How to Share Your Story
Since February 2011, the Harvard Stories project has been collecting stories from members of the Harvard Community. Now, it’s up to you. Alumni, students, faculty, and staff around the world can now submit their own Harvard Story. This is your chance to let us know: what’s your story? Below is a toolkit to help you.
1. Logging In and Out
Want to share your own Harvard Story? If you have a Harvard University ID (HUID/PIN) or an alumni login (Post.Harvard login), you are eligible to create a Harvard Stories profile and submit videos. To get started, login in the upper right from any page using your HUID/PIN or alumni login. Need help? Visit these sites for more information and assistance with logging in via PIN or alumni credentials.
The first time you login, you’ll be taken to the “My Information” tab, and will need to complete the three required fields (Full Name, Display Name, and Email) before navigating through the rest of the site. A few fields may already be populated for you, including your full name and the email address Harvard has on file. Rest assured, your Full Name and Email will never appear to other users on the site. However, your Display Name *will* be visible, so choose wisely and get creative!
Once you’ve completed the required fields, you’re on your way to sharing your Harvard Story.
When you are ready to logout of the site, simply select “Logout” at the top right. Note, this will not log you out of all PIN-controlled sites. Remember to also logout of the PIN system, especially if you are on a public computer.
2. Video Guidelines
Share short video stories based on your own Harvard experience. You can use these questions below to guide your stories or tell us something unique about your relationship with the University.
• When you think back upon your time at Harvard, which defining moments stand out? How has your time at Harvard had an impact on your life?
• How has Harvard helped to shape who you are today?
• What were your expectations of Harvard and how did they meet or differ from your campus experience?
• Who were the people, professors, students, TA’s, or House Masters who had an impact on you?
Video Criteria
Don’t be anonymous! We want to know who you are so please be sure to include your name, class, house, or other Harvard affiliation in the introduction of your video.
Respect attention spans. Try to submit videos that are less than two minutes long, and that have been shot in a quiet space without extraneous background noise (no jackhammers please!)
During filming, please be mindful of your language and respectful to others. Videos must not contain sexually explicit content or pornography; contain hateful, defamatory, or discriminatory content; depict violence of any kind; or violate any laws.
No plugs or ads, please. We cannot include videos with any branded products, trademarks, or company logos. This includes the clothing of the subject being filmed. Similarly, videos and their corresponding descriptions should not be commercial in nature, in any way aim to sell or promote a product or service, or contain ads.
Respect copyrights. You must own or have the right to upload your video. You may not upload public domain videos that were created by others. If the video contains third-party content (such as music or images), you must have the right to use that content.
We reserve the right to reject any videos or edit any related materials submitted.
Please the Harvard Stories’ Terms of Use for more information on the above.
3. How to Upload Your Video
Be sure you’re logged in, then click the “Upload Video” button in the banner or on your account pages. This will take you to the video upload form.
Provide a video title. Your title should describe the video content and must include the full name of the subject in the video.
Select your video. All video formats are accepted on the site and should be kept under two minutes. The larger and longer the video, the more time it will take to upload. Watch the progress bar, which appears after you select your video; it will let you know where you are in the uploading process.
Date your material. Please provide the recorded date of your video in the “Recorded Date” field; in the absence of an entry, the date of upload will appear here.
Provide an image. Please upload a custom thumbnail to use across the site. Anywhere your video appears, this image will appear. If you do not provide an image, one will be created automatically from the video. It’s best to provide your own image to avoid any inadvertently awkward facial expressions. The image you upload should match the resolution of the original video file (otherwise it will look warped).
Don’t be nervous if the thumbnail you provide doesn’t appear immediately; perfection takes a little time.
Note: Your video will not appear immediately on the site but rather will need to be submitted for review. More on that below.
4. Categories and Tags
Relevant tags and categories allow your video to be easily found by other users through search and other means. Be sure to choose at least one relevant category, though please use as many as are appropriate for your video.
The Class Year, House, and School fields should be applicable to the subject in the video. If you don’t have this information, or it doesn’t apply, you may leave these fields empty.
Please also include information about the location of your video. These fields (City, Country, State/Province) are mandatory.
Tags are a form of metadata that are created by you, the user. They are words and phrases that represent the content of your video. The more the merrier, but please avoid choosing irrelevant tags.
Tagging tips:
It’s wise to include both the long name as well as well known acronyms. For example, when tagging your video as “American Repertory Theatre,” include “ART” as well.
There are two ways to add tags to your selected list. You can click on tags in the “Most Commonly Used” list, or create your own new tags by typing in the free text area (“Add New Tag”) and hitting enter/return after each one.
Be sure to include as a tag the name of the subject in the video.
Values selected in the Category, Class Year, House, and School fields will automatically be included in the list of tags displayed on the video detail page, so no need to duplicate.
5. Descriptions
Tell us what your video is about., A short description of 200 characters or less is required, and will be used as a teaser if the video is featured on the homepage or elsewhere on the site. You may also choose to include an optional long description of up to 2,000 words, which will only appear on the video detail page. The short description will not be displayed on the video detail page unless no long description is provided.
6. Saving your video
WAIT! Don’t press that Save button yet! Do not save the page until the video upload progress bar has reached 100%. Punishment for this offense will result in mandatory re-upload of your video. So before you hit Save, double-check the progress bar. In addition, you must also agree to the Terms of Use before you can save.
Once the video has fully uploaded, and you’ve double-checked all required fields, please press the Save button to move to your video detail page. From there, you can review and move on to submit your video for approval.
7. Submit for approval
You will need to submit your video for approval before it can be considered for publication on the site. First, please review the video detail page and watch your video through in its entirety. This page is not public.
If any changes need to be made to the information submitted with your video (Title, Tags, etc)., use the Edit Video button to take you back to the video upload form. There, you can modify the details, and then re-save. If you need to modify the video itself, you will need to delete the video from your “My Videos” tab, and start over using a new video upload form.
After you save your video, there may be a delay while it is encoded. You won’t be able to preview your video until the encoding has completed.
Once you’re satisfied with your video and all information submitted with your video, select the “Submit for Approval” button under your video on the “My Videos” tab under “My Account”. You will be asked to confirm your submission.
Please note: after you’ve submitted your video, it will be marked pending and you will no longer be able to make any edits.
Thank you for submitting your Harvard Story. Please send comments or questions to stories "at" harvard.edu.
Happy Filming!