At our last Teaching and Learning Conference we spent time looking at Kaltura and talked about how we could monitor the way students were viewing the video content. One of the key take-aways of that conversation was how helpful it may be to use Kaltura Analytics to see when students are dropping out of your videos.
In earlier blogs (The Long and Short of Multimedia Video) and in conversation with faculty, we’ve often stressed that shorter videos are better. Students’ attention spans are short, and if we’re being honest, we live in a world where it is very easy to get distracted by additional videos even if we’re doing our best to just watch what we’re supposed to. When you think about all the time you take to outline your video, prepare to film it in the most optimal space, film it, make some minor edits, and then upload it – and then someone might only watch the first 30 seconds to go watch an Instagram Reel instead – that hurts!
So how can we combat this? First and foremost, only film and upload what’s absolutely necessary. Would you like students to watch your whole lecture? Of course! But they won’t watch a 45 minute video voluntarily. Film the parts that are most important, and provide the rest in a clean post or bulleted list. Secondly, keep the videos short. You’ll see in the video I’ve posted below that watch times vary, but there is always a significant drop off when videos start to become quiet, monotone, or don’t require the viewer to engage in any way. And third, keep an eye on your analytics. If you see that your students are only giving you two minutes, make sure the most important information is in that first two minutes. We always want engagement, but if we’re facing an uphill battle to get it, it’s best to get your point across in the time you know you have.
Before you watch the overview of Kaltura Analytics video below, take some time to become acquainted with the following terminology. Once you start tracking engagement on your videos, you’ll see a lot of the following terms:
- Player Impressions: A player impression is counted each time the player is loaded on the page. This does not mean anyone watched it, just that the player loaded.
- Plays: A play is counted when the viewer clicks play to start the video. If the viewer pauses the video and then resumes it, that does not count as an additional play.
- Unique Viewers: This is the number of unique viewers that had an active viewing action. You may have 15 plays on your video, but only one unique viewer.
- Entry: Refers to a video or piece of media that you upload.
- Views: Tracks how many times the video was fully or partially watched.
- Average Completion Rate: The percentage of the video that viewers typically watch.
- Engagement: Measures how viewers interact with the video, such as rewinding or skipping.
- Live vs. On-Demand: Live videos are streamed in real-time; on-demand videos can be watched anytime.
- Drop-Off: The point in a video where most viewers stop watching. It’s expressed as a percentage of the total video length. For example, if the average drop-off rate is 60%, it means viewers, on average, stop watching the video after 60% of its duration.
- Heatmap: A visual representation of which parts of a video are watched the most.
- Device and Location Tracking: Analytics can show what device (phone, tablet, etc.) viewers used and where they watched from.
An important part of video creation is putting yourself in the seat of the viewer. Consider where they are watching the videos, the devices they’re using, the time of day they might be watching, etc. For a lot of these reasons, adding captions to your video is incredibly helpful. Along with providing an additional way for people to watch your videos, captioning also adheres to the upcoming DOJ standards. The video you’ll watch here includes captions and a basic audio description of what is happening on the screen (also a future DOJ standard). If you have any questions about how to use captions, or what the future of audio description looks like, please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask.
Also, a humongous thanks to the ever professional Kevin Malone for helping me blur out portions of this video, and for being my editing mentor.
