Last year I published my first ‘paper’ with JoVE – the Journal of Visualized Experiments. JoVE are a video journal, that I had heard about from a collaborator – who suggested that our MRI-targeted prostate slicing method ‘PEOPLE’ might be a good fit. It sounded like a great idea!

I’m happy to report that there’s no twist coming in this blog – the experience was great, and I’d recommend them to others too!

With JoVE, you submit an abstract & basic written paper of your method (or whatever research you’d like to publish as a video). The written submission is peer reviewed, edited as necessary, and once the reviewers are happy, you begin to plan a filming day. There are a few options here – I chose to go with the more expensive option of having JoVE arrange the script, filming & editing for me, rather than having to do it myself. The benefit here is you get to work with professionals, who know how to get the right shots, the right lighting, and edit everything in such a way that other scientists can see everything they need to see clearly, and learn the method so that they can carry it out themselves.

This was of particular benefit to me, as a (very!) amateur YouTuber with Cancer Research Demystified – I wanted to learn how the professionals do it!

Our videographer was Graham from https://www.sciphi.tv/. Working with him was a brilliant experience – he was an ex-researcher himself, and had extensive experience both carrying out and filming science. He made the day fun, quick and easy – if you ever need someone to film an academic video for you I highly recommend his company!

Filming day itself wouldn’t have been possible without the rest of our research team helping out (in particular Hayley and Aiman – thank you!) and of course a very generous prostate cancer patient, who was undergoing radical prostatectomy, kindly agreeing to take part in our research.

After a short wait we received a first draft of our video which we were really happy with – we had the opportunity to make a round of edits (there weren’t many), and then before long the video was up on JoVE’s website, as well as Pubmed and all the usual places you’d read scientific research in paper form!

Personally, I think videos make a whole lot more sense than written papers for sharing methodologies. I’ve used JoVE videos for training myself – notably for learning to build tissue microarrays (TMAs), and without those videos I’m not sure I could have learned this skill at all – as our resident experts had left the lab! A paper just wouldn’t be able to clearly explain how to use that equipment. With JoVE, there’s always a PDF that goes alongside the paper too, so once you’ve watched and understood the practical side, you have the written protocol to hand while you’re in the lab. The best of both worlds.

I’ve always been a fan of simple solutions (I’m a bit of a broken record on this) – and JoVE is a perfectly simple solution to providing training that will show you how to do something rather than just tell you.

Once caveat – it’s not cheap. But your fellow scientist who want to learn your methods will thank you – you’re doing the rest of us a favour! Of course, there’s always YouTube for a free (ish) alternative. But in my view, the added layers of peer review and professional production are worth the extra cost.

Here’s our JoVe video & PDF publication – enjoy!

https://www.jove.com/t/60216/use-magnetic-resonance-imaging-biopsy-data-to-guide-sampling

And no, this blog was not sponsored by anyone – I’m just a fan & paying customer!