The 2022 JoVE Science Education and Research Innovation Awards have paved the way to highlight innovative uses of video resources to advance research and teaching in science disciplines. We hope these blog posts will help you find inspiration on utilizing visual resources in the best ways.
Below you can read the winning entry by the 2022 JoVE Librarian Innovation Award winner, Dragana Koljenik, Editor-in-chief of web and social media and Head of the Digital Laboratory NSK at the National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatia.
Dragana talks about the launch of the digital NSK Podcasts project to support stakeholders from the fields of science, education and culture to produce high-quality video content in a podcast form aimed primarily at younger audiences.
What inspired us was the lack of such content and the growing popularity of podcasts in Croatia. First, we started with a public call issued to organizations and individuals from targeted sectors to apply for a chance to participate in the project and produce their podcasts. Among 20 applications, we chose the 6 best candidates; they started their podcast journey with us. We handed them the ‘how-to's’ for creating, producing, and distributing podcasts with online education, workshops, and mentorship.
At the end of this process, they finalized their initial drafts into successful final concepts for their podcasts. We provided the filming studio with all the technical infrastructure and production software and were responsible for all the filming, managing the content, and marketing on different platforms. The project's core principles are availability, decentralization, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, and networking.
The podcasts remain permanently available through streaming services so that the audience can access them regardless of time and place. The audience does not need special equipment or knowledge to consume content, which significantly facilitates access to and consumption of such content. On the one hand, the principle of a central location (NSK Digital Laboratory) with technical and software infrastructure enables high-quality equipment and low costs for content creators. What is also important to note is that each of the 6 podcasters can reach a greater audience just by sharing this platform, meaning that people who listen to one podcast are exposed to all 6 podcasts and are more likely to consume others.
One of the most significant outcomes of the project was networking and building long-lasting partnerships between the NSK, the stakeholders, and the podcasters. A few examples of the podcasts created under this project were
- The Zagreb Library Association- #ZKDHangingOut Podcast
An exciting podcast about projects, current topics, and the life of librarians in Croatia brought by the Zagreb Library Association and the young podcast host Mihael Bily. - The University of Zagreb -Young scientists among us.
The University of Zagreb's podcast introduces the audience to young Croatian scientists and their innovative projects.
Distribution and results
The audience in Croatia still prefers video format, so we decided to film and distribute the podcast episodes in both video and audio formats. For video format, we created a DigiLab NSK Podcasts channel on YouTube. Since we started distributing the episodes on the platforms mentioned above in October of 2021, we have had 25,251 views on YouTube and more than 1000 downloads of audio formats. Until June 2022, we filmed, produced, and distributed 43 episodes. The most represented age group of viewers is from 25 to 34 years, followed by the age group from 18 to 24. We hope to grow our platform with other podcasters in the future and inspire a new generation of people to experiment with different formats and platforms to reach better and widen their audiences.
Want to hear more from Dragana Koljenik? Request a full recording of the Librarian Innovation Award Winners' Stories webinar. To learn how libraries can use video resources to support science research & education.
