# Video conferencing

This course focuses on videoconferencing and audio communication. The learning resource was established during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and support the transformation of educational settings and ecomonic infrastructure from physical face-to-face meetings towards videoconferencing. The course applies the Open Community Approach that supports the application of Open Source software for community driven objectives, humanitarian use and educational environment.

## Target group

The following target groups was identified for this learning unit:
* Decision makers in educational institutes and schools,
* Decision makers in economy, that want to understand the requirements and constraints of videoconferencing.
* Teachers and Capacity Building staff that are planning educational workflows (e.g. digital learning environments with remote support for learners via video conferencing IT infrastructure.

## Introduction

Videoconferencing is a precious resource. Handle with care and switch on video if and only if that is necessary. A video stream consumes much more bandwidth than as multiple audio streams. As a moderator you could recommend to the participants of your video conferences to switch on their video if and only if that is really required e.g. Especially in a resource constrained environment a shared resource like bandwidth need responsibility for a collaborative use of the resource.

## Scenarios

* Inverted Classroom or Flipped Classroom with Online Learning Material in Wikiversity for self-study and videoconferencing for questions and answers (OpenSource example BigBlueButton),
* Peer-to-peer meeting between students (OpenSource web-based Jitsi)
* Seminars: Application in seminars online, hybrid and face2face setting.
* Meetings with e.g. 20
** small meeting OpenSource web-based Jitsi or BigBlueButton
** larger meetings with moderator/teacher BigBlueButton
* Consultation-hours with queuing of clients/students waiting for personal discussion with a teacher
** OpenSource web-based Jitsi open entrance into videochat or
** BigBlueButton with a request that students/clients want to enter the consultation room and the teacher grants access from a digitial "waiting room"
* Collaborative Work in Groups

## Learning tasks

* (Requirements and Constraints for Videoconferencing) Identify requirements and constraints for the application of videoconferencing. Compare a pure audio conference with a video conference according to the objective of the meeting. In which cases is a pure audio conference sufficient for your requirements and constraints. .
** Explain if and when videoconferencing can be helpful in laboratory educational setting! What are specific requirements and constraints according to safety of people working in the laboratory (compare the approach with Telemedicine)
** Explain why videoconferencing is if deaf people are join!
** How can you make sure, that privacy issues are considered if videoconferencing is applied? Analyze the concept of Commercial Data Harvesting in the context of videoconferencing. In which cases would you recommend to setup you own video conferencing infrastructure? (Cloud is just a description a computer/server, that belongs of other people or another company, that is not yours).
** What are the requirements and framework conditions for
* (COVID-19) Analyze the COVID-19 outbreak and identify specific requirements and constraints for videoconferencing in an pandemics according to rapid increase of demands unprepared economical and educational infrastructure? Member states had different time spans to prepare due the temporal and spatial spread of the disease. How did member states use this preparation time in general and what would you suggest to increase preparedness?
* Compare pure audio conferencing with videoconferencing and discuss the PROs and CONs of video conferencing in comparison to audio conferencing.
* (Telemedicine - Encryption Medical Applications) In a medical infrastructure privacy issues are important. What are options to encrypt the videoconferencing. What will be the impact of encrypted videoconferencing in comparison to unencrypted video conferencing. Identify the domain of application, in which video conferencing could support health service delivery. Explaing wWhat are application of video conferencing in which the quality of medical service can increase due to response time and what are scenario which you could not replace a face to face visit between medical staff and patient!
* (Sustainability) What is the impact of videoconferencing on sustainable communities and the carbon footprint of meetings. Without having video conferencing being compulsary it can be an option to participate remotely at the seminar. What would be the impact at your university if 10% of the students decide to join the seminar remotely via video conference and would not use the car to drive to the university and back home. Use average distance that students travel to university and calculate the amout of cars that would not be used. What other options are possible to reduce the carbon footprint of lectures and seminars?
* (Videoconferencing and Music Rehearsal) A choir may not be able to practice or members of a band might be in a different city far away. Then you might come up the idea to use a video conferencing software for practicing music or perform a rehearsal. But that will not work in general, because the challenge is the latency of the audio signal to play synchronously. If you play an instrument (e.g. guitar) then the recording needs milliseconds to be converted in a digital signal with your audio interface. Then the audio signal must be transmitted to the other members of the band. The other member of band hear the output and play according to the rhythm of the guitar. This takes again time to encoded and transmitted back to you as a guitarist. For audio delay might be half a second or more, which is acceptable for a conversation with video conference software, but for a joint rehearsal a delay of 500 milli seconds is not acceptable. If you want to a joint rehearsal over the internet you should try OpenSource software infrastructure Jamulus

## Submodules

Due to the rapid change in global challenges and knowledge about the spread of the pandemic, the demand for video conferencing is increasing. Use the users' subpages should support you in setting up video conferencing infrastructure for your institution or educational infrastructure:

### Technical Setup - Software Development

* Testing - Learn how to create test scenarios to identify the capacity of your videoconferencing server.
* Bootlenecks - considerations of upstream Downstream bandwidth for videoconferencing, ....
* Improvements - some aspects that can be addressed in future optimizations of OpenSource video conferencing systems

### Organisational Aspects

* Booking - Learn why it is important to book a meeting for a specific number of people and a specific time slot (server load control - assure good performance for all scheduled videoconferences)
* (Bandwidth) - Learn about the bandwith (upstream and downstream on the client and server capacity and performance)
* Handwriting and Annotations - Sketching a diagram annotation of shared student solutions and slides.

### Use-Cases - Applications

* Education and Capacity Building - video conferencing in educational environments - what are the different use-cases of teaching
* Meetings - collaborative work of an group uses videoconferencing infrastructure
* Consultation-hours - workflow transformation of the scenario where people waiting are waiting in front of an office for consultation. How can this scenario be adapted to videoconferencing.
* Practice Groups Collaborative work in practice groups - divide in subgroups/working groups.
* Oral Exams - with special consideration of COVID-19 constraints and epidemiological risk mitigation.