1: Breakdown of Survey Responses
1.1 Survey Completion
124 different respondents visited the Survey homepage. 71 completed the Survey; 53 abandoned (generating partial responses).
1.2 Survey Durations
Following closure of the survey, the response data downloaded includes a log of the start and end times of each response.
‘Outlying’ data has been excluded from the results - relating to instances where the completion of the survey appears to have been interrupted. .
1.2.1 Partial responses (abandoned before completion)
2 ‘outliers’ have excluded: 106, 236 mins.N = 51 (53 - 2 outliers)
76
1.2.2 Completed responses.
3 'outliers' excluded: 342, 435 and 946 minutes.N = 68 (71-3 outliers)
77
Section 2: Online Survey Questions and Results
Partial responses are excluded from the following data and analysis.
Data for questions about 'absolute' frequencies of an activity have been further processed as follows:'Ever' = (All) - (Never)
'Often' = (Several times a day) + (About once a day) + (Several times a week)
Q1. Are you completing this survey on a device that you sometimes use to watch online video?
N = 71 (all)
Q3. Please enter the "Your Connection" figure (in kbps) from the BBC iPlayer Connection Speed
Tester.
N = 56. (Q1 = Y) (2 responses not provided)
78
Q4. At your current home, what type of Internet connection do you have?
N = 71 (all)
Q5. At your current home, do you have access to a WiFi network?
N = 71 (all)
Q6. Do you have a "smartphone" (a mobile phone that can connect to the Internet)?
N = 71 (all)
79
Q7. When you are at home, do you use your home WiFi network to connect your Smartphone to
the Internet?
N = 52 ( Q6 = Y)
Q8. At home, how often do you use the following types of devices to go online (connect to the
Internet)?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
80
Q9. Away from home, how often do you go online (connect to the Internet) via these networks?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
81
Q10. Is there a particular Operating System that you tend to be using when you are online with
different devices?
N = 71 (all)
82
Q11. Is there a particular Web browser software that you tend to use when you are online with
different types of devices?
N = 71 (all)
83
Q12. At your current home, which system do you use as the source of your main Broadcast TV
signal?
N = 71 (all)
Q13. How long have you been actively using the Internet?
N = 71 (all)
84
Q14. How frequently do you currently use the Internet?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
Q15. On average, roughly how much time do you spend on the Internet each day (in total, all
devices and all types of activity)?
N = 71 (all)
85
Q16. Which of the following Leisure-based Internet activities do you participate in, and
approximately how frequently?
N = 71 (all)
86
Q16 cntd:
Q17. How frequently do you currently watch 'online video' of any type, including iPlayer etc?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
87
Q18. Do you ever use BBC iPlayer, ITV Player or 4OD?
N = 71 (all)
Q19. When using 'Broadcast TV Catch Up' services (BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, 4OD etc), how
often do you:
N = 59 (Q18 = Y))
Summarised:
88
Q20. How often do you:(rent films / use video phone)?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
89
Q21. Which platforms do you use to watch Leisure-based online video, and how frequently
(excluding BBC iPlayer etc)?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
90
Q22. How frequently do you watch these types of Leisure-based online video? (excluding
iPlayer etc) N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
91
Q23. Please estimate the average total duration of Leisure-based online video that you watch
per day (excluding iPlayer etc)?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
92
93
Q24. How do you tend to find the online video clips that you watch?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
94
Q25. Is there a particular website you would use as starting point if you were looking for online
video?
N = 74 (all; several respondents mentioned more than one site)
Q26. Which of the following online video-related sites do you use?
N = 71 (all)
95
Q27. Do you ever use any of the following Advanced Search functions when doing video
searches of your own?
N = 71 (all)
96
Q28. Finding just the right online videos that interest me is straightforward?
N = 71 (all)
Mean: 3.54
Median: 4 (Agree)
97
Q29. Do you check any of the following before deciding whether to play a clip?
N = 71 (all)
Q30. Which of the following functions do you use?
N = 71 (all)
Q31. When watching online video, do you tend to stream or download the video content?
N = 71 (all)
Q32. Do you ever "save" (keep a record of) video clips you have watched?
N = 71 (all)
98
Q33. Do you feel you have sufficient information about the video clip you are watching?
N = 71 (all)
Q34. Whilst watching a video clip, do you..?
N = 71 (all)
99
Q35. Do you ever watch online video socially - along with friends or family?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
Q36. Do either of the following problems interfere with smooth and trouble-free viewing of
online video?
N = 71 (all)
100
Q37. Do you "recommend" or "share" online videos with your friends, family or Social
Networks?
