Expansion of the video conferencing solution BigBlueButton for the winter semester 2020/21

The video conferencing solution BigBlueButton has been extended and can now also be used for working and research groups as well as for virtual committee meetings independent of the learning platform ILIAS.

At the start of the "Corona Semester" in May 2020, the University IT Services introduced the new video conferencing service BigBlueButton to support teaching. Since then BigBlueButton rooms can be created from any course room of the learning platform ILIAS. All lecturers of the University of Freiburg, together with their students, have the possibility to use this videoconferencing tool browser-based and thus without additional software.

BigBlueButton runs in a server cluster on the resources of the university's bwCloud at the University IT Services. It was enhanced with additional resources in the winter semester to be able to map a large part of the university's synchronous digital teaching. The university thus offers a data protection-friendly video conferencing tool that runs entirely on the university's own resources.

With the expansion of the server farm, the university has also responded to requests to use video conferences via BigBlueButton independently of teaching, without access via the learning platform. The possibilities for generating rooms have therefore been expanded and simplified. With the help of a website, based on the open source solution "Greenlight", every employee at the University of Freiburg can now log on to the administration interface for meeting rooms and create video conference rooms. The login is available for all employees of the university with a valid university account. This means that BigBlueButton can now also be used for university study and research groups and for committee work.

Short instruction:

Log in as an employee of the university at https://bbb.uni-freiburg.de using your university account.
From there, you can create and manage rooms and generate invitation links.
When creating a room you will be asked whether participants should be muted when entering, whether each participant can start the meeting and which rights participants should have.
BigBlueButton meetings can be assigned a room access code and a waiting room for incoming participants.
Send the link to the meeting to your participants, they will enter a name or pseudonym when entering the room, under which they will be displayed in the room.

For further information please refer to our service description.

Please send questions and feedback to onlinemeetings@rz.uni-freiburg.de.