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IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES, MANUSCRIPT ID 1
Video Collaboratories for Research andEducation: An Analysis of CollaborationDesign Patterns
Roy Pea and Robb Lindgren
 
Abstract
 
Web-based video collaboration environments have transformative potentials for video-enhanced education and for video-based research studies. We first describe DIVER, a platform designed to solve a set of core challenges we have identifiedin supporting video collaboratories. We then characterize five Collaboration Design Patterns (CDPs) that emerged fromnumerous collaborative groups who appropriated DIVER for their video-based practices. Collaboration Design Patterns (CDPs)are ways of characterizing interaction patterns in the uses of collaboration technology. Finally we propose a three-dimensionaldesign matrix for incorporating these observed patterns. This representation can serve heuristically in making designsuggestions for expanding video collaboratory functionalities, and for supporting a broader constellation of user groups thanthose spanned by our observed CDPs.
Index Terms
 
Video, collaboration, CSCL, collaboratory, design patterns, Web 2.0, metadata, video analysis.
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1 I
NTRODUCTION
E argue in this paper that the proliferation of digi-tal video recording, computing, and Internetcommunications in the contexts of social sciencesresearch and learning technologies has opened up dra-matic new possibilities for creating “video collaborato-ries.” Before describing our vision for video collaborato-ries, and our experiences in designing and implementingthe DIVER platform for enabling video collaboration, webriefly sketch the historical developments in video useleading to the opportunities at hand.Throughout the 20
th
century, film and later videotechnology has been an influential medium for capturingrich multimedia records of the physical and social worldsfor educational purposes [1] and for research uses in thesocial sciences [2]. While K-20 education is still largelydominated by textual representations of information anduses of static graphics and diagrams, during the 21
st
cen-tury the education and research communities are moreregularly exploiting video technologies, and in increa-singly innovative ways. For example, with the develop-ment of more learner-centered pedagogy, uses of videoare expanding from teachers simply showing videos tostudents to approaches where learners interact with,create, or comment on video resources as part of theirknowledge-building activities [3], [4], [5], [6]. In research,with the proliferation of inexpensive digital consumervideocameras, and software for video editing and analy-sis, individual researchers and research teams are captur-ing more data for studying the contextual details of learn-ing and teaching processes, and the learning sciencescommunity has begun experimenting with collaborativeresearch infrastructures surrounding video datasets [7],[8], [9], [10].We view the Web 2.0 participatory media culture illu-strated by media-sharing community sites [11] as exem-plifying how new forms of collaboration and communica-tion have important transformative potentials for moredeeply engaging the learner in authentic forms of learn-ing and assessment that get closer to the experiences ofworldly participation rather than more traditional de-contextualized classroom practices. Video representationsprovide a medium of great importance in these transfor-mations, in capturing the everyday interactions betweenpeople in their physical environments, during their en-gagements in cultural practices, and using the technolo-gies that normally accompany them in their movementacross different contexts. For these reasons, video is im-portant both as a medium for studies of learning and hu-man interaction, and for educational interventions. Inresearch the benefits of video have been well evidenced.Learning scientists have paid increasing attention overthe past two decades to examining human activities innaturalistic socio-cultural contexts, with an expansion offocus from viewing learning principally as an internalcognitive process towards a view of learning that is alsoconstituted as a complex social phenomenon involvingmultiple agents, symbolic representations, and environ-mental features and tools to make sense of the world andone another [12], [13].This expansion in the central focus for studies of learn-ing, thinking, and human practices was deeply influencedby contributions involving close analyses of video andaudio recordings from conversation analysis, sociolin-guistic studies of classroom discourse, anthropologicaland ethnographic inquiries of learning in formal and in-formal settings, and studies of socially-significant non-
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The authors are with the H-STAR Institute and the School of Educationat Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. E-mail: {roypea, rob-blind}@stanford.edu.
anuscript received 9 Dec. 2008.
 
