BigBlueButton | web-meeting - 11 views
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open source project
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our focus is to make the best web conferencing system for distance education
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BigBlueButton is an open source project that is built on over fourteen open source components to create an integrated web conferencing system that runs on mac, unix, or PC computers.
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BigBlueButton is a brand new, free open source web-meeting platform ideally suited to Universities and Colleges for delivering Distance Education [1]. BigBlueButton runs on Mac, Unix and PC computers and desktop integration is available with VMWare, Ubuntu, Debian and RPM packages and Gentoo is currently in development [2]. BigBlueButton utilises 15 open source components and BigBlueButton's Demo shows how easily it supports video, chat and audio conferencing, PDF and PPT slide-sharing, and, Open Office Org files or Microsoft Office document sharing [3] [4] [5]. Three levels of users are moderator, presenter & viewers, the moderator can choose themselves, or others to be a presenter. The class presenter can share their desktop view with the rest of the class and directly message an individual student during a meeting [3]. The BigBlueButton site hosts a variety of tutorial demonstrations so prospective clients can become familiar with this feature-rich package [3]. The Demo page allows vistors to test run the product by joining a Demo Meeting [6]. Whilst BigBlueButton is an web-meeting platform for online conferences, the people from BigBlueButton do not provide hosting. Nevertheless BigBlueButton is easily downloaded and installed onto the education provider's own server space [7]. The package is coded with a clean, lean design that focuses on usability and multiple virtual classrooms can be run from a single BigBlueButton server [8]. Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada use BigBlueButton as a learning envrioment in their 'Systems and Computer Engineering' course [9]. see below for References
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BigBlueButton is a web conferencing system that is specifically tailored for distance education [1], particularly for universities and colleges to allow high-quality e-learning [2]. It is open source and constantly under development. The system is Flash-based and allows sharing of slides, voice, chat, video and desktops [3]. Generally speaking, the system is well received; however there has been some criticism about the slowness of desktop sharing [4]. The system strongly utilises Open Source methodology by utilising existing apps and code to piece together and present a virtual classroom solution [4]. The use of Open Source can be positive in a corporate sense as it often has a large support community and the ability to conduct one's own development. BigBlueButton does not offer commercial hosting of its service, which is arguably why it is being pitched to universities (given access to considerable resources in the guise of students and IT staff) [5]. This may be a disadvantage in some respects; however a corporate organisation may consider this a better solution to wholly hosted applications, as a stronger level of control is possible. It has been reported that the developers are very hands on in regards to live demos of the product, which is comforting when trying to learn a new piece of software [6], however, the system is very new, which may deter some organisations from utilising until it is more proven.
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[1] BigBlueButton. (2010). BigBlueButton Blog. Retrieved April 21, 2010, from http://bigbluebutton-blog.blogspot.com/ [2] BigBlueButton. (2010). Homepage. Retrieved April 21, 2010, from http://bigbluebutton.org/ [3] Asterisk Exchange. (2010). BigBlueButton. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://www.asteriskexchange.com/listings/165 [4] SetupLinux. (2010). BigBlueButton: Web conference and meeting room review. SetupLinux.com. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://www.setuplinux.com/2010/04/bigbluebutton-web-conference-and-meeting-room-review/ [5] Byrne. (2010). Big Blue Button - An Open Source Video Conferencing Platform. Free Technology for Teachers. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/03/big-blue-button-open-source.html [6] Lavolette, E. (2010). Push the BigBlueButton. Betsy's Eclection. Retrieved April 10, 2010, from http://betsylavolette.com/?p=928