Hosted and Managed Synchronous Teaching Tool

Tender description

Ulster University (hereafter referred to as the University) is seeking to procure a synchronous technology to support real-time communication and collaboration between staff and students both on and off campus and, in the case of Distance Learning and flexible programmes, in geographically remote locations, The University is based on four campuses in Northern Ireland with approximately 27000 users actively using digital learning technologies. Whilst this number exceeds FTE numbers the figure encompasses on campus students, distance-learning students (approximately 1000), students on flexible professional and short courses and academic and administrative staff. The institution employs approximately 3000 people across a range of disciplines (Academic, Research, Business Support Profession, Business Support Clerical, Technical etc.) The business drivers for reliable synchronous teaching technologies are related to flexibility in time and space. The tools provide opportunities for live instruction within a blended delivery model. The synchronous teaching solution should provide opportunities for communication and collaboration between staff and students and should facilitate recording, storage and archiving of sessions for future playback. The system should support common higher education synchronous teaching workflows including guest lectures, student break out rooms, online annotation, presentations, pre-recorded sessions, polling, question and answers and real-time chat. The solution will also be used to allow staff to deliver lectures to multi-campus locations