Learning Resources

Educational Videos on YouTube Get Custom Search

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/02/16

A "boutique" search company has developed a free online resource that lets users search for university and college videos that have been posted to YouTube and then clip and share segments of those videos with students and colleagues.

MicroSearch's new UniversityVideos.org includes a video player that shows the video playing on the left and a transcript tracking with the video on the right. Clicking into another sentence in the transcript jumps the user to that part of the video. (A sample lecture can be found here.)

To clip and share a portion of an education video, the user clicks within the transcript at the point where the clip should begin, then drags to highlight the remainder of the clip. A window appears with a link that can be copied and shared or simply emailed. When the recipient of the link clicks on it, the link takes the user directly to that part of the video and begins playing it.

The service also includes a search tool that allows the user to search on transcript contents, title, description, duration, category, tags, YouTube channel and year uploaded. The same fields are available as metadata, when search results are displayed and downloaded as an Excel export file. An advanced search feature lets the user enter a few letters into the transcription field and then click on an Index button next to the field to obtain a window that displays all of the terms with that series of letters.

User preferences can be set up by registering with the service; however, it's not required.

"The ability of a video to transmit ideas and learning is increased tremendously when the viewer can follow along in the text as the speaker speaks," said CEO Chuck Kelly in a statement. "And when a highlight is encountered, the viewer can clip and share that section of the video, saving colleagues huge amounts of time searching through the video for the highlights."