Student guide

Many courses include project work in international teams. The platform gives every team three tools: a team chat, a video room and team spaces such as a group forum or group wiki.

Groups

Teachers put students into groups (for example Project team A, Project team B). You cannot join a group yourself – unless the teacher uses a self-selection activity. You can see your groups in the course under Participants (filter by group) and in your profile. Activities can work in three group modes:

• No groups – everybody works together.
• Separate groups – you see only the work and discussions of your own group.
• Visible groups – you work in your group but can read the other groups' work.

Team chat

If the teacher has switched on Group messaging for your group, the group automatically gets a group conversation that all members share.

1. Click the speech bubble in the top bar (or open messages).
2. Open the section Group and click the conversation of your team (it has the name of the group).
3. Write your message at the bottom and send it. Messages appear for all members immediately, without reloading the page. You can use emoji.
4. Use the three-dot menu of the conversation to see the Group info (members), to Star conversation (keeps it at the top) or to Mute it.

Tip: Use the team chat for quick coordination ("Who uploads the final map?"), and the group forum or wiki for decisions and results that must stay findable. Agree on a common language in international teams.

Note: If the section Group is empty, group messaging has not been switched on for your group or you have not yet been added to a group. Ask your teacher.

Video meeting with one click

Every course has its own video room. At the top of the course page there is a box with the button Join the video meeting; the same page is available via More › Video meeting. It is built on Jitsi Meet – free, open-source software that runs in the browser without installation.

Joining the course meeting

1. Click Join the video meeting. The meeting opens in a new browser tab. Your name and language are filled in automatically.
2. Check your name on the pre-join screen, then allow the camera and microphone when the browser asks.
3. Click the join button. You are in the meeting.

Team rooms

On the meeting page (More › Video meeting) the section Rooms of the project teams shows one button Join the team room for each group you belong to. Each team therefore has its own permanent room for team meetings – nobody from other teams gets in by accident.

Who opens the room

On the free public Jitsi server (meet.jit.si) the first person in a room must sign in once with a Google, GitHub or Facebook account to open the room – usually this is the teacher. Everybody else joins without an account. In a team room without the teacher, one team member must therefore do this step. If the university runs its own Jitsi server, this step may not be needed.

Note: If the teacher has set their own meeting link (Google Meet, Microsoft Teams or Zoom), the button leads there instead; the page then says Your teacher has set the link for the video meetings of this course. The team rooms still use Jitsi.

Controls in the meeting

Button	Function
Microphone	Mute or unmute yourself. Stay muted when you are not speaking.
Camera	Switch your video on or off; choose a virtual background in the camera menu.
Screen sharing	Share your whole screen, a window or a browser tab (for example your QGIS map).
Chat	Text chat inside the meeting (it is not saved after the meeting).
Raise hand	Signal that you want to speak.
Tile view	See all participants at once.
Leave (red button)	Leave the meeting.

On a phone

Install the free Jitsi Meet app (Android or iOS). When you click the button on the platform on your phone, the link opens in the app automatically.

Tip: Use headphones to avoid echo, test the camera and microphone a few minutes before the meeting and close other programs that use the camera. If the browser does not ask for permission, click the camera icon in the address bar and allow access.

BigBlueButton sessions

Some courses also contain a BigBlueButton activity (for example a weekly online consultation). It is a virtual classroom inside Moodle with presentation, whiteboard, polls, breakout rooms and recording.

1. Open the activity at the scheduled time; the page shows whether the session is open.
2. Click Join session and choose whether to join with the microphone or listen only; do the echo test.
3. Recordings (if made) are listed on the activity page after the session.

Note: BigBlueButton works only after the administrator has connected a BigBlueButton server. Until then, use the video meeting button described above.