ScholarSphere Screencasts and Camtasia

Picture of Screencast for "How to Create a Collection"

Screencast for “How to Create a Collection”

This post was written by Hélène Huet, Digital Scholarship Services Graduate Assistant.

As ScholarSphere 2.0 launched in September 2014, my colleagues and I agreed that it was time for me to create new tutorial videos. These videos would show users how to upload a file and create a collection, as well as what the new functionalities of the dashboard would be.

To do this, I used Camtasia, a screen recorder and video editor. Amanda Clossen, our Learning Design Librarian, taught me how to use the software and suggested I create a storyboard for each of the screencasts to be recorded.

After writing the various scripts, I worked on the storyboards, drawing each of the “scenes” that would be shown and detailing what “action” I would demonstrate. These storyboards proved to be extremely useful when it was time to use Camtasia. While my colleague, Sarah Pickle, our Social Sciences Data Curation Fellow, was reading the scripts, I was following the various storyboards. This helped me visualize what I had to do on the screen.
Picture of Storyboard for the Screencast "Upload a File"

Storyboard for the Screencast “Upload a File”

Picture of Storyboard for the Screencast "How to Create a Collection"

Storyboard for the Screencast “How to Create a Collection”

Camtasia is a fairly easy tool to use, once you get the hang of it. I decided, with Sarah, to record both the audio and the video at the same time, but users have the option of recording them separately (using for instance GarageBand to record the audio). It took us a few tries to get good videos, but practice makes perfect, doesn’t it? The screencasts will be available online very soon and I hope that users, whether they are new to ScholarSphere or old-time regulars, will consider them a useful tool to learn how to navigate our institutional repository.
UPDATE: The screencasts are now available on ScholarSphere. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page.
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