Database

Analysis: World History in Video Eva Price Info Organization and Retrieval LS 5013-22

World History in Video:

Database Analysis Summary The World History in Video database is a resource of historical documentaries. Currently, it holds 597 titles, which is approximately 367 hours of video. Though the website says that it is growing regularly, the last update was in July 2011. The site is owned and managed by Alexander Street. It is primarily a multimedia site (featuring historical documentary films), but it also features full-text transcripts and other resources, including biographical data on the filmmakers and discussion guides on the topics. Researchers, students, teachers and history enthusiasts can browse by era (from early civilization through the 21st century), events, people, places or subjects. The collection is a useful tool for classroom and research use and is a valuable database to have access to through the TWU library.

Name URL Vendor Size Types of DB (e.g., Full-text, Multimedia, Bibliographic, etc.) Coverage dates (if available) Intended audience Special contents/features (e.g., Multimedia, Web 2.0, etc.) (if available) World History in Video: English-Language Documentaries http://whiv.alexanderstreet.com/ Alexander Street 597 titles, 367 hours (growing regularly) Multimedia documentary (with) synchronized full-text transcripts Full-text resources (filmmaker biographies, discussion guides) earliest civilizations modern history

students, faculty, history lovers, researchers Semantic searching (tracing similarities and effects) and other unique search capabilities Era-based browsing Synchronized transcripts next to the video Playlist creation Full-text resources Remote-access viewing (with permissions included) Cross-searching with other online collections Video-clip making tools High-quality images Streaming at 400 and 800 kbps RSS feed Boolean searching This database is primarily for classroom and research use. As it is history-based, the educators that will most often use this resource are of that content area, however with

Why/when do you use this DB?

interdisciplinary lessons and team-teaching becoming more popular, any content area can be connected. The database is also useful in preventing copyright infringement. Rather than viewing direct links, the playlist can be linked and the appropriate credit can be given to the original sources. Watching timely documentaries is useful for visual learners in the classroom. It provides differentiation for students and is a valuable resource for engaging students and giving them relevant primary sources to use in their research and their studies. What are the The World History in Video database has a number of tools advantages of using that make it unique in design and superior to web search this DB instead of engines in its purpose. Google or another general Web search This database is useful as it has a variety of searches that make engine? finding appropriate curriculum videos easier and more efficient. Semantic searches make it possible to find subject relative connections by browsing historical eras or global locations in order to help make the videos relevant and also help find resources that supplement the curriculum. In addition, there is full-text syncing, that allow for key-word searches and translations for projects. This can be especially helpful in summarizing notes and learning objectives in the classroom. The design of this website was created for educational use. Therefore the advantages of using it with that purpose in mind are ten-fold. World History in Video allows educators and students to access documentaries that legally and effectively enhance a history curriculum and supplement lesson plans with timely resources that are accessible and important.

By conducting a series of experiments, it has been determined that the World History in Video uses controlled language as its representation language. The features of controlled language are that it offers unambiguous language, no synonyms or false hits and that that advantages of natural language [are] covered by keyword searching. To test this, I used the topic of World War II. I tested spelling and capitalization. The following results were found:

Controlled Language Test

Spelling
Test Adof hytler Adolf Hitler adolf hitler Adof Hitler Hitler Title and Series 0 0 0 0 9 Topic 0 1 1 0 3 Transcripts and Notes 0 57 57 0 132

Boolean Operators
Test Videos World War II Videos WWII WWII World War II World War II World War Two Title and Series 0 0 2 3 3 0 Topic 0 0 61 61 0 Transcripts and Notes 0 0 212 212 408

Synonym Test
Test Slaves freed Slaves freedom Slaves emancipated Slaves emancipation Title and Series 0 0 0 0 Topic 1 0 0 1 Transcripts and Notes 9 26 1 6

These results prove that that World History in Video is a controlled language database. Keywords are used to search the title of the series, the topic that it covers and also the transcript and notes of the videos. Spelling and word choice will effect the results of the search, therefore making it a controlled vocabulary database. In order to search this database it is important to consider all of the search results fields. The World History in Video search screen looks like the screenshot on the right.

