Technical, Practical, Financial…
Video hosting & Youtube
One peculiarity of SciCast that’s raised eyebrows since we started is why we host these films ourselves. Surely everyone just puts their video on YouTube? Well, no.
The truth is, we continue to evaluate YouTube (and other video hosts, including Vimeo and Blip ), but we still see significant advantages to doing this ourselves. Here’s some of our thinking:
Visibility. Many schools or local authorities block YouTube and other popular ‘social’ websites. We want SciCast to be available as widely as possible, and particularly in schools.
Community. If you’ve spent any time at YouTube, you’ll know that the comments on films aren’t always as constructive or even literate as one might hope. Since many visitors to SciCast will be children and young people, we wanted to offer a safer and more supportive environment. Hosting everything ourselves gives us more control.
Commercialisation and licensing. We don’t make SciCast films — you do. People all over the UK are contributing their hard work, for free, and we think it’s right to repay their efforts by keeping SciCast free of advertising. SciCast films are offered under Creative Commons licenses, which aren’t currently supported by YouTube in the way we’d need.
There are other reasons, both prosaic and technical, why we’re mostly happy with the way we’re doing things at present. But we’re not done yet, and YouTube have changed many of their policies and technical aspects in the time we’ve been running. So watch this space.
Meanwhile, since your films remain yours, you’re very welcome to upload them yourself to YouTube or any other video sharing site, as well as submitting them to SciCast. Just make sure you read each site’s terms and conditions first.
Sponsorship
It’s possible that if the right sponsor came along we’d rethink our position on commercialisation. We doubt we’d accept advertising, as such, but SciCast costs a chunk of change to run and a mutually-beneficial sponsorship arrangement is something we’d be keen to discuss. If you happen to represent an organisation looking for a dynamic sponsorship opportunity, of course we’d be delighted to hear from you: theteam@planet-scicast.org.uk.
If you’d like to know more about our current funding, see the page about our supporters.
Funding others
Regrettably, we’re not in a position to help other organisations or individuals make films — at least, not financially.
In the past we have held workshops in schools, and Jonathan occasionally still does so on a freelance basis: contact him directly for more details, or to be put in touch with other providers in your area. In the last year, however, SciCast has concentrated on running occasional training events for teachers and science communicators. Keep an eye on the SciCast blog and the Planet Science Newsletter for announcements.
If you’re a school or youth group with an ambitious film in mind, you might like to explore the Film Council’s First Light Films project, which offers grants to support such efforts. They’re doing some hugely exciting work, and are very lovely people.
Downloads
We don’t currently offer a way to download SciCast films. This is something that’s been on our ‘fix’ list for at least two years. It will happen. Promise.
Recently, we’ve noticed that some users are downloading films using plugins for the Firefox browser, notably this one. We haven’t checked, so use it at your own risk, but it might help you if you want to show a film in a class.
In the meantime, in special cases, we can provide links to high-quality downloads. Contact us with details of your needs, and we’ll do our best to help.