Video conferences – virtual classroom

New service for courses with 300+ students. 

A registration for this service is needed and the form can be filled in from 15 August 2021 on the website of the central informatics (probably here).

SWITCHlivestream:

• Possible lecture halls: Y03-G-85, Y03-G-91, Y03-G-95, Y04-G-30, Y15-G-19, Y15-G-20, Y15-G-40, Y15-G-60, Y16-G-05, Y16-G-15, Y24-G-45, Y24-G-5, Y35-F-32, Y35-F-51
• The livestream channel can be integrated into your OLAT course via the SWITCHcast element so that the singular streams appear automatically and are available as podcasts afterwards.
• A livestream time delay of up to 60 seconds can occur.
• There is neither a Q&A nor a livestream chat functionality available.

The choice of UZH for internal meetings of staff members

Microsoft 365 (TEAMS):

All UZH employees are entitled to use the software.

Signing up for Microsoft 365 UZH

Installing local Office 365 applications

Microsoft teams

Terms of use

Available functionalities:

• Host online meetings and video calls for up to 250 people with Microsoft Teams
• Chat with your team from your desktop or on the go with Microsoft Teams
• Bring together all your team’s chats, meetings, files, and apps so you can easily connect and collaborate from one place with Microsoft Teams
• Create team sites to share information, content, and files throughout your intranet using SharePoint

Zoom (Zoom mobile apps: App Store)

The choice of UZH for teaching purpose

From FS22 the Zoom-webinar-licence for 1’000 or 3’000 students has to be paid by the units who like to benefit from these functionalities.

_{Until FS22: The ZOOM campus license enables online meetings with up to 300 participants. For larger numbers of participants in lectures and events, we also have a limited number of licenses for webinars with up to 500, 1000 or 3000 participants. These licenses must be applied for via MELS/AV Services separately, using the appropriate form .} 

Zoom

The free version or a single license version of ZOOM should be avoided for data protection and security reasons. Existing accounts can be converted to the campus license of the University of Zurich.

For support requests regarding ZOOM please contact MELS/AV Services: zoom-support@zi.uzh.ch

Registration

Planning a meeting/webinar

Meetings / webinars with more than 300 participants

Terms of use

Available functionalities:

• HD video & voice
• Active speaker view
• Full screen and gallery view
• Simultaneous Screen Share
• Join by telephone call-in
• Virtual Background
• Desktop and application sharing
• Personal room or meeting ID
• Instant or scheduled meetings
• Chrome & Outlook plug-ins
• Scheduling w/ Chrome Extensions
• MP4 or M4A local recording
• Private and group chat
• Host controls
• Raise hand
• Breakout Rooms
• Mac, Windows, Linus, iOS and Android
• Group messaging and presence
• Screen share any iPad/iPhone app
• Co-annotation on shared screen
• Keyboard/mouse control
• Whiteboarding
• Multi-share

Recommended functionalities for your teaching

• xxx

Jitsi

via SWITCH

or UZH

At Jitsi, we believe every video chat should look and sound amazing, between two people or 200. Whether you want to build your own massively multi-user video conference client, or use ours, all our tools are 100% free, open source, and WebRTC compatible.

Jitsi provided by SWITCH

The current setup supports at most 500 to 1000 concurrent users. When you restrict the camera usage to three people up to 300 participants can join your meeting. Please note that SWITCH has just set up this service due to the Coronavirus situation and currently provide it at best effort level.

Instruction for the host:

1. Open your Browser on your computer (preferably Firefox or Chrome)

2. Click on one of this links

• https://video.meeting.uzh.ch/ UZH installation
• https://switch.ch/meet SWITCH installation
• or https://jitsi.org jitsi installation

3. Enter a title for your new meeting below "Start a new meeting" and click on "go"

4. You will see a pop-up window "Waiting for the host". Click on "I am the host".

4. Login with your AAI Shortname and Password

5. Click "Accept" the SWITCH uzh video service

6. Now you will see your video screen in jitsi.

7. Copy the link of your meeting in lower right corner (info icon).

8. Send this link to the participants while keeping the meeting open.

You and your participants can:

• share your screen / application window / chrome tab
• raise / lower your hand
• open / close a chat
• mute / unmute the microphone
• leave the meeting
• start / stop the camera
• invite people
• manage video quality
• share a YouTube video
• speaker stats
• leave feedback
• view shortcuts

Instruction for Participants:

1. Open the link in the browser (Firefox or Chrome) or in the jitsi-app (important: use the whole link address).

2. If you see this popup "Permission required...Microphone/Video)" then grant it in your settings.

3. Ensure that the two button (Mic and Video) next to "red leave button" are activated and not muted or stopped.

4. Use the "Toggle tile view" and enjoy your meeting.

BigBlueButton

_{The Institute of Mathematics is using this tool and they installed their own entity on their internal server. If you like further information, please contact Carsten Rose.}

BigBlueButton is a web conferencing system designed for online learning.

• Chat: send public and private messages
• Webcams: hold visual meetings
• Audio: communicate using high quality audio
• Emojis: express yourself
• Breakout Rooms: group users into breakout rooms for team collaboration
• Poling: poll your users anytime
• Screen Sharing: share your screen
• Multi-user whiteboard: draw together

SWITCHinteract via Adobe Connect

_{The current situation of COVID-19 has lead to many inquiries about the capacities of the SWITCH video services. The reason for these inquiries is the intention to stream and/or record lectures in case class rooms are going to be closed. Unfortunately, the current infrastructure for SWITCHinteract and/or SWITCHvideoconf has only limited numbers of licenses and does therefore not scale to a size that accommodates many institutions simultaneously.}

SWITCHinteract offers everything that is required for straightforward live teamwork: screen sharing, chat and whiteboard functions, the exchange of data and files of all types, live voting, presentations to a fairly large audience.

No matter whether they are working on a smartphone, a tablet or a computer, students and members of participating universities can engage in networking with people outside the academic world at any time via SWITCHinteract. All they need to do is put the computer and the webcam in position, log in, put on their headphones and send the direct link to the meeting to all those taking part. Important Information proceeding (max. student participation: 250)

SWITCH can however offer an exclusive offer from our Adobe Connect partner reflact where an institution can get their own instance of Adobe Connect in order to handle a bigger student participation . If you are interested in that please contact interact-support@switch.ch

If you need help, please contact your E-Learning Coordinator

OLAT course element "SWITCHinteract"

Integrating SWITCHinteract in an OLAT course:
As with all other OLAT course elements, the course element SWITCHinteract is integrated and configured within the OLAT course editor. To do so, take the following steps:

• Open the course
• Open the course editor by clicking "Tools" => "Course editor"
• Within the course editor, click the button "Insert course elements"
• Click the link SWITCHinteract in the section "Communication and collaboration"
• Give the new course element a clear short title, e.g. "Virtual classroom" and add content to the boxes "Title" and "Description" if desired. Then click "Save"
• Under the tab "Visibility", configure which learning group(s) should be able to view this course element. In the case of OLAT campus courses, enter a check at "Depending on group" and select "Only for learning areas: campus learning area". Click "Save" again
• Close the editor by clicking the small red cross on the top right of the screen. Select the option "Yes, automatically" in the pop-up window "Publish modifications"

Create meetings
If you would like to create new meetings, first log in to SWITCHinteract. To do so, click the button "SWITCHinteract", which you can see in the standard view of the course (see (1) in figure "Logging in to SWITCHinteract").

• Next, select your higher education institution (e.g. University of Zurich and click "Register (Anmelden)"
• Now you are connected to the SWITCH server and you can create a new meeting by clicking the button "Create new meeting"
• In the pop-up window that appears name the meeting, enter the date and the time the meeting starts and ends, and click the button "Create". If desired, you can enter additional information on the new meeting in the field "Description".
• If you plan a SWITCHinteract meeting with more than 50 participants, please inform SWITCH by sending an e-mail to interact-support@switch.ch.
• Now the newly created meeting appears in the area "Upcoming meetings". Below this you will see "Past meetings", i.e. meetings that have already taken place. As course owner, you can edit or delete information about the individual meetings. Clicking the link "Open" takes you directly to your meeting on the platform SWITCHinteract and launches Adobe Connect. By clicking the link in the column "Name", you can view the meeting details and the link "Go to meeting" appears.