Specificity Test

When considering the specificity, its important to note that many more results come up in the transcripts and notes section, because that covers all of the text in the video. For example, when searching World War II dictators, there were no results in the title or topic, but five results for Transcripts and Notes. Lets say someone was looking for a video on dictators in World War II. I know from previous searches that the video Hitler and Stalin: Twin Tyrants exists in the database. It would not be found by typing in World War II dictators, but it would be found by searching Hitler and Stalin. What I did was found the video I wanted under Dictators, and then used that specific video to find others like it.

Test World war ii AND hitler World war ii OR Hitler World War II OR hitler or stalin World War II dictators Dictators Hitler and Stalin Stalin or Hitler Exhaustivity Test Using the data in the chart above, it would be difficult to retrieve useful information, as the search terms would have to be very specific. Though the database does order results that are ranked be relevance, and the search fields are organized to promote high retrieval, it is challenging to find a video that meets the specific search needs every time. The database has a lot of videos, but one has to be very specific when retrieving them in order to get the desired results. Searching Features In World History in Video, the default index is All Fields, which divides into Title and Series, Themes, Topic, Transcript and Notes and All Subjects. Following that you can search further in All Fields and then in Clips or Playlists. The search types can be either All Videos or Clips and Playlists. Search protocols include Boolean operators, as examined in Database Analysis Part 2 (and explained in the website documentation and Search Help), however more complex searching protocols did not work. However, the AND is not required. If you put tow words into the Title and Series 1 11 13 0 0 1 11 Topic 2 63 68 0 0 1 8 Transcripts and Notes 84 260 278 5 13 29 162

search it assumes that the AND is used. (Holocaust AND Jews yields the same results as Holocaust Jews. The OR, however, does work. Truncation only worked with right side truncation. WW alone gleaned only one result in Transcript and Notes and none elsewhere, where WW* gleaned 2 results in Title and Series and 116 results in Transcript and Notes. Both *WII and *II had not results. Neither the + or the ? worked. Search help offers an advanced search with specific fields. The fields are in two categories. First, the All Videos field which only includes the videos. Search fields include: Transcripts and Notes, Title and Series, Collection, All Subjects, Person Discussed, Speaker, Historical Event, Historical Era, Year Discussed, Place Discussed, Themes, Topics, Publisher, Publication Date, Publication Place, Narrator, and Production Staff. The other option is to search by Clips and Playlists. Where you can either select your field by All Fields, Annotation, Title, Author or Video Title. Or you can specify search terms. The search help also offers seven basic tips. Those are to keep searches simple, check spelling, and word order and punctuation are not important, enter more than one term in a search box, use the advanced search boxes when you can, enter search forms in singular and use Boolean operators (specifically OR) to clarify your search. You can also browse by categories such as subject, era, historical event, people, places, all videos and clips. There is a contact email for help with searching as well. Data output initially is divided into categories: Title and Series, Transcript and Notes, etc When one is chosen, the output is a thumbnail of the video, the title, length, publication information and then the Transcript hits, which shows where you search shows up in the transcript. It is organized by relevancy. Building Block Sample S1 Results WWII or Holocaust or Title and Series= 5 World War II= s1 Themes = 0 Topic = 78 Transcript and Notes = 234 All Subjects = 78 S2 Results (WWII or Holocaust or World War II) AND (jews or judaism or jewish) Title and Series = 2 Themes = 0 Topic = 34 Transcript and Notes = 86 All Subjects = 34

S3 (WWII or Holocaust or World War II) AND (jews or judaism or jewish) AND (Concentration Camps or Death Camps or Work Camps) Additional Search Holocaust Jews Camps

Results

Title and Series = 1 Themes = 0 Topic = 24 Transcript and Notes = 106 All Subjects - 24 Results Title and Series = 0 Themes = 0 Topic = 0 Transcript and Notes = 18 All Subjects = 18