2 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES, MANUSCRIPT ID
verbal behaviors such as ‘body language’ or kinesics, ges-ture, and gaze patterns. This orientation to understandinglearning
in situ
has led researchers to search for tools al-lowing for capture of the complexity of real-life learningsituations, where multiple simultaneous 'channels' of in-teraction are potentially relevant to achieving a deeperunderstanding of learning behavior [2]. Uses of film andaudio-video recordings have been essential in allowingfor the repeated and detailed analyses that researchershave used to develop new insights about learning andcultural practices [14], [15]. In research labs throughoutdepartments of psychology, education, sociology, linguis-tics, communication, (cultural) anthropology, and hu-man-computer interaction, researchers work individuallyor in small collaborative teams—often across discip-lines—for the distinctive insights that can be brought tothe interpretation and explanation of human activitiesusing video analysis. Yet there has been relatively littlestudy of how distributed groups make digital video anal-ysis into a collaborative enterprise. Nor have there beentools available that effectively structure and harvest col-lective insights.We are inspired by the remarkable possibilities for es-tablishing “video collaboratories” for research and foreducational purposes [7], [16]. In research-oriented videocollaboratories, scientists will work together to share vid-eo datasets, metadata schemes, analysis tools, coding sys-tems, advice and other resources, and build video analys-es together, in order to advance collective understandingof the behaviors represented in digital video data. Virtualrepositories with video files and associated metadata willbe stored and accessed across many thousands of fede-rated computer servers. A large variety of types of inte-ractions are increasingly captured in video-data, withimportant contexts including K-20 learning—as in ratioand proportion in middle-school mathematics or collegereasoning about mechanics; parent-child or peer-peersituations in informal learning; surgery and hospitalemergency rooms and medical education; aircraft cock-pits or other life-critical control centers; focus-groupmeetings or corporate workgroups; deaf sign-languagecommunications; and uses of various products in theireveryday environments to help guide new design (in-cluding cars, computers, cellphones, household ap-pliances, medical devices), and so on. Corresponding op-portunities exist for developing education-centered videocollaboratories for the purposes of technology-enhancedlearning and teaching activities that build knowledgeexploiting the fertile properties we have mentioned ofaudio-video media. It is our belief that enabling scientificand educational communities to develop flexible and sus-tained interactions around video analysis and interpreta-tion will help accelerate advances across a range of dis-ciplines, as the development of their collective intelli-gence is facilitated.We recognize how this vision of widespread digitalvideo collaboratories used throughout communities forresearch and for education presents numerous challenges.The process of elucidating and addressing these chal-lenges can be aided considerably by exploring emergingefforts to support collaborative video practices. In thispaper we describe the features of a particular digital vid-eo collaboratory known as DIVER. Using the large vo-lume of data that we have collected from DIVER users weare able to describe the substantial challenges associatedwith establishing collaboration around digital video usingexamples from real-world research and educational prac-tices. This dataset also permits us to extrapolate futurecollaboration possibilities and the new challenges theycreate. We end by presenting dimensions for organizingour vision of digital video collaboraties that we hope willprovide entry points for researchers and designers to en-gage in its further realization.
2 DIVER:
 
