Overview

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SciVee brings Internet video and rich media to scientific and scholarly publishing. It is designed for fast and easy video uploading, synchronization and sharing. Its do-it-yourself (DIY) model means that:

• Authors can create and upload the videos on their own with minimal help from conference organizers or SciVee support.
• SciVee requires minimal resources by conference staff and can be easily integrated into the current conference workflow.
• No special equipment or software is needed.
• All work is done on the Scivee site in a browser with nothing to download. The author starts working as soon as he is logged in.

In summary, the PosterCast creation process takes three steps:

Create and Upload Video

Tip: One does not need to register or log in to SciVee to watch the videos and listen to the podcasts. But anyone wishing to upload videos, create SciveeCasts, join a community, or interact with members must register and log in.

The author creates a video summarizing the poster or presentation, highlighting the key points by referring to the relevant text, graphics, charts and tables. Follow well-known tips on video production. Depending on the content and purpose, the most effective videos are between 5-15 minutes long.

The author can be as creative as desired—anything from talking heads to Q & A format or adding special effects. Using a typical consumer videocam or a webcam under good lighting and audio conditions is perfectly acceptable. Scholarly and scientific viewers care much more about the content than the video production quality. Unless there is a special reason for it, there is no need for a complicated or expensive shoot. Since many conferences already employ audio-visual services to record the proceedings, PosterCast shoots can be included as another work item.

The video creation process is now familiar to most researchers. Scholars who are not comfortable with video creation can rely on their research assistants, students or institutional media services if needed. The four steps in creating a video are:

Total time required is typically 1-2 hours. SciVee supports 11 most common video formats (asf, avi, flv, mov, mp3/4, mpeg, mpg, wav, wma, wmv), and allows a 1 GB upload capacity(~1 hour of video).

Content Upload and Synchronization

Once the author registers and logs into the SciVee site, she is ready to create a PosterCast by going to "Upload" atop the homepage. The Upload interface is used for all SciVee products, with only minor differences at various points to account for the different document types. Example: the only difference between PosterCast and PubCast in SciVee is that the latter is about a peer-review article and the former is not, and the underlying content is an article vs. a poster or slides.

Upload a Poster

SciVee accepts PDF, PPT and JPG files. If the poster comes in one JPG image, we recommend that it is of a square or rectangular shape with a balanced aspect ratio with each dimension between 1500-2400 pixels. Anything above 2400 pixels would be automatically scaled down by the SciVee system, and anything below 1000 pixels will likely be hard to read.

Upload Slides

SciVee accepts PDF, PPT and JPG files. The number of slides that can be uploaded with good performance is mainly a function of computer RAM capacity, and the resolution, graphics density and number of slides. There could be further variations depending on each computer and its operating conditions. To ensure best performance during the upload and synchronization process, we recommend 25 pages as the limit for each PosterCast or SlideCast at 2400 pixels, and 40 pages at 1500 pixels. More than that, the process could be slowed down materially, so we recommend breaking the PosterCast into two or more parts.

Tip: Jot down the timelines (start-end times) of the parts of the poster you are presenting in the video. This will help you save time when you are synchronizing those parts to the video on the SciVee site.

Content Synchronization

Synchronization is the heart of the SciVee system. It is extremely easy through an intuitive graphical interface that guides the author through the process step-by-step, and takes about 30 minutes to complete and review. There is an optional online tutorial at the start of the synch step which the author can view or skip:

Tip: Once the video is uploaded and the content synchronization process has begun, your work in progress is saved automatically to enable you to quit and return to finish later. Go to My Media (in My Account) to find your unpublished PosterCast, click on Edit/Publish, and you will be returned to the spot where you left off.

Tip: Play the video in “Full Screen” mode when viewing, synchronizing and editing.

Synchronization Editing

During the editing and review step, just click on Edit Synchs and Next when finished:

Publish

Up to now, the workflow is the same for all. Once the author is ready to publish, edit or make other related decisions, the paths to do so by authors working on their own vs. those publishing a PosterCast with a conference organizer diverge. The reason for this is the organizer’s need to have a two tier creation/edit process where the author creates the PosterCast and the organizer reviews, edits and makes the final publishing decisions. Authors working independently will make their own publishing decisions without this additional review.

The upload interface clearly guides the author to choose one of two paths:

The Individual Author

There are 3 decisions the author makes once the PosterCast is created:

1. Publish — the PosterCast is immediately published and viewable by all visitors to SciVee. The author can take the embed code for the newly created node and place it on other websites to be viewed across the Net.
   The author can also publish the PosterCast and make it private by designating specific individuals who can view it. This is a great way to solicit comments and edits from colleagues about the PosterCast before publicly publishing it.
2. Publish Later — essentially makes the PosterCast a private node that can be made public at a later date. The author can set the publish date now or later.
3. Save and Quit — not quite finished, the PosterCast is saved for future editing.

