Scholarly Video: a Case Study

Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group unleashes the power of dynamic content with the Cadmore Media video player on KGL PubFactory

by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

In July we published an article entitled, The Meteoric Rise of Video Content which looked at how different parts of the publishing world were increasingly working with video-based content, particularly in the shorter form. The article only briefly touched upon scholarly publishing, mostly highlighting several key video content usage scenarios and its growth potential in the industry.

At the KGL PubFactory Virtual Series user group meeting this past October, we took the opportunity to delve deeper and really put scholarly video under the microscope. In a session hosted by PubFactory’s Tom Beyer, we examined in detail how one journal publisher in particular was harnessing the power of video to revolutionize its approach towards traditional journal publishing, adding fresh content types into the mix and enhancing user experience for its members in the process.

In the summer of 2019, the Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group launched Neurosurgical Focus: Video, a standalone journal title with articles published in video form. The group had encountered many challenges with video content along the way: “Due to the gory nature of our content—it’s neurosurgery after all—we had some problems when it came to embedding YouTube links into our articles, primarily because of age restrictions being flagged up,” explained Ben Jipson, Digital Content Manager at the Journal of Neurosurgery Publishing Group, while showing the audience a black “restricted” embedded video player on one of the journal’s pages. 

With member demand for video content on the up and a growing number of video assets being produced by and for the journal, the team set about looking for a video specialist with an understanding of its needs and the ability to cater to the specific requirements of a journal publisher. The publisher decided to work with PubFactory platform partner, Cadmore Media and set about embedding and integrating a new video player into the journal.

“We wanted a video player that was created and tailored specifically for scholarly videos. For us legitimacy and finding a video player with integrity was key, and from a content and presentation standpoint we also didn’t want something that looked out of place among the other elements of the article pages, it had to be intuitive and user-friendly.” Ben continued.

Accessibility was also a major priority for the journal, who cited the ability to produce synchronized transcripts and closed captioning for videos, alongside the ability to choose from a range of audio and visual options, as attractive qualities on the Cadmore platform.

For Violaine Iglesias, who established Cadmore Media as CEO and Co-founder three years ago, the key ingredient to its popularity is its simplicity. “The idea behind our product is that we can host video throughout the entire publishing workflow, and we help publishers to treat video and audio assets in the same way they would treat their journal articles and book content, with the same best practices throughout.” 

“The player is the most visible part of our product, as it sits on the front-end, but our back-end platform gives publishers everything they need to create videos and to turn them into proper digital objects. As with journal articles, videos get a DOI, transcript metadata is structured, chapters within longer videos can be indexed at a more granular level and there are editing and analytics facilities too,” she added.

Looking to the future, Violaine expects that some of the more customizable elements of Cadmore Media’s offering will gain traction among scholarly publishers, particularly the ability to index video content for improved discoverability, in exactly the same way as text-based journal content is currently indexed.

But if we were to take one lesson away from this Virtual Series session it would be that, although video may still just be in its infancy in scholarly publishing, with only a small proportion of publishers actively engaging with video content in a meaningful and dynamic way, the technology is certainly there and ready to be applied. It’s simply a question of publishers taking the plunge and unleashing video’s sizable potential.

For more information about the KGL PubFactory community and how our flexible, integrated platform can help you take control of your publishing business, visit pubfactory.com or contact us.