Services and tools to support teaching

The University of Bern has equipped various lecture halls with podcast infrastructure. Software from SWITCH enables podcasts to be easily recorded, edited and published.

Opencast – Podcasting an der Universität Bern

At the University of Bern, more than 40 lecture halls are equipped with podcast infrastructure. This infrastructure and the Opencast software make it easy record, edit and published lectures and also to broadcast them live. The corresponding object «Opencast series» can be created in ILIAS or is created automatically when the recording is ordered via KSL. The recordings are thus available to students as an additional learning source for post-session review and exam preparation.

If a lecture hall does not have the necessary, permanently installed infrastructure, mobile podcast equipment can be rented for one-off recordings.

Video in higher education

From lecture recordings and specially-produced instructional films to the analysis of videographic case studies - videos are becoming increasingly important in university teaching. They can be used as helpful supplements to face-to-face teaching or a basis for new teaching scenarios.

In order to impart knowledge to students or to provide information about the course, the communication of this information is extremely important. Many of these tools are suitable for accompanying self-study.

ILIAS - Teaching and learning platform

In ILIAS there are many different tools at your disposal to present information to your students. Be it for imparting knowledge, announcing a change in the course of the semester or providing learning materials.

Contents that have to be edited or prepared independently can be prepared and made available visually and multimedia-based. Depending on the needs, complex authoring tools or in-house solutions from the University of Bern can help with the implementation.

ILIAS - Teaching and learning platform

With the learning module ILIAS offers different possibilities to supplement texts with multimedia contents such as videos, pictures, sound and control questions.

Authoring tools - commercial software

Authoring tools help to convey facts and thus knowledge in a structured way. The authoring tool is the software used to prepare this content. In addition to the actual content, quizzes and questions are often included so that the students can test themselves in self-study and check what they have learned (formative feedback). The digital preparation of learning content can be implemented with an authoring tool.

If a more versatile authoring tool is desired, it may be advisable to purchase a commercial product. Often the following products are used, which can be integrated into ILIAS for example as learning module SCORM.

Create learning videos

Videos are often suitable to make processes visible. Screencasts have only become really popular through video portals like Youtube and Co. With the help of a short video tutorial, processes in the use of software can be made visible on the computer screen. Instead of instructions in text form, the operation of a software is recorded in the video by screen recording and made available digitally on the web.

The video recordings can also be covered with sound. Commercial programs, such as Camtasia, also allow menus and elements to be included in the video recording to highlight or label particularly sensitive points.

Screencasts can be created with simple software, often pre-installed on a computer, and saved in a common video format. Usually the videos are short and rarely longer than 5 to 10 minutes.

Interact with your audience by including engaging questions in your presentation. Audience activation makes particular sense for events with many participants or for a longer speech.

Two tools are available for this purpose at the University of Bern.