N = 71 (all)
Q38. When you have watched an online video, how often do you...?
N = 71 (all)
101
Q39. Do you have a Facebook account?
N = 71 (all)
Q40. Q. How often do you upload video to your Facebook account?
N = 57 (Q39 = Y)
Summarised:
102
Q41. Do you have an account with any of the following video-hosting websites?
N = 71 (all)
103
Q42. Do you upload videos of your own to any of these video-hosting websites?
N = 47 (Q41 = Y)
Summarised:
104
Q43. Which of the following types of video do you upload to your video host account?
N = 47 (Q41 =Y)
Q44. In addition to a title, which of the following additional information would you upload with
your clip?
N = 47 (Q41 =Y)
105
Q45. Which of these other advanced functionalities of video-hosting sites do you use?
N = 47 (Q41 =Y)
Summarised:
106
Q46. Have you ever encountered problems as a result of trying to upload "Copyright" material
to a video-hosting website?
N = 47 (Q41 =Y)
107
Q47. How often do you film videos on your mobile smartphone?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
Q48. Do you ever purchase music or video as a result of seeing it first as an online video?
N = 71 (all)
Summarised:
108
109
Q49. Do you have any interest at all in 'Screen Heritage' video content?
N = 71 (all)
Q50. Do you think you would watch more 'Screen Heritage' online video if it was easier to find
and manage?
N = 71 (all)
110
Q51. For the following Screen Heritage organisations what is your awareness of their ONLINE
video collections? N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Q52. “Archive film and TV footage is NOT useful for educational purposes.”
111
N = 53 ( Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 1.49
Median: 1 (Strongly disagree)
112
Q53. “Publicly-owned Archive film and TV footage should be widely and easily available
online.”
N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 4.55
Median: 5 (Agree strongly)
Q54. “If I was looking for Archive film and TV footage online, I would look on YouTube first.”
N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 3.79
Median: 4 (Agree)
113
Q55. “If I could not find a particular clip on YouTube, I would not look anywhere else.”
N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 2.26
Median: 2 (Disagree)
114
Q56. “A single, searchable catalogue covering ALL Archive film and TV collections would be
useful.”
N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 4.30
Median: 4 (Agree)
Q57. “I would consider paying a reasonable price (e.g. £5 per hour of video) to buy a high
quality DVD copy of clips I had personally selected ('curated') from a range of Archive film and
TV collections.”
N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 2.85
Median: 3 (Neutral)
115
Q58. “Mixing up (re-editing) bits of Archive film and TV footage serves no purpose.”
N = 53 (Q49 or Q50 = Y)
Mean: 2.58
Median: 3 (Neutral)
116
Q59. Are you currently a student or member of staff at the University of Sheffield?
N = 71 (all)
Q60. Do you ever watch online video as part of your studies?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
Summarised:
117
Q61. “Lists of 'recommended viewing' online videos relating to study modules would be
useful.”
N = 52 ( Q59=Y)
Statistics:
Mean 3.71
Median 4.00
118
Q62. Have you ever watched or used the Echo360 Lecture Capture System?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
Q63. “The Lecture Capture System is useful.”
N = 9 (Q59 & Q62 = Y)
Mean: 4.22
Median: 4 ( Agree)
Q64. Have you heard of the 'JISC MediaHub'?
n = 52 (Q59=Y)
119
Q65. How often do you use the JISC MediaHub?
N=1 (Q59 & Q64 = Y)
Q66. Which faculty are you a member of?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
Q67. Which best describes your current University status?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
120
Q68. Are you studying Full time or Part time?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
Q69. Are you a "Home" or an "Overseas" student?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
Q70. Which country are you from?
N = 10 (Q59=Y & Q69=not Home)
121
122
Q71. Are you a "Distance Learner"?
N = 52 (Q59=Y)
Q72. Are you Male or Female?
N = 71 (all)
Q73.Which age range do you fall into (years)?
N = 71 (all)
Q74. Are you a parent?
N = 71 (all)
123
Q75. What is your current Occupational Status?
N = 71 (all)
Q76. What type of location is your current home?
N = 71 (all)
Q77. How often do you use Accessibility features?
N = 71 (all)
124
![AN INVESTIGATION INTO QUERIES SUBMITTED TO THE EUROPEANA …dagda.shef.ac.uk/dispub/dissertations/2011-12/External/SilveyE.pdf · (Europeana, [2012?]d), excluding the top-ranked Text](https://img.pdfslide.us/doc/110x75/5f63e4a8a0990e0224047a06/an-investigation-into-queries-submitted-to-the-europeana-dagdashefacukdispubdissertations2011-12external.jpg)
