UA YouTube Channel
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Best Practices
This FAQ is organized into two sections.
A. Overall Description & Guidelines
- What is YouTube for Universities and why is the University of Arizona participating?
- What are the policies, practices, or guidelines for what gets added to the UA's YouTube channel?
- My department wants its own YouTube channel. Is there a policy about this?
- What are other universities doing with YouTube channels?
- Do I have to submit my video through my department or may I submit it as an individual?
- Does the video have to be my work or can I submit a friend or colleague's video?
- Do I need to get release forms from the people in my video?
- Is there a review or approval process before my video gets added to the site? If so, what is it and who does this?
- How long before I submit my video before I can expect to see it on the site?
- How long will my video stay on the site?
- Is there a limit as to how many videos I can submit?
- Once my video is on the UA's YouTube channel, am I allowed to post it in other places (e.g., my departmental web site)?
- Once the video is on the UA's YouTube channel, who holds the copyright to the video, me or the University of Arizona?
B. Technical FAQs
- What settings should I follow for my video?
- Is there a recommended file size or video length limit?
- How long does it take to upload video?
- What other file formats can you upload to YouTube?
- Is there a way to track how many times that one of my videos has been viewed?
- Where can I find more help about making videos for YouTube?
A. Overall Description & Guidelines
1. What is YouTube for Universities and why is the University of Arizona participating?
In the fall of 2007, YouTube began offering dedicated "channels" to universities that enable them to distribute media content. A Learning Technology Services staff member learned of this opportunity and contacted the YouTube project manager and began developing an "enhanced University channel" of UA content. It is up to the participating university to determine what content it wants in its YouTube channel.
The UA's YouTube channel went public in late January 2008. At this time, we see our UA YouTube channel largely as a resource that high school students and college undergraduates might turn to for information about student life, academic programs, and promotional videos about the UA. In addition, we are uploading selected public lectures that have had a broad public interest as tracks in iTunes U or could be helpful to high school and undergraduate students researching a topic. Here's a link to an entry in Open Culture from January 2008, describing the different approaches ten other universities have taken with their YouTube channel, "10 University Collections on YouTube".
2. What are the policies, practices or guidelines for what gets added to the UA's YouTube channel?
This document is an attempt to develop guidelines. Kate Jensen, assistant vice-president for marketing in the UA's External Relations, is working with Learning Technology Services on developing guidelines for our YouTube channel.
3. My department wants its own YouTube channel. Is there a policy about this?
There is no policy at this time to that effect. If you start your own channel and have content relevant to the UA's YouTube channel we can add it to one of our playlists. We have done that with a video about UA baseball on the UAbaseballtech's channel and "The Millennial Student Project Teaser" on the Millennial Project channel. If you start your own channel, please let us know via the LTS' contact form.
4. What are other universities doing with YouTube channels?
YouTube's project manager for the enhanced university channel service says that it is important to enter good metadata for the videos we upload because people search YouTube to find videos on different topics. At this time, I am not aware of a list or webpage of colleges and universities participating — that is, developing university enhanced channels.
A January 28, 2008, post to the Open Culture blog that is referenced above identified these participants: Cal-Berkeley, MIT, Princeton, EGS (The European Graduate School), Vanderbilt, USC, Duke, Purdue, Oxford U. Said Business School, and Auburn. We also know that ASU has a site. I've also identified: Purdue, Sonoma State, Carnegie Mellon, Washington University of St. Louis, Montgomery College, Old Dominion U., U of Minnesota, Northwestern, Eastern Kentucky, Notre Dame, Tulane, Texas Tech, University of Texas Environmental Science Institute, and U of Maryland.
5. Do I have to submit my video through my department or may I submit it as an individual?
At this time there is a single username/password. You need to submit your videos to the LTS' YouTube channel project manager. Submit a request via the LTS' contact form.
6. Does the video have to be my work or can I submit a friend or colleague's video?
The video should be submitted by the person responsible for it. Please consult "Respecting Copyright and Intellectual Property".
7. Do I need to get release forms from the people in my video?
Yes, this is required. LTS can provide you with an approved release form. Submit a request via the LTS' contact form. LTS asks that you provide LTS the original or a copy of the original.
8. Is there a review or approval process before my video gets added to the site? If so, what is it and who does this?
If recent experience is our guide, the review process is relatively informal. Essentially, the quality of the video should be comparable to those you find on the UA's YouTube channel and fit the content guidelines described above. In a couple cases we were able to alter the requestors to other options that were more appropriate for their content, such as UA on iTunes U.
9. How long before I submit my video before I can expect to see it on the site?
Normally, within 48 hours. If the video needs to be encoded to a codec supported by YouTube, LTS Media Services will need to work that process into its existing workflow. You will be notified by email when your video is added, normally within 24 hours.
10. How long will my video stay on the site?
At this time, with the UA's channel so new, we've not encountered a video that is no longer relevant. Perhaps, the best answer to this question is that it can remain on the UA's YouTube channel as long it remains relevant. You may request that the video be removed. Submit a request via the LTS' contact form.
11. Is there a limit as to how many videos I can submit?
Again, we're still new at managing the UA's YouTube channel – at this time we do not anticipate a limit.
12. Once my video is on the UA's YouTube channel, am I allowed to post it in other places (e.g., my departmental web site)?
Certainly.
13. Once the video is on the UA's YouTube channel, who holds the copyright to the video, me or The University of Arizona?
The Arizona Board of Regents ABOR). There will be cases, of course, where participants in a video may hold rights to the intellectual property in the video. This has been the practice since 2005 when we began podcasting videos of public lectures.
B. Technical FAQs
1. What settings should I follow for my video?
YouTube recommends re-sizing your video to these specifications before uploading:
- MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
- 640x480 resolution (* most updated recommendation)
- MP3 audio
- 30 frames per second
2. Is there a recommended file size or video length limit?
YouTube states, "Your video is limited to 1024 MB."
3. How long does it take to upload video?
YouTube states, "Uploads usually take 1-5 minutes per MB on a high-speed connection, and converting your video takes a few minutes." FYI, we've had different experiences when we start an upload when using IE, Firefox and Safari. The platform, PC or Mac, the version, and the Internet can make a difference.
4. What other file formats can you upload to YouTube?
According to YouTube, "YouTube accepts a wide range of video file formats such as .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG transferred from most digital cameras, camcorders, and cell phones.
"We've found that files converted from .wmv to one of the other formats our webpage accepts generally have a lower playback quality than other file formats. If you have your source video in a format other than a .wmv file, you may want to encode directly to MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 640x480 resolution, with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. If you have a source .WMV in high bitrate and larger resolution you may want to convert to MPEG4 at full resolution and then resizing to 320x240 using a high quality resizing algorithm - this can help reduce the number of artifacts you end up with."
5. Is there a way to track how many times that one of my videos has been viewed?
Yes, if you go to any videos page on YouTube, the number of Views is shown.
6. Where can I find more help about making videos for YouTube?
Check out YouTube's Help Center. Look for the section on "Making Videos." Help Center Home > Your Videos > Making Videos
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