Beat the floods with Collaborate

It\’s a bit wet out, isn\’t it? Half the roads have been closed, the rest blocked with traffic jams and the Hive has had its own moat replete with a paddling (the collective noun – thank you Google) of ducks. Heavy rain again today may bring further disruption as the river levels rise once more.

Amid this chaos, staff across the university have been making use of Collaborate Virtual Classroom to deliver lectures and tutorials when they and/or their students are unable to make it onto campus. Collaborate can also be used to attend meetings when your physical presence is not possible.

\”Due to the floods, I used Collaborate to host an approval event. Seven colleagues in four different venues accessed Collaborate and we were all very impressed with the connectivity, video and sound quality. Much better than other alternatives that I have used in the past.\”

Catriona Robinson, College Director Learning, Teaching and Quality

Collaborate is a plugin on Blackboard and can be found in the left-hand menu of any module under Virtual Classroom. From here you can schedule a session, send invites to attendees, or use the generic course room for impromptu meetings.

All you need to operate collaborate is a laptop, pc or mobile device, a decent internet connection and, if you are the speaker, some form of microphone and a webcam, if desired. As with all TEL systems, users should ensure that they are accessing Collaborate via either Google Chrome or Firefox. Other browsers will not work.

For more information about using Collaborate, see our detailed guidance about the system.

If you have any questions or require additional suppoprt in using Collaborate, please contact us at TEL@worc.ac.uk.