Video Functionality

In 2013, Alexander Street Press launched a fully redesigned, rigorously tested new interface with dozens of features to offer new ways for faculty, students, and researchers to share video content.

Multiple Entry Points for Discovering New Content

• Discipline pages. Pages for major topics within music highlight key access points, new resources, what’s most popular, and discipline-specific tools. Each page and all associated content are curated by subject matter specialists.
• Editor’s selections and clips. Over 100,000 playlists and hundreds of clips created by practicing faculty and subject matter experts provide superior annotations and explanations.

Enhanced Search

• Semantic facet browsing. Result sets automatically display facets appropriate to search. Type in “behavior modification” and you’re presented with counseling and therapy-oriented facets—such as related therapeutic approaches, important authors and contributors, places, and organizations discussed.
• Fielded searching. More than 100 distinct fields let you pinpoint what you’re searching for.
• Browse tools. Browse over 60 controlled vocabularies, each tailored specifically to an academic discipline.
• New “content type” field. Quickly identify demonstrations, simulations, performances, newsreels, and other content types.
• Cross-search all of Alexander Street. As more collections are added to the new interface, you’ll be able to cross-search all of your content—audio, video, text, scores, plus select additional Web content—in one central location.
• Spelling auto-correction. Auto-correct typographical errors —“Do you mean Tchaikovsky?”

Tools for Learning and Sharing

• Clip maker. Make a video clip with a single click, automatically populating title and abstract information.
• Shareable Playlists. Add all of your favorite films and clips into an online playlist, then easily share the link, or slide it seamlessly into any syllabus or LMS.
• Easy Citation Export. Export, download, and email full, accurate citations in APA, Chicago, and MLA formats.

A 360-Degree Educational Experience

• Improved video quality. Variable bit rate streaming automatically selects the best quality based on a user’s available bandwidth, all the way up to HD quality. No more buffering.
• Synchronous, scrolling transcripts. Scan or keyword search the full text of each film. Click any spot in the transcript to jump straight to that segment of the video.
• Multi-language user interface. Transcripts, bibliographic details, annotations, and other content can be translated into 65 additional languages using fully integrated Google Translate.
• Mobile app. Easily search for, listen to, and share video on the go. Coming soon!
• Dedicated learning object apps. Develop your own online quizzes, digital study guides, timelines, and more. Coming soon!

Good News for Librarians

• Admin portal.  Alexander Street shares your passion for deep insights into the data behind video usage with our new admin portal:
  • Single sign-on access to custom MARC Records, COUNTER4 Statistics, engagement data, and more. Use COUNTER4 and SUSHI-compliant metrics to evaluate each collection’s effectiveness. This includes title and subject statics (with 24-hour currency), and the option to block titles.
  • New visually enhanced dashboard making understanding your usage and engagement statistics easy.
  • New impact metrics to identify why users watch the content and what value they place on it.
  • The ability to suppress and restore access to individual titles with the click of a mouse.
  • Access to marketing materials to help increase usage.
  • And much more…

  • If you’re an Alexander Street customer, you can sign in and start using the admin portal now at http://adminportal.alexanderstreet.com

    If you’re not a customer, and would like your own personal tour, email kmclellan@alexanderstreet.com, and she’ll set up a time to walk you through.

• Discovery service integration. Our records are integrated with EDS, Summon, WorldCat, and Primo.
• MARC records. Our free MARC records contain at least 10 fields of index information and up to 50 fields where relevant.
• Video tutorials. Multiple short videos explain how to use key features—like clip making, apps and advanced tools, and tools for librarians.