Video Transcript: Measuring the Impact of Your Research Papers and Videos

This is the transcript from our free video, Tracking the Success of Your Video. For more information, and to view the video, please visit our article, "Measuring the Impact of Your Research Papers and Videos."

Videos are a great way to increase the impact of your research and share your findings with a wider audience. At AJE, we make it easy by automatically uploading your custom-made video to YouTube and Vimeo, so that people all over the world can see it. But how can you be sure it's getting the attention you want? Here, we'll go through how to keep tabs on your video's success. You can use these tips for any other research content you want to track, too.

With billions of users across the globe, Google's YouTube is the leading video-sharing service -- and an ideal platform for your video. On your page, take a look at the total number of views tallied on the right-hand side. Each time the video is watched, the number goes up. Users also have the option to rate the video by selecting the “thumb's up” or “thumb's down” buttons. Be sure to scroll down to the comments section, too, to see if anyone has left questions or notes. Click on “statistics” for even more detailed information, such as viewing trends, the total number of minutes your video has been streamed, and the number of times users have shared the video link.

Vimeo, another video-sharing site, is a great place to showcase newly published research. Vimeo provides four metrics for tracking video performance. The “Plays” count is the total number of times the video has been viewed. Next is a tally of all the times users have enjoyed your video enough to click the heart-shaped “like” icon. “Collections” indicates the number of times your video has been added to other user channels. And finally, there are viewer comments, which can be displayed by clicking on the bubble icon or scrolling down.

The ultimate goal of your video is to connect people with your published paper. There are a number of ways to find out if your paper is gaining traction, and a good place to start is your journal's website. Your journal may provide the number of article views and downloads directly on your article page. Another useful tool is the Altmetrics bookmarklet, which compiles press and social media mentions for recently published articles. Altmetrics links you to online conversations about your research, so you can see who is talking about your research. Simply add the "Altmetric It!" button to your bookmarks. Then, click the button when you've navigated to a journal article of interest to see the Altmetric data.

If you are interested in citations, check out Google Scholar's powerful search engine. You can search for statistics on your article by entering your name, affiliation, and other search criteria on the My Citations page.

Also consider connecting with other scientists and making your research visible through ResearchGate's online community. This site allows you to share your research and track statistics on your viewer network. To make your video accessible to broader audiences, set up an account on Kudos, where you can efficiently track the impact of your work.

To see those play counts tick upward -- and get the word out about your research -- share your video widely and often with colleagues, as well as friends and family.

For more information about AJE's Video Abstract service, visit our website. You can also view more videos from AJE on our YouTube channel.