Cell phone on which the website of the University of Bayreuth is accessed

Digital teaching

At least since the coronavirus pandemic, digital teaching offerings have become an important part of studies. But exactly what tools are available to instructors for digital teaching? On this page you will find an overview.

General information for instructors

To the ITS website

To the ZHL's support services

To the course "Accessible Digital Teaching at the University of Bayreuth"

Digital teaching: overview of tools

e-Learning

E-Learning is the central teaching and learning platform of the University of Bayreuth. Based on the free software Moodle, the platform enables you to exchange information and material with your students virtually in the following ways:

Communication: Via e-learning you can communicate with your students in various ways. These include discussion forums, personal messages to individual users or groups of users, and surveys.
Collaboration: With the activity "Etherpad lite" you can work simultaneously with each other in real time on a document, or create notes. Exporting as a PDF or in Word format for post-processing is also possible.
Document sharing: You can make various documents available to course participants for download, such as scripts, presentations, exercise materials, etc. Alternatively, you can link directly to external Internet sites.
Submitting assignments via the activity “Assignment”: In your course, students can submit edited texts and documents, such as assignments or exercise sheets, digitally and thus make them available to you and your tutors for correction. After correction, you can then provide individual feedback on each submission to students.
Checking learning progress: To check respective learning progress, you can provide quizzes or questionnaires consisting of multiple choice and free text tasks via the activity "Test" in e-learning, to be completed by course participants. These can then be assessed both (partially) automatically or manually.
H5P: The activity "Interactive content" is also available. This allows you to create complex content such as interactive videos, questionnaires, drag-and-drop questions, multiple choice questions, presentations, and much more. You can find out more about the possibilities of H5P at h5p.org.

To Moodle

e-Lectures with Panopto

E-lectures can be conducted in three different scenarios. However, it is not only the classic lecture recording in a lecture hall with a control room that can be made into a high-quality video. Each and every instructor can make a lecture, seminar, or exercise available to their students live or asynchronously on a small scale as a webinar via self-recording and/or screencast. The third scenario is the creation of learning videos with which topics or content can be briefly presented and explained.

With the Panopto Recorder tool, lecturers can implement many ideas directly on and with their own computers. In order to download the Panopto Recorder, you will need to be activated once only. This happens automatically as soon as you have linked an e-learning course with Panopto for the first time – or you can write an e-mail to elearning@uni-bayreuth.de.

Panopto is a web-based video content management system for capturing, editing, delivering, and managing videos. Access is either directly via the web interface, or for Moodle integration to deliver content in your e-learning course. Panopto offers you the following functions when creating webinars or video recordings:

Video recording: With the help of the associated software "Panopto Recorder", you can record videos and screencasts with your workplace computer (PC or notebook with Windows or macOS).
Video editing: You can still edit the video and audio afterwards and add quizzes.
Live broadcasting: During the video recording, a live stream can also be transmitted, which you can make accessible via link.
Management and provision of the videos in a video library: You decide who can see your videos - only the participants of a specific e-learning course, other selected people, or all users of the internet. You also decide whether a video can only be viewed or also downloaded. You can also make existing videos available via the Panopto video platform. Access is via your university user account.
Integration into the e-Learning system: There is a direct connection between the Panopto and Moodle servers. Access to your videos is restricted to your students. They can be linked in a block or displayed directly in a section in your e-learning course.
Device-specific display: Your students can access videos via different end devices (PC, tablets, mobile phones). The videos are automatically adapted to the specific device.
Notes function: Students can add notes to the videos and share them with other students.

With Panopto you can record lectures in advance and make them available in the e-learning system. Presentations including sound can also be recorded on the PC. The recording of the presentation can be integrated into the e-learning system.

Video, audio & web conferences

DFNconf – the conference service in the German Research Network

With DFNconf you can broadcast your lecture or other event live and make it available to multiple participants.

As a rule, up to 23 people can participate in a DFNconf meeting, which is suitable for interactive formats with a small number of participants.
For events with larger numbers of participants, DFN-Verein recommends taking advantage of the offer of streaming DFNconf conferences, as there is no audience limit here. Especially for lectures aimed at a larger audience, this option should be more convenient for all participants. There is even a return channel for two-way communication in the form of text chat on the stream page, so that lecturers can take up and answer questions or comments from the audience during the lecture.
Web meetings with Adobe Connect: With Adobe Connect, web meetings, webinars, and online courses can be held for up to 200 participants. An exchange of files and documents, as well as collaborative, digital work in groups - i.e. the scenario of a "virtual classroom" - is also possible with Adobe Connect.

Teams

MS Teams is a platform developed by Microsoft in Microsoft 365. In addition to chat and video telephony, it offers the possibility of linking all Office programmes with each other. Documents from Word, Excel, or PowerPoint can be exchanged and edited via MS Teams. Participants are organised in groups and permissions are managed individually. This makes it possible for several people to work together on one document. Each user has 1 TB of personal storage space available in OneDrive.

Up to 300 people are allowed to participate in video conferences at the same time. Access is possible via PC, laptop, or smartphone. MS Teams is available as an app in the respective app stores. Teams is available to members of the University of Bayreuth free of charge. External persons can be granted access to a project. Teams offers all the usual functions such as 1:1 video telephony, conferences, lectures, and breakout rooms.

For the use of Teams, it is important to recognise Microsoft's data protection guidelines. Please refer to the information provided by the IT Security Officer of the University of Bayreuth.

Instructions for MS Teams can be found here:

Zoom

To support online teaching, the University of Bayreuth has expanded its offering with Zoom. A Zoom Meeting 300 license provided from central funds is available to each professorship for holding courses. Additional licenses can be obtained as needed at the expense of the respective institution.

Please do not create a profile directly via zoom.com. Zoom can only be accessed via uni-bayreuth.zoom.us. On Zoom.com or in the Zoom app, click on "Login via SSO" and enter uni-bayreuth.zoom.us in the next step. You can log in to the login service of the University of Bayreuth for Zoom using your BT ID and the corresponding password. A new licensed profile will be created. Please address any questions to zoom@uni-bayreuth.de.

When accessing for the first time, only the first name, last name, and email address are transmitted to Zoom. The password is not transmitted. Future logins also take place via uni-bayreuth.zoom.us, and authentication with identifier and password at the University of Bayreuth. You can then organise your own video conferences for up to 300 participants.

FAQ (in German)

ITS media loans

Further information on the digitisation of teaching

Centre for Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (Zentrum für Hochschullehre, ZHL)

Other relevant websites

Online offerings of (MOOC) platforms

To the online courses for students