In Spring 2011 I volunteered to work with two librarians from the Florida Institute of Technology (opens in a new tab) (FIT) John H. Evans Library (opens in a new tab) to create a video explaining academic peer-review. The video, titled Misha explains the peer-review process, was used internally at FIT and posted to the Evans Library YouTube channel.
In consultation, we decided that a video explaining academic peer-review was the most-needed content for undergraduate students. To reflect FIT’s diverse student body, we created a Black woman student and a White male student as characters. The female student, Misha, is more research-savvy and helps her fellow student, Zack, understand peer-review and its importance. We preferred putting students into dialogue with each other over a more traditional ‘lecturing librarian’ presentation.
I wrote and revised the script and ran video tests using Xtranormal (opens in a new tab). The FIT librarians finalized the video.