Based on this building block approach, it seems that the results did, indeed, narrow. Looking at the results in S3, they are much more accurate in regards to my query. Comparing those results to a more basic search (Additional Search) the results from the Building Block approach have yielded more results, and more accurate results as well. Using the Building Block approach with Boolean operators and limiters, consequently, allows users to accurately identify which resources contain the information they are looking for. Without using Boolean operators and limiters, significant information can be lost. The World History in Video is not an extremely complex database in regards to its search capabilities, however with careful use of Boolean operators and limiters, an accurate search query can be formed. The fields that are used help categorize data output making it useful and user-friendly. Overall, the World History in Video database take a bit of experimentation to use, but its resources can certainly be found with ease and are useful resources once they are retrieved. Coverage World History in Video claims that upon completion there will be 1,000 hours of streaming video and more than 1,750 documentaries from filmmakers worldwide. However, at the moment, that number is still growing. The current release includes 597 titles that totals approximately 367 hours. The browsing feature allows users to see what videos are included in different categories. Those browsing categories are: All Subjects, Historical Eras, Years, Historical Events, People, Places, Themes, and Topics. The coverage in those categories are listed below. There are approximately 510 subjects listed, though most include only 1-10 videos in

each subject. The specifics of those categorys more notable divisions are expanded upon below The website is broken down into seven historical eras. They are listed below. In addition, it is possible to search by specific year or decade in another browsing sections. HISTORICAL ERAS ERA NUMBER OF VIDEOS Prehistory to Early Civilization (up to 1000 BCE) 12 Classical Period (1000 BCE 500 CE) 31 st Century in World History (1989-) 21 118 Post-Classical Period (500-1450) 27 World Shrinks (1450-1750) 45 Industrialization and Western Global Hegmony (1750-1914) 61 20th Century in World History (1914-1989) 452 The categories also break down into 72 historical events. Most of the historical events have only a few videos in each category; however, the ones with over 20 are outlined below: HISTORICAL EVENT ERA NUMBER OF VIDEOS UK of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Terrorism in the 20th-21st Centuries Cold War Modern Middle East History Ancient World, up to 500 CE 24 21 34 35 33

Though there was a space to browse by People, nothing came up under that category. There were ten Places to browse by, including oceans and most continents (not Antarctica). PLACE PLACE Africa Asia Atlantic Ocean Europe Indian Ocean Mediterranean Sea North America Oceania NUMBER OF VIDEOS 80 193 11 275 2 1 129 13

Pacific Ocean South America

6 23

There are 27 Themes in the database, though many themes did not include many videos. Those with over 50 videos are listed below: THEMES THEME NUMBER OF VIDEOS Arts and Architecture Belief Systems, Philsophies, and Ideologies Empires Nations and Nationalism Political Structures and Forms of Government Revolts and Revolutions Science and Technologies State-Building, Expansion, and Conflict Technology and the Environment 80 88 51 54 119 155 143 59 60

There are approximately 82 Topics included in the database. Though, again, may contain only a few videos. Those of significance (more than 50 videos) are noted below: TOPIC TOPIC NUMBER OF VIDEOS Anthropology Architecture Death Industry Law Occupations Politics Science and Technology Sociology Transportation Currency (or timeliness) 64 59 73 53 182 177 269 150 118 179

While the homepage claims that the numbers of documentaries are growing rapidly, no videos have been updates since July 22, 2011, at which time only four videos were added. Upon further investigation, those for videos were four different episodes of the same series.

Retrievability / Predictability The Advanced Search option includes a choice to select terms which gives a list of all of the terms in that category that are included. This aids in retrievability, because the search terms are unambiguous. There is also an auto-fill option. For example, if looking up videos with Stalin in the Title and Series field, if s-t-a-l is imputed, the available videos will be shown as seen in this screen shot. Where-as if there are no matches in title and field, like the example of g-o-r-b (leading to Gorbatrov), then no matches will come up. (See below). This aids in retrievability.

The most accurate way to find desired results is to first use the general Search field, since this then breaks down the results be Title and Series, Themes, Topic, Transcript and Notes, and All Subjects. Since the range of topics and the coverage are unpredictable, it is useful to use that general search first in order to understand if the database has a video that might be useful. Though, as stated above, there is a wealth of information in this database, the coverage is not consistent and is difficult to predict. For example, there is a lot of information about the 20th-21st century, however, as noted above, there is are no videos about Gorbatrov , and the only results that contain Clinton are 18 Transcript and Notes and 5 All Subjects.

