Tackett, S., Slinn, K., Marshall, T., Gaglani, S., Waldman, V., Desai, R. (2018). Medical Education Videos for the World: An Analysis of Viewing Patterns for a YouTube Channel. Academic Medicine, 93, 1150-1156. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000002118
Abstract
One year of YouTube analytics data (February 1, 2016, to January 31, 2017) was collected for a medical education focused channel called Osmosis. Created December 20, 2015, the channel had 189 disease-focused videos by January 2017. Viewer and subscriber data were analyzed according to the World Bank’s four income and seven region classifications. Topic viewing was analyzed according to income level. While the number of videos increased 4.8-fold from February 2016 to January 2017, monthly views increased 50-fold and subscribers increased 117-fold. Lower middle-income countries generated 2.2 million (42%) views and 52,942 (50%) subscribers, with similar view proportions across income level during the 12 months. A plurality of views (1.5 million; 29%) came from North America; Sub-Saharan Africa had the lowest number (150,065; 2.9%). Topic viewing generally corresponded to population health statistics.
Annotation
Given the potential of YouTube to reach a global audience, its popularity among the youth, and the ease with which educational videos could be incorporated into medical curricula, the authors were interested in examining how videos hosted on the platform could be used in medical education. They set out to establish the reach of YouTube videos and viewing patterns over a year period. Right from the start of the study they were able to establish that viewers from all regions of the world as well as income levels were accessing the site to view the videos. This supports the idea that YouTube videos could be used for Open Educational Resources.
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