Educational video services in universities: a systematic effectiveness analysis

Our university has offered a massive educational video service since 2010, as part of a blended learning model that allows students to balance active participation in the classroom with remote access to video-recorded lectures. In these years, we have collected a huge amount of very detailed data about the students’ access to the service. Together with additional information that characterize a university system (e.g. students’ performance or course population), these data represent a precious ground set to assess the educational model. The paper describes an experimental set to profile the use of the educational video service, whose results will contribute to improve the model. Specifically the paper analyzes the students’ service use relatively to different transversal course characteristics, such as level, main topic, population, success rate. As a result, it outlines the profile of the “ideal” courses for which students highly appreciate the service. This information will help educational designers to select the future courses to be included in the service, but it will also give directions on the sectors where improvements are necessary. Finally, the paper experimentally demonstrates a positive impact of the educational video service on students’ performance, and specifically on the exam success rate.