User interface of Adobe Connect

• The user interface of Adobe Connect consists of individual elements – so-called "pods" – that you can organize and make larger or smaller, according to your needs. Depending on the type of meeting (a pure presentation or a discussion or collaborative work), you as the instructor ("presenter" or "host") can determine the layout of the pods for your students. To do so, select "Sharing", "Discussion", or "Collaboration" at the top right of your screen. The choice you make will be used for all meeting attendees.

• At the start of the meeting, you should check that your microphone is working. To do so, click the small microphone icon on the top of the screen. If the microphone icon is lit green and displays acoustic signals as you speak, the microphone has been properly paired and can be used with the current settings. By clicking the webcam button, you can start the camera and watch the video broadcast in the pod "Video". In the pod "Whiteboard", you as the instructor ("host") can design images for the board, explain formulae, etc. In the pod "Files", you can upload files (documents, images, etc.), and in the pod "Notes", you can make notes that all participants can read. The pod "Chat" allows all participants to send text messages to each other. The pod "Attendees" shows a list of participants in the meeting. Within this pod, you can change the roles (and thus the rights) of the attendees.

Roles and rights in "Adobe Connect"

• The rights of attendees differ according to the role they have in the meeting. As the instructor, you are in principle the administrator ("host") of the meeting and can therefore invite guests and add materials to the library and share them, as well as add or edit the layouts in a virtual meeting room (cf. chapter 4.2). You can also change the roles and rights of the other attendees, for example, you can upgrade a person to meeting "host" or "presenter", or you can grant an attendee additional permissions without upgrading his or her role.

  "Presenters" have the right to upload and share files (PPT, PDF, JPEG, MP3) from their own computers. Presenters can make their screen visible to all attendees (screen sharing), broadcast live audio and video, and chat.

  Registered participants and guests can view the materials that the presenter has shared. They can hear or see the audio and video broadcasts, and they can use the text chat function.

Recording the meeting

• You can record the entire meeting as well as sections thereof. To start recording, click "Meeting" at the top left and select "Record Meeting". When the recording function is on, a red dot will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. If you would like to pause or stop recording, click the red dot and select the option of your choice.

Later use of the recordings and files

• After concluding the meeting, you will see the link "See content" in the section "Past meetings" found in the column "Materials" within the OLAT course element in figure "Past meetings with saved materials"). Clicking this link leads you to the page "Meeting details". Here you will find links to the files uploaded during the meeting, and you can watch a recording of the video.

If you need help, please contact your E-Learning Coordinator

SWITCHvideoconf

Using SWITCH's video conferencing service, university members can communicate with each other in the web as if they were sitting next to each other. A sharply focused picture, high-quality sound and intuitive operation make for a realistic discussion ambiance. The ideal solution for connecting at least three specially equipped video conference rooms.

User information

If you need help, please contact your E-Learning Coordinator

VidyoConnect

Desktop Video Conferencing for Group Meeting Collaboration

Effective brainstorming, ideation, and problem solving need clear communication and solid interpersonal relationships. VidyoConnect is a meeting solution for team collaboration that speeds global alignment across your enterprise, allowing for better-informed decisions, faster responses and deeper trust.

GotoMeeting (trial only for 14 days!) App Store

or Google Play

1. Click on "Start for Free" -> fill in the registration form (name, e-mail, password...)
2. Decide if you like to agree on the terms of service
3. Click on "Create Meeting" (One-Time)
   • Online meeting room: Meet whenever you like. The link never expires.
   • One-time meeting: Meet once and then the link expires.
4. Set the date and duration of your meeting 15 minutes to 8 hours  and click "save" -> continue
5. Copy and past the meeting invitation information and send it to your students by e-mail "Copy Invitation"
6. Click on "start" and "Download the app" (open the downloaded file to install the app. GoToMeeting starts automatically after installing. 
7. Allow GoToMeeting to access your camera "OK"
8. Select either join by Computer or Phone -> "Save and Continue" -> allow microphone access -> "Save and Continue" -> "OK, I'm ready"
9. Start your meeting

Zoho ShowTime

Lifesize

flock