Online collaboration has become widespread in recent years, largely due to major technological advances and, in particular, easier access to the internet.
As an example of this reality, the video component as an educational tool is now crucial in supporting teaching and learning. During the pandemic, it has clearly shown its advantages and applicability, managing to ensure classes and distance learning at a national and global level. It broke down existing geographical barriers and overcame the complex and unexpected pandemic context we were faced with.
A FCTunit FCCNunit, offers a range of services that help leverage this type of collaborative activity and support for teaching and learning, whether in a face-to-face, distance or hybrid format. These services can be used free of charge by the entire community connected to the RCTS (Science, Technology and Society Network)This includes teachers, students, researchers and staff of academic and research organizations.
FCCN services that allow you to collaborate online
#1 Hummingbirds
Today it is mainly used for synchronous activities in the form of classes, seminars , webinarsgroup work and tutoring tutoring. Its use, when compared to the pre-pandemic years, has increased significantly, reaching in the year 2023 more than 1,106,909 sessions and webinars358,145,775 minutes and a total of 6,445,160 participants.
During the pandemic, the entire national infrastructure supporting the service was reinforced and the existing licensing was renewed until 2025. In addition, new features were added, including the launch of the help site, direct integration with LMS(Learning Management Systems) via LTI and the possibility of requesting webinars for larger events with capacities of up to 500 and 1000 participants.
#2 Studio
This service from FCCN offers the capacity to create and produce high-quality educational content using the latest in video capture and mixing, audio and virtual scenography, and currently allows content to be recorded and delivered in Full HD and/or 4K. This space is equipped with all the audiovisual and technical resources needed to produce all kinds of multimedia content: video lessons , webinarstutorials, podcastsMOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), 360° immersive video and audio.
In 2022, work was carried out to remodel and expand the space, adding a new sound booth to the existing video booth, audio booth and plateau. sound bootha waiting room, a dressing room, a technical room and a technical storage area. In technological terms, improvements were implemented, including the upgrade and training of the space for video and audio transmission over IP (NDI and Dante). During 2023, this service accounted for a total of 537 hours of use and 445 pieces of content produced.
#3 Educast
It offers an all-in-one solution that lets you record, edit and publish videos on the web and for mobile devices, making it easy to integrate into the most widely used digital platforms in academia, whether it's a website, blog, LMS (Learning Management System) or even a MOOC.
Over the last few years, the Educast service has introduced a series of new features, including a browser-based video editor, a Recorder (windows, mac and linux), which allows synchronous recording of video, audio and data, and a new content search portal. Its use becomes more relevant when recording classes, tutorials and institutional events. This service provides access to VoD (video on demand) content and can be used as an institutional repository to manage all the audiovisual content created by Portuguese higher education institutions. It then allows easy access to the content, anywhere and at any time, via different devices and in various formats(streaming, desktop and mobile).
This service can be used autonomously by lecturers to record classes and tutorials, students to submit work in video format and staff to record classes and institutional events. In terms of production, the platform currently has more than 56,200 videos available and a total of 62,995 registered users. At the time of writing, more than 4,700 videos and 170,000 minutes of video have been produced on the service during 2023.
#4 Videocast
It allows events to be broadcast in real time, including seminars, institutional events, internal television channels, live nature observation, among others. The service allows the member community to autonomously create broadcast channels(publishingpoints) and customize the layout of each event, including description, branding, chat, sharing on social networks, access and privacy control and later access to usage statistics.
In this context, we would highlight the revitalization of the Nature on the Web initiative, which allows real-time visualization of animals in their wild environment, such as griffon vultures, shearwaters, bats, ospreys, nature reserves, etc. This project was boosted by the expansion of the network of partners (FCT|FCCN, Jornal Público, Infra-Estruturas de Portugal, Centro Ciência Viva do Alviela, SPEA and the Vita Nativa association), which allowed the number of cameras and species available on the platform to increase. In 2023 alone, more than 20,000 hours of content were broadcast through this service.
