[acc-cca-l] Looking for thoughts on sound/video quality, usability of video conferencing systems

[Fred Vallance-Jones]

Hello everyone,

I am hoping to get some wisdom from the hive here. We are doing our King's summer data school online this year, and it will involve a number of live sessions with students, along with a lot of asynchronous content.
There are three video conferencing platforms with which I am familiar from recent experience here at King's, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Blackboard Collaborate (part of BrightSpace). They all seem to have the same base functionality of being able to pull a group together for a meeting, online class, etc, share a screen, etc.  I am trying to get a sense of whether any of these has regular problems with connectivity, sound or video quality, or ease of use. Have you experienced such issues? Would you recommend against using one of these because of those issues? Is one particularly solid?
This question is aside from the known security issues with Zoom, which I know are being worked upon, and specific issues about whether a particular platform is supported internally at an institution.
There would be up to 20 people online at once for the data school.
I have not considered Skype because I have found it unreliable, with frequent dropped calls and the like.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you can provide.

Fred VJ



Fred Vallance-Jones

Associate Professor of Journalism

University of King's College

Halifax, Nova Scotia
902-422-1271 ext 147


The University of King's College is located
in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded
territory of the Mi’kmaq.

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