Session 5F: The Landscape of Multimedia in Scholarly Communications
As the New York Times put it in a recent article: “The internet was born in text. Now, video and audio are ascendant, writing is being left behind, and everything will be different.” What opportunities and challenges will this imminent revolution translate into for scholarly communications, and how can the community leverage it to its advantage? Renew Publishing Consultants have recently invited forward-thinking scholarly and professional organizations to share their views and plans for incorporating streaming video and audio content into their websites and publishing platforms. Publishers, scholarly societies and professional associations were asked about their multimedia products and associated development plans, including the benefits they see in publishing multimedia content as well as the challenges they are encountering in defining business models and mastering new editorial and production workflows. For each product, a closer look was taken at qualitative and quantitative measures of success and return on investment (ROI). The results of this study, compiled in a white paper, will be presented to the SSP audience. This panel will discuss how streaming media is being used in the scholarly publishing world, whether as new product lines, to offer more value to existing products and services, or to promote organizations and increase outreach. Each use case will cover common financial, organizational and technological common goals, from monetization and staff expertise to accessibility and discoverability issues. Practical case studies will be offered to illustrate a number of scenarios, including a review by one society of its model for producing videos for an academic audience and augment traditional scholarly publications through its streaming collections, and one that uses podcasts as a way to inform listeners about recent research and changes in practice as well as a bite-sized educational activity that can be fit into their everyday life.