If the author selects the publish or publish later options, he then goes to the SciVee shopping cart and pays, either through credit card or available units in his account.

Shopping Cart

SciVee offers a combination of free and paid services. Free services include unlimited viewing of all content, use of the community and unlimited upload of videos. Uploading of synchronized videos (SciveeCasts) and associated services require payment. There is one price for all products in the SciveeCast product family: PubCast, PaperCast, PosterCast and SlideCast, and each one is considered one unit. A user thus can pay by credit card for each upload of a SciveeCast, or buy multiple units and use them as each SciveeCast is published.

The Institutional Author

SciVee’s approach with authors working with conference organizers and other sponsoring organizations is based on the principle that the author should focus on creating the PosterCast—with video creation and content synchronization at its core—and leave the rest to the organizer staff. Thus, the author is instructed to create the PosterCast, enter a code number when finished, and explore other areas of SciVee or leave. That’s all she needs to do. This code, provided by the organizer to the author, is a unique ID that tells the system that this is an institutional piece of work that belongs to a specific Channel, and the editing/publishing rights are transferred over to the Channel administrators (organizer staff) once the PosterCast has been created. Of course, the exact division of labor for each conference will be determined by the organizer in conjunction with the author.

Author Editing Rights

The institutional author has more limited editing privileges. After the PubCast has been created and the publisher code has been entered:

SciVee will email a notification to the Channel managers once a PosterCast (node) is created. That node will have two copies: one in the author’s My Media page, the other in the assigned Channel. A Channel manager will log in to the Channel and review, edit and publish the node. Once a PosterCast has been published, it will be automatically locked down to ensure its integrity and availability. The Channel manager can turn on/off this lock. The manager can set the access control level of the node at this point, and take the embed code to distribute.

Note: This workflow applies only when the author enters the unique publisher code when working with a journal. When uploading a video or PubCast on her own, the author makes all the publishing decisions as usual.

My Media

Every registered user has a My Account page (atop the homepage) in which to manage all her activities. Within My Account, MyMedia contains all uploaded content in SciVee: videos, podcasts and all SciveeCasts, in all phases of completion. This is where the author comes to review, edit and change the status of each upload. The thumbnails for published works are clear, while those for all unpolished works in all phases of completion are grayed out. Authors can edit each PosterCast or video by either clicking on the title or the "Edit/Publish" button below it:

By clicking on the "Edit" tab at the top of each video or SciveeCast, she can edit the following:

Note: Wherever you are on the SciVee site, you can always go back to My Account by clicking it atop the page.

Channels

A Channel will be set up for each journal, event or conference for institutional customers to be their main work space where:

• All content associated with the Channel is found. The public will only see fully published nodes, whereas Channel admins can see unpublished nodes and work in progress as well.
• Multiple admins can be assigned
• Admins review transaction and activity reports
• Admins review, edit and publish the nodes created by the author
• There are 4 levels of access control for the Channel:
  • Public - totally open
  • Private - closed to members only
  • Moderated - request to join made to admin
  • Invite only - specific individuals invited

Publish and Distribute

When a PosterCast is made, two things happen:

1. A Node is created, and is stored in SciVee servers to be played in SciVee and viewable by all of its visitors around the world (unless the conference organizer doesn’t want that, at which time they can make that node private.)
2. An embed code is generated. This code is a video player that can be embedded in any website that accepts HTML code (which is the majority) across the Internet to be watched by visitors to those sites, starting with the conference organizer’s. The code plays the complete PosterCast.

The code is found in the Share tab on the SciVee video player and can be copied and pasted on other sites:

Note: The embed code cannot be embedded in other video sites because each site has its own proprietary video encoding and metadata schema. SciVee is unique because its synchronized videos are beyond what any consumer Internet video site can support, and many of its videos are longer than 10 minutes, which is the limit for most other sites. Of course the video portion of the PubCast can be uploaded to other video sites if it fits under that site’s time limit.

Traffic can also be increased by providing links to social networks and other sites that do not support direct embeds of HTML code from external sites.

Viral Web Distribution - Driving Traffic

The primary purpose of a PosterCast is to enhance the knowledge discovery experience, generate interest in the author’s work, and increase traffic to the sites of the journal, publisher, society, university or research institution associated with the work. To accomplish those goals, the author or organizer should take the SciVee embed code and insert it in their own sites, affiliate sites, social networks, and any other site of their choice.

Communities

Communities are the main forum for collaboration on the SciVee site, and are formed around topics or events. Thus one PubCast can be relevant to several communities and placed there to promote viewing. The community admins can edit a variety of items, including: