Virtual events have their own needs and challenges. This reference guide, written by the Office of Communications and the Department of Information Technology, explains online video policy, technical needs, and best practices as they relate to YouTube.
...
Deciding if YouTube is the right place for your content
The main Harvard Chan School YouTube account is a curated collection of videos that benefit the whole School community. All of the content on our YouTube channel is public-facing and intended for a wide audience. We will post content from departments, institutes, centers, and administrative divisions if the video meets the following criteria:
The content is intended for public distribution.
The quality of the video and audio is high. This means: No dropouts or extended periods of silence, and no excessive audio or video “noise” or static. All speakers should be clearly identified. “Housekeeping” at the start or end of a recorded Zoom call should be edited out (e.g. time spent ensuring that speakers are not muted).
The content of the video should advance the educational or research mission of the School.
The video has been captioned, following the best practices outlined by the Harvard University’s Digital Accessibility Services. Auto-generated captions are not acceptable, as they do not meet Harvard University standards for accessibility.
If you would like to embed a video on your website, it will need to be hosted on YouTube first. /wiki/spaces/sphwebdocs/pages/56918536 shows you how to embed a video on the Harvard Chan School website. All video on the School's website must be captioned, even if it is hosted by another organization’s YouTube account.
- To request that the Office of Communications upload your video to the Harvard Chan School YouTube channel, please fill out this form.
Creating a YouTube account
...
There is a designated point of contact who will manage the channel, take ownership of captioning, and ensure that any new University and School-wide policies on accessibility are implemented correctly. Your team’s point of contact will be responsible for ensuring that the captioning policies outlined below are followed. A backup point of contact is recommended in case of emergencies. NOTE: New information about digital accessibility will be sent to the point of contact’s listed email, and it will be their responsibility to share policy information with their team as needed.
There is or will be more than one video on the channel. If the department only has one video, please contact digitalcomms@hsph.harvard.edu for advice on how to host that video.
The videos in the channel are intended to be discoverable by the general public. While you can make videos “unlisted,” there is always the possibility that someone will stumble upon that video in future. For advice on posting videos that are meant to be password protected or otherwise hidden from the general public, please contact digitalcomms@hsph.harvard.edu.
The channel uses proper branding elements, including proper use of the School’s name. Please contact digitalcomms@hsph.harvard.edu for brand-related questions and resources.
...
Best practice is to use your Harvard email, or a departmental email using the hsph.harvard.edu domain, to create an account with YouTube. This article explains how.
Register your YouTube account with the School using this form.
Give IT access to your account by adding webapps@hsph.harvard.edu. Follow these instructions. IT will access your account in the event that both your designated point of contact and your backup point of contact are unable to do so.
...
Write a brief description that uses keywords likely to be picked up by search engines (SEO).
Include relevant tags so videos are easier for YouTube viewers to discover. When viewers search, they will find your content more easily if it is tagged!
Create playlists to organize your content and make your home page easy to navigate. Content can be organized by topic, series, etc. Be creative!
You may not publish any videos to your YouTube channel before they have been captioned. Auto-generated captions are unacceptable, as they do not meet Harvard University standards for accessibility. When captioning videos, follow the best practices outlined by the Harvard University’s Digital Accessibility Services.
Optional decisions include:
...