Communicate using BigBlueButton

How to get it

BigBlueButton is accesible via our instance of Nextcloud suite: https://cloud.servus.at. So if you are a servus member you already have an account, more info here.

To become a member, currently, you have to apply for a membership via our membership form that is available through our organization’s website.

Restrictions

Currently up to 3 rooms are allowed per user, with a maximum of 20 participants for meetings.

This is to allow the server not be overloaded by big meetings, while simultaneously allowing many members to use it.

Larger events

If you plan to organize an online meeting where you expect more than 20 people to join in, then please make sure to contact us via our order formand provide when the event is taking place, and how many people you expect.

Please also check out the public calendar for already scheduled events to see availability and if you like you can add it into your own calendar.

We will raise your capacity restrictions for the duration of the event with our already in-place pay as you can model. Please propose a donation which is sustainable for your current situation from the suggested price table below:

Running and maintaining the server costs us an extra 6000 € per year, which currently is not possible to retrieve from our regular funding. We are constantly applying for additional funding, but any contribution helps.

But please note! We don’t want events not to happen or to be held on proprietary platforms simply because of the limited financial resources of groups or individuals, especially those who do precious cultural work.

General info

In short, BBB is a digital webinar platform. You can think of it as a replacement for physical spaces, a digital room for your events and meetings.

WHO and WHAT is it for?

In case you or your association is in need for a tool to organize and hold events, meetings, workshop sessions, distant learning/courses and you are either privacy-aware, or in need for an affordable but capable alternative or BOTH: BBB might be what you are looking for.

What is it NOT for?

• NOT an all-in-one solution for your events. You still have to organize, moderate and manage it yourself.
• NOT a streaming platform like YouTube, Twitch or dorfTV. There is a limitation to how many people can actually join.
• NOT a video archiving platform for events or meetings. Your recordings will be deleted after 30 days.

What can the software do/offer?

BBB, through its web interface, offers:

• real-time sharing of audio, video, slides (with whiteboard controls), chat, and the screen.
• Instructors can engage remote students with polling, emojis, multi-user whiteboard, and breakout rooms.
• Presenters can record and playback content for later sharing with others.

This is of course presented through a customizable interface and many other features. As the developers put it:

We designed BigBlueButton for online learning (though it can be used for many other applications). The educational use cases for BigBlueButton are:

• Online tutoring (one-to-one)
• Flipped classrooms (recording content ahead of your session)
• Group collaboration (many-to-many)
• Online classes (one-to-many)

https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton#bigbluebutton (accessed 15/11/2021 10:48 CEST)

What we as servus offer is the platform, to the extent of what the software is capable of; and our knowledge that we acquired over time, using it for organizing events and meetings.

So all you need to do is to make sure you have someone in your work group or association that can handle moderation and the organization of the event on the platform, and then get in touch!