This is an overview of the possibilities for distant teaching. It contains overview of options suggested by the rectorate enriched by me based on experience of my colleagues and mine. Options, where it is no explicitly stated that they are recommended or provided by our university, are external and you should use them temporarly and on your own risk.
In a long term, you should setup all your distant teaching using the methods recommended by the university (in German). The same applies for home office options (in German).
Additionally, check the overview from the computer science department, which was distributed in an email from the rectorate.
A one-way communication (broadcasting) channels may be useful for frontal teaching, whereas for interactive teaching you need a two-way communication channel to incorporate students feedback. You can use multiple channels for your course.
These channels may be useful for lectures or other courses with one-way communication.
Live streaming options are suitable for lectures or other courses with one-way communication. You can use other channels to incorporate students feedback.
There are several lecture halls with recording or streaming possibilities. You need to book a room and have knowledge or support to use it.
It is possible to make live streaming from your own computer. For this purpose, you need a streaming software and access to a streaming server.
As a streaming software, you can use, for example, OBS Studio available for diverse operating systems. With this software, you can record your lecture and publish video online, e.g. in OLAT.
It is possible to use either the university server or other streaming servers, eg. Twitch, YouTube. With the university server, there is 30 seconds delay, whereas with e.g. Twitch only 5 seconds.
Steps required to use OBS studio with the university streaming server:
Instead of live streaming, you can record your video and upload it to OLAT or publish elsewhere online.
Univesity’s recommendations’ page (in German) provides several options and links to tools and tutorials on preparation of video material.
One more option is OBS Studio, which enables both steaming and recording and is available for diverse operating systems.
Instead of a whiteboard, a (pen) tablet can be used. A pen tablet is cheaper than a tablet, but you have to draw looking at the screen, not at the device. For example, Wacom CTL-672-N.
It can be used in combination of an interactive whiteboard for schools and universities, OpenBoard. This software the university uses in the lecture rooms with big tablets. It comes with many useful features and is easy to install on Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu (on Debian from source code!).
These channels may be useful for exercises or other interactive courses.
Video conferences can be used for courses, where two-way communication is required. There are many video conference systems. Here, only example ones are mentioned.
This solution is recommended by the university and integrated as a virtual classroom in OLAT.
For usage as a teacher, you need a license from the media department (you will see details when you start connecting to the external(?) Adobe Connect server). You should apply for a key at least one day earlier.
Under Windows OS, a course with about 600 students was conducted.
For Linux it is not an ideal solution, it uses Flash Player and connection may be unstable. Moreover, you can not share your screen using the version in browser.
A lightweight tool for simple chats and web conferences provided by the university (a brief guide). EasyConnect is particularly suitable for simple, informal and dynamic collaboration between all members of the university. Examples of this are:
With the University email address it is possible to get a free ZOOM licence for up to 100 participants.
From Google, there are two options: Hangout and Meet, where the second one is more featured.
To collect questions students you can use
Specific to University of Innsbruck: