Interviewer with interviewe

Video History Project Committee

The Video History Project creates video interviews with past ASU employees who have interesting stories about working at ASU.

General information

The VHP committee is composed of four sub-committees:

  • Selectors / schedulers - members have the task of selecting interviewees and getting the interview scheduled
  • Interview crew - members do the actual recording of the interview
  • Interview editors - members edit the raw interview and generate interview metadata
  • Data managers - members publish the finished interviews to the ASU repository (KEEP) and maintain the database of interviews and metadata dictionaries

The chair is responsible for the following three tasks:

  1. Facilitate the scheduling, interviewing, and dissemination of interviews with retired and former ASU employees. The process followed for accomplishing these tasks can be seen in the right column.
  2. Review and update Video History information on the ASURA Web. Note: All change requests should be sent to the chair of the Wesites Committee.
  3. Review and update Video History Project process shown to the right. Note: All change requests should be sent to the chair of the Wesites Committee.

Video History Project process

The following material, prepared by a number of members including Linda Van Scoy, Kathy Church, Dave Scheatzle, Roger Carter, John McIntosh, Barry McNeill, and Carl Cross, outlines the general process that the committee uses in carrying out the ASURA Video History Project program. There are links to detailed instructions for accomplishing the tasks.

The six parts of the process are:

  1. Selecting and Scheduling
  2. Recording
  3. Editing
  4. Generating metadata
  5. Publishing
  6. Udating the document database

Selecting interviewee

Members of the Selection / Scheduling sub-committee compile a list of possible candidates. The list often contains names of people known by a committee member. After a reasonable list has been created the sub-committee meets to discuss the possible candidates. 

The committee than assigns a member to contact the first candidate to see if they are willing to be interviewed. If the answer is no, the next candidate is contacted. This continues until the number of desired candidates has been identified, this could be as many as four.

Scheduling interview

Scheduling the interview is an iterative process trying to get a time agreeable to the six or so people involved in the interview. The process involves matching the interviewee and interviewers availability with that of the interview crew. Once a time is established a confirmation letter with the "standard" interview questions is sent to the interviewee and interviewer.

See details on pre-interview tasks

Creating the high definition tape of the interview has couple of activities

  • Setting up the interview studio
  • Getting the interviewee ready for the interview
  • Conducting the interview

Get interview day task instuctions

Editing an interview converts a "raw" interview into an entertaining video, This is a multistep process involving:

  1. determining what you have,
  2. deciding how you want to organize what you have,
  3. creating the desired edited interview, and perhaps
  4. adding a few bells and whistles.

See how to accomplish the editing

The video editor is expected to generate the required metadata before sending the finished product to the VHP Database manager.

There are two types of metadata: objective and subjective.

  • Objective metadata is easy to determine and is not subject to interpretation, e.g., the name of the interviewee and interviewer, the length of the interview, the date of the interview, etc.
  • Subjective metadata is more difficult to establish since it require the editor to interpret the interview and extract the data, e.g., what type of story is it, what type of person is telling the story (faculty, administrator), what topics are covered, etc.

Read how to create subjective metadata

Publishing means adding the interview to the ASURA VHP interview collection in the Library's video repository (KEEP). This work is all done by the VHP data manager.

  1. The video editor will most likely have sent the data manager a link to the interview stored on the iDrive.
  2. Once you have the link contact the KEEP personnel to let them know you are about to upload a new interview. The interview is uploaded using the process defined by KEEP.
  3. If possible contact the interviewee to let them know the interview is available for review. If there are any requested or suggested changes they are passed back to the editor who will make the changes and send back a link to the updated video.
  4. Changes to the metadata can be made without re-uploading the video

Read about publishing

The video history document database contains all the documents that are used by various of the committees and which occasionally need to be updated. These documents are all stored in the Video History Project folder on Wild Apricot and are all visible via links and buttons at various locations on the ASURA  Help for Volunteers website. 

The following documents are stored in the Document Database

  • Documents used by the Selection / Scheduling Committee
    • Interviewer Invitation Template (docx)
    • Interview Package Confirm - confirms with interviewee and interviewer that production crew is available for the interview (docx)
    • Interview Script Sample (pdf)
    • Interview Script template (docx)
    • Local Candidate Invitation template (docx)
    • Out of Town Candidate Invitation template (docx)
    • Publication Application (docx) - form used to give permission to use interviews in a publication
  • Documents used by those working with metadata
    • Checklist for adding Abstract and ToC (docx) - used by those adding metadata to existing edited interviews
    • Interviews Needing Metadata (docx)
    • Interviews Needing Metadata (pdf)
    • Metadata Worksheet (docx)
    • Series Metadata Dictionary (docx)
    • Series Metadata Dictionary (pdf)
    • Style Sheet (docx) - format for filling out the metadata template
    • Subject Metadata Dictionary (docx)
    • Subject Metadata Dictionary (pdf)
  • Documents used by the Database Committee
    • Interviews Needing Metadata (docx)
    • Interviews Needing Metadata (docx)
    • Status of Interview (xlsx) - table of all interview and current editing status
    • Videos Needing Editing (docx)
    • Videos Needing Editing (pdf)

 

Created January 2022 by Barry McNeill

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