What Drives the Viewership of an Online Video-lecture Course? A Case Study

Abstract

In this article, we discuss the dynamics that led to viewing of 18 five-minute videos, created as part of a business dynamics course and made freely available on Internet. Over a period of five years, the videos were watched 2,740 times in 80 countries. The goal of our research was to understand what dynamics drove the viewership. We collected quantitative data from eighteen Google Analytics reports and from professor's courses log, and made a systems analysis of it. We reached the following conclusions:1) The professor's actions to promote the course enabled direct access on the part of the students; it also led to wider viewership as a result of being picked up by search engines that made the videos available to a wider audience. 2) Once the videos were posted on Youtube, Youtube and search engine algorithms stimulated increased viewership.3) Internet users' actions such as sharing the videos on social networks and embedding the videos on personal websites also stimulated the the number of views.