There is not a single week where we do not have a research issue requiring communication among researchers that is detailed enough for more than an email or simple phone call, but less complicated than a face to face meeting or web conference (screen sharing + voice).
These intermediate situations are probably where screencasting can play a role. The steps are simple: click a button, record what you want the other person to see with voice instructions if necessary, and then send the person the video. Below is an example I just sent today where I was trying to explain how to run a statistical script in R to a collaborator:
The screencast above was recorded in Istanbul, a pretty and simple efficient tool which saves videos in ogg format. Istambul's only drawback is that it is only for computers running a Linux operating system. In Windows, Camtasia is a popular and very efficient option, although somewhat expensive. I have not tried Windows Media Encoder, but it is freely available.
Any other tips on screen casting?
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3 comments:
So far my user experience with WME has not been great. It seems like it's a powerful tool, IF you can figure out how to configure everything. I tried uploading a 46 second video to blogger using the video upload function available within blogger, but it has taken 20 minutes so far to upload it and it's still processing. I could be doing something wrong, but so far I am not a fan of this program. I'm looking into some other options like CamStudio, it's a free tool.
If anyone has any luck using WME please let me know... I have been watching screencasts and reading user manuals for this tool, but it's extremely technical.
I found 2 very basic screen casting tools: CamStudio and FrontCam. Both are freely available and easy to use. They do not have any editing capability, but because of the simplicity of the interface, I think either one is easy enough for anyone to use and upload videos to the web.
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