Lecturers of the University of Twente who need to conduct live online lectures in order to achieve two-way interaction with their students can choose between BigBlueButton (Canvas Conferences), Microsoft Teams Meetings, or Zoom. Instructions on how to get started with these tools are presented below.
Specific manuals for streaming and recording solutions in the lecture halls can be found here.
You can use your own equipment at your own desk to conduct live lectures. However, we strongly recommend using a good-quality headset. If you do not own one, you can request one here (home delivery is possible).
BigBlueButton
If you want to conduct a live stream and you have a Canvas Course, we recommend you to use BigBlueButton. We strongly recommend limiting your sessions to a maximum of 100 students, as performance will degrade if you have a larger number of participants. Below you can find alternatives for larger student groups. Instructions on how to get started with BigBlueButton in Canvas can be found here.
Microsoft Teams Meetings
Microsoft Teams Meetings supports up to 1000 students per meeting, including the ability to have audio, video, screen sharing, whiteboards, and shared notes. Meetings can be scheduled or can be created ad-hoc. You can meet within a private space or within a team channel. Meetings can also be recorded and saved for attendees to review later. You can find instructions on how to get started with Microsoft Teams Meetings here.
Zoom
With Zoom, you can conduct live online lectures with a maximum of 300 students per meeting. However, the UT has a small number of licenses available that can be used to temporarily increase the number of students (please contact the Service Desk ICT for this and state the period for which this is necessary and how many participants are expected). Because there are still some safety concerns, the urgent advice is to only use Zoom when Microsoft Teams Meetings is failing functionality and only for non-confidential purposes. You can find instructions on how to get started with Zoom here.
Need support?
If you have specific questions on how to use these conference tools for educational purposes, you can contact your faculty's e-learning specialist or the TELT team.