Video on Its Way to Becoming Education Norm

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 09/19/17

Video has become as ubiquitous in higher education classrooms as big screens in the fitness center and Hulu in residential halls. The use cases abound. The most popular use right now is to help with remote teaching and learning; 73 percent of institutions in a recent survey report the use of video for that purpose. That's followed by the showing of video in classrooms (70 percent), as supplementary course material (66 percent) and for lecture capture (65 percent). But video is also gaining steam in student assignments, teaching skills and recording students as they practice them, recording campus events for on-demand viewing, as part of library media collections, to deliver personal introductions and to give feedback on student assignments and instructor teaching practices.

These examples aren't the only ones cited in the latest results of Kaltura's "The State of Video in Education." The 2017 survey, done in May and June 2017, drew responses from more than a thousand people, 81 percent of whom work in higher ed (the rest from K–12 and other educational organizations). Most of the survey respondents hold one of four primary roles: instructional design, IT, faculty and media. Kaltura is a company that sells video products and services.

Respondents report on their most common uses for video. Source: Kaltura's "The State of Video in Education."

Why the push for video? Because the use of video increases student satisfaction with the learning experience (cited by 93 percent of respondents). Another 85 percent of survey participants said they believe video increases student achievement. Seventy percent mentioned that video improves alumni affiliation with the institution.

According to this year's results, the most popular "advanced feature" in use is for remote presentations. Fifty-four percent of respondents across all types of education organizations said that was in use in their schools. Nearly half (45 percent) reported the use of mobile apps for allowing viewers to watch video "on the go." A similar number reported using chapters to split lengthy videos into digestible segments. While closed captions have been picked up by just 39 percent of institutions, an additional 52 percent said they would like to implement them. Even more respondents would like to add synchronized slides (cited by 61 percent) and in-video search (60 percent). While in-video quizzing has been adopted by just a quarter (26 percent) of respondents, 63 percent would like to implement that feature.

Respondents report on the "advanced features" in video that they're using or would like to use. Source: Kaltura's "The State of Video in Education."

Most respondents said their instructors have access to at least some video tools and training, but the flavor of the offerings varies widely across organizations. More than half make easy-to-use tools for video capture and simple workflows for publishing of videos available (54 percent and 51 percent, respectively). Yet far fewer schools have staff available to help with video creation and management (27 percent) or dedicated training on video technologies (32 percent). However, all categories of video tools have grown since last year's survey was published. As an example, in 2016 a third of institutions (32 percent) had a video solution that was integrated into the learning management system; this year 46 percent do.

This year the survey added a question exploring what video tools and services are provided to students. Eighty-two percent of schools make equipment "fully" or "somewhat" available" to students. Similarly high numbers surfaced for student access to workflows for sharing videos (79 percent), access to video editing tools (76 percent) and training and support for use of video tools (74 percent).

Interestingly, the survey authors reported that lecture capture is "still very much in its early stages." While the "biggest lecture halls" may be outfitted with the gear and expertise needed to record presentations, "smaller classrooms are still being neglected." Two-thirds of schools (62 percent) reported that less than a quarter of their classrooms are capturing lectures; only 3 percent record more than 75 percent of their programs. What will increase those numbers, respondents said, was a push from students (46 percent) and faculty requests (32 percent).

Video is becoming the "new chalkboard/whiteboard," said one instructional designer quoted in the report. "It will be the tools used for teaching and learning in a project-based environment."

A system administrator added that as video becomes "more established and 'normal' in schools, it will be just another way of communicating and providing access to content."

The full report is available with registration on the Kaltura website.