Realizing that most scientists may not have the tools or skills to produce and edit video, JoVE takes care of all the filming and production. The company has four full-time employees, but established a network of contractors in 30 cities throughout the world to film and edit. This approach also provides quality control and ensures the videos are edited in a way that a viewer will be able to understand how to perform a procedure through a short film.

 

“It’s good if you are able to make videos that are both technically clear and engaging and emotionally interesting, but the technical clarity and technical value is most important,” said Pritsker.

 

Pritsker acknowledges it’s taken some effort to sell scientists on the idea. In fact, one reason he decided on the “Journal of Visualized Experiments” name rather than on the “Database of Visualized Experiments” was because of the publish-or-perish dictum of the academic world. Contributors can cite the journal in their CVs. “Publication is the currency of science,” he said, “and we become part of that currency.” It publishes monthly and has assembled an editorial board consisting of researchers from Harvard, Princeton, the National Institutes of Health, and elsewhere.

 

In an effort to expand its base of contributors, JoVE has begun forming alliances with journal publishers. It just announced that John Wiley, a global 200-year old scientific publisher, has entered into a partnership for production of online video-publication. The partnership will enhance articles published in Wiley’s Current Protocols, 14 comprehensive titles spanning the life sciences, with video demonstrations of experimental procedures.

 

Wiley will pay for the production of the videos, which will be posted on both Wiley and JoVE sites. They plan to produce and publish 200 videos online during the first year. JoVE expects to announce to other similar agreements shortly.

 

With titles like “A Method for 2-Photon Imaging of Blood Flow in the Neocortex through a Cranial Window,” some academics void of telegenic qualities, and an occasional ick factor of open-brain surgery on rats, JoVE may never pose a threat to YouTube.

 

But Pritsker thinks beyond speeding up drug discovery by making experiments more reproducible for both academics and industry researchers, a lay audience may benefit from seeing how research is performed to bring a little more intelligent discourse around matters of controversy, such as stem cell research. 

 

“When you see how something is actually done,” he said, “oftentimes subjects are perceived in a different way.”