As stated above, by using the general search field first, one can see if a video is included in the collection and then adjust accordingly. For example, while searching for videos about Bill Clinton with the basic search field Clinton, 18 of the results were in Transcripts and Notes, when expanding upon that category, I found that many videos just mentioned his name, and consequently, Bill Clinton was not the focus of the video. The example below is a video about the Oklahoma Bomber. Bill Clinton is mentioned, but it is not an accurate and predictable source for general information about Bill Clinton specifically. This feature aided in retrievability, however the predictability of these results was not high. Usability The World History in Video database has a lot of valuable resources, but finding them is not always easy. The basic search bar is a very useful place to start in information retrieval because it searches all of the categories, subjects, transcripts and notes first. From there, it is much easier to determine what the next steps might be. In order to effectively search, its important to consider every search term and combination there-of that might provide a result. For example, if searching for World War II, one might consider making a list of the following: WWII, Hitler, Concentration Camps, Germany, Jews, World War Two, etc Once a few results are found, its easier to continue browsing using those as a starting point. It is also possible using Boolean searching, but, since there arent necessarily many videos in each (and certainly not every) category, this might be frustrating as a first search attempt. The advanced search screen, though it contains a lot of information, is not necessarily very helpful. For example, even if one searching for a specific Subject, they must type in an exact match in your search term in order to receive any results. The search screens aid in redefining the search, but they do not make finding an effective search term easy. The help screen also aids in redefining search terms and giving advice as-to where to search, but again, its important to establish that videos exist in a given category first, since there are so many subjects that are surprisingly not covered. Ultimately, this is a very easy website to browse, but it is not necessarily easy to search effectively given that the coverage and retrievability can be so limited with certain searches. Conclusion

The World History in Video database is certainly a useful database to supplement historical research and find primary sources in video format. The Alexander Street Company boasts that the collection is growing rapidly from the 597 titles currently in the collection, however since July, the collection has been stagnant, and its currency certainly is lacking. For classroom teachers, the resource is quite beneficial, and it is possible to search through videos in a variety of ways. It is a controlled language database, and it is not complex in regards to searching capabilities, but it is fairly easy to navigate and browse. Using Boolean operators and limiters, an effective search query can be formed, and the results are clearly organized. However, the results are often unpredictable. Videos can be found by browsing through categories or by searching, and it seems that the coverage and indexing are quite good, however the videos are not evenly spread between fields, which makes searching quite frustrating if one is looking for very specific information on a particular topic or time period. Since the searching includes multiple fields for each video (Title and Series, Topic, and Transcripts and Notes) constructing a building block approach or using trial and error makes the website fairly easy to use and manageable. If no videos are retrieved in a transcripts and notes, for example, it is quite clear that the World History in Video will not contain a resource that would be useful. This, unfortunately, is often the case. With a bit of experimentation, useful resources can certainly be found if they are in one of the core content areas that the database covers. However, Alexander Street Company tends to boast unjustly, as it shows no sign of currency or growth. World History in Video has a lot to offer, but is certainly a bit random and unpredictable in its content and should not be relied upon as a primary source of information. Still, the database is fairly easy to use and is a worthwhile resource to experiment with if searching for historical videos.

References Alexander Street Press (n.d.). About world history in video. World History in Video. Last modified 2012. Accessed February 9, 2012. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2153/help/view/about world_history_in_video. Alexander Street Press (n.d.). World history in video: English-language documentaries. World History in Video. Last modified 2012. Accessed February 9, 2012. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2153/help/view/about_world_history_in_video. Alexander Street Press (n.d.) World History in Video: Help. World History in Video. Last modified 2012. Accessed March 11, 2012. http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2268/help Lee, H. J. (n.d.). Controlled vocabulary ppt. Lee, H. J. (n.d.). Indexing ppt. Univerisy of Illinois Biology Library (n.d.). Tips for searching article databases. Retrieved from http://www.library.illinois.edu/bix/pdf/genguide/searchtips.pdf