Scientific Video Journals: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

This study attempts to explore scientific Video Journals which emerged as a new generation of magazines; through provide answers to questions about the concept, development, benefits, size, scopes, standards and future of scientific Video Journals. A survey was used to explore these Journals through the internet in which five scientific video Journals were identified and studied in depth. Findings revealed that scientific video Journals are electronic scientific journals that publish the electronic text of articles and studies with a recorded video Attached to each of them; and oftentimes, these attached videos comprehensively explain the content of the published work. Moreover, these videos may be a recording of laboratory experiments or a surgical procedure or a statement of the method of using a particular device, video Journals are characterized by their ability to transfer information that cannot a accurately be transmitted by texts. Journal of Visualized Experiments (JOVE) is the first scientific video Journals to appear in 2006. However, the high cost of publishing in some video journals is a challenge facing the authors. Moreover, most of the scientific video Journals are in the field of applied sciences, especially the field of medical sciences; in addition there are quantitative and qualitative standards – Non uniform- for scientific video journals, such as specifies the number of video files, their size, recording time, video file format, video quality and video language. And there are good indicators of the future growth of scientific video Journals. Eventually, the study calls for the need to Informing beneficiaries and researchers about this new generation of scientific journals. Also, Libraries should facilitate access to these journals.