When the final numbers are counted, online advertising is expected to have grown over 25 percent in 2007 to over $21 billion (BusinessWeek). Even a struggling U.S. economy and a looming recession don’t seem capable of stopping the party any time soon (www.clickz.com). One reason online ad spending has grown so rapidly is its ability to provide very detailed analytics. Online campaigns allow advertisers to gather very granular information on who saw an ad, when, how may times, and so on. Ad firms have whole staffs devoted to tracking online campaigns, evaluating data, and determining the effectiveness of the campaign. DoubleClick and Nielson/NetRatings generate millions each year helping to aggregate this data.

Ideally, online classes should be subject to the same level of analysis. Faculty and instructional designers have lots of tools to assist them with the planning and implementation of an online class but very little to assist them in evaluating the class and improving on it for the next quarter or semester. Data is often hard to get at (Have you ever tried to make sense of server logs?) and often there is not enough time and resources to produce a meaningful report that provides any insight.

That’s why I am excited by the Backlot Content Management System by Ooyala. Designed as a video-ad-campaign manager, the system allows you to quickly generate really useful reports that will be extremely valuable to online educators. Backlot lets you see how many times a video was watched, how much of it was watched, how many students watched it, how many times students replayed the video, etc.

The reporting interface is easy to use, and Backlot includes a download-to-Excel feature should you want to slice and dice your data even more. It beats trying to decipher server logs. I think it can be a huge asset in allowing educators and researchers to truly determine the effectiveness of video in online classrooms.