Cultivating a Space for Learning: A Study of Note-Taking and Sharing on a Video-Sharing Platform Bilibili

• Published in: Computer supported cooperative work
• Main Authors: Yu, Fangyu, Ding, Xianghua Sharon, Zhang, Peng, Lu, Tun, Gu, Ning
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 05.04.2025
• ISSN: 0925-9724; 1573-7551
• DOI: 10.1007/s10606-025-09511-7

Video-sharing platforms such as YouTube are popular today, not only for entertainment but also for learning, e.g., for understanding lecture content or acquiring everyday skills. Some platforms, like Bilibili, a popular video-sharing platform in China, even introduced note-taking and sharing features to further foster such learning practices. While note-taking and sharing have been extensively explored in environments specifically for learning, their use around these social media platforms such as YouTube and Bilibili remains under-studied. In this paper, we present a qualitative study with 15 participants who have used the note-taking and sharing feature called BNote launched on Bilibili. Our study reveals how note-taking and sharing are used as a way to cultivate a space for learning on such a general video-sharing platform by structuring, supplementing, and substituting user-generated videos and by leveraging social forces for motivation, self-discipline, and organization for learning. We end by discussing our findings and providing design recommendations to better support a learning space on social media platforms.