D
IGITAL
I
NTERACTIVE
V
IDEO
E
XPLORATION AND
R
EFLECTION
 
2.1 The Need for Supporting Video Conversations
We can distinguish three genres of video in collaboration.The first is
videoconferencing
, which establishes synchron-ous virtual presence (ranging from Skype/iChat video onpersonal computers to dedicated room-based videoconfe-rencing systems such as HP's Halo) —where video is themedium, as collaboration occurs via video. The second is
video co-creation
(e.g., Kaltura, Mediasilo)—where video isthe objective, and the collaboration is about making vid-eo. The third is
video conversations
—where video is thecontent, and the collaboration is about the video. We feelthat video conversations are a vital video genre for learn-ing and education because conversational contributionsabout videos often carry content as or more importantthan the videos themselves—the range of interpretationsand connections made by different people, which pro-vides new points of view [8], [9] and generates importantconceptual diversity [17]. For decades, video has beenbroadcast-centric—consider TV, K-12 education or corpo-rate training films, and e-learning video. But with thegrowth of virtual teams, we need multi-mediated collabo-ration infrastructure for sharing meaning and iterativeknowledge building across multiple cultures and pers-pectives. We need video infrastructure that is more inte-raction-centric—for people to communicate deeply, pre-cisely, and cumulatively about the video content.In our vision of video collaboratories, effectively sup-porting video conversations requires more than the capa-bilities of videoconferencing and net meetings. One re-quirement concerns a method for pointing to and anno-tating parts of videos—analogous to footnoting for text—where the scope of what one is referring to can be madereadily apparent. We are beginning to see this capabilityemerge with interactive digital video applications online.In June 2008, YouTube enabled users to mark a spotlightregion and create a pop-up annotation with a start andend time in the video stream. Flash note overlays on topof video streams are also provided in the popular Japa-nese site Nico Nico Douga launched in December 2006,where users can post a chat message at a specific momentin the video and other chat messages other users haveentered at that time point in the video stream togetheracross the video as it plays. Similar capabilities of “deep
 
PEA AND LINDGREN: COLLABORATION DESIGN PATTERNS IN USES OF A WEB-BASED VIDEO RESEARCH AND EDUCATION PLATFORM 3
tagging” of video were illustrated in the past few years byBubblePly, Click.tv, Eyespot, Gotoit, Jumpcut, Motion-box, Mojiti (acquired by News Corporation/CBS jointventure Hulu), Veotag and Viddler.While the virtual pointing requirement is necessaryfor supporting online video conversations, it is not suffi-cient. It is important to distinguish between simple anno-tation and conversation—the former can be accomplishedwith tools for coupling text and visual referents, while thelatter requires additional mechanisms for managing con-versational turn-taking and ensuring multi-party en-gagement with the target content. While there are numer-ous software environments currently supporting videoannotation, the number of platforms that support videoconversations is much smaller
1
. We focus here on a soft-ware platform called DIVER that was developed in ourStanford lab with the objective of supporting video con-versations. In addition to providing a unique method forpointing and annotating, DIVER also possesses functio-nality for facilitating and integrating multi-user contribu-tions.
2.2 DIVER as an Example of a VideoConversations Platform
DIVER is a software environment first developed as adesktop software system for exploring research uses ofpanoramic video records that encompass 360-degree im-agery from a dynamic visual environment such as a
1
 
VideoTraces
[18] is one system that we are familiar with that strives tosupport rich asynchronous discourse with video using gestural and voiceannotations in a threaded format.
classroom or a professional meeting [19]. The Web ver-sion of the DIVER platform in development and use since2004 allows a user to control a ‘virtual camera window’overlaid on a standard video record streamed through aweb browser such that the user can ‘point’ to the parts ofthe video they wish to highlight (Fig. 1). The user canthen associate text annotations with the segments of thevideo being referenced and publish these annotationsonline so that others can experience the user’s perspectiveand respond with comments of their own. In this way,DIVER enables creating an infinite number of new digitalvideo clips and remix compilations from a single sourcevideo recording. As we have modified DIVER to allowdistributed access for viewing, annotation, commentaryand remixing, our focus has shifted to supporting colla-borative video analysis and the emerging prospects fordigital video collaboratories. DIVER and its evolving ca-pabilities have been put to work in support of collabora-tive video analysis for a diverse range of research andeducational activities, which we characterize in the nextsection.We refer to the central work product in DIVER as a‘dive’ (as in ‘dive into the video’). A dive consists of a setof XML metadata pointers to segments of digital videostored in a database and their associated text annotations.In authoring dives on streaming videos via any web-browser, a user is directing the attention of others whoview the dive to see what the author sees; it is a processwe call ‘guided noticing’ [16], [19]. To author a dive withDIVER, a user logs in and chooses any video record in thesearchable database that they have permission to access
Fig. 1. The DIVER user interface. The rectangle inside the video window represents a virtual viewfinder that is controlled by the user’smouse. Users essentially make a movie inside the source movie by recording these mouse movements.
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