UConn Supported Video Conference Tools Comparison

Collaborate is a simple, convenient, and reliable online collaborative learning solution. It allows you to virtually meet synchronously with students. The tool is tightly integrated with HuskyCT.

A Webex meeting is an online meeting that allows you to virtually meet with other people. Also included is a Personal Room that includes a lobby that allows the host to select who to allow entrance to the room. The lobby is also available for Scheduled Webex Sessions. In addition, there is an integration with HuskyCT.

Make meetings more personal and encourage teamwork when you virtually meet face-to-face.  Microsoft Teams has more functionality than video conferencing, such as asynchronous chat, file sharing, etc. But for this chart, we'll only focus on video conferencing.

Available only through HuskyCT. Instructor and Leaders are Moderators (Hosts) and Students are Attendees unless the role is changed to Moderator or Presenter.

All Staff, Faculty, and Students have Webex Host Accounts at webex.uconn.edu.  

(A Host account is able to create meetings)

All Staff, Faculty, and Students have Office365 Accounts which gives them access to MS Teams. Students must log in with their UConn email and NetID password.

Course Room: Always available to anyone in the course. Recommended using this when meeting with students.
Created Sessions: Available to anyone in the course if the instructor wants multiple sessions at once (i.e., virtual study rooms).

Personal Room: Includes a lobby that gives the host the option to select who can enter the room or let everyone in at once. The Personal Room is locked until the host unlocks it.
Created Sessions: Can be used to invite attendees using Webex application or a link can be sent to attendees. This also includes the lobby feature.

A Team Meeting can be:

• Set up ad-hoc (Meet Now)

• A private meeting using either Outlook Integration or the Calendar in Teams

• A team Channel where all members can join

500
Must indicate 250+ participants in session settings
* Cannot use breakout groups if 250+ is selected

1,000

100 (unless using Live Meeting platform which has up to 10,000)

25 

25

• 49 Using Large Gallery View (must have 10 or more attendees for this to become active)

• 9 Using Gallery View

• 49 Together Mode changes the view from squares to classroom style for each participant (must have 4 or more people)

No

Yes

Yes

Yes, recordings are automatically stored in the course, and participants are identified by their account information from the course. Makes polling easier to track.

Yes, if using the Webex Tool in HuskyCT recording links are automatically shown in the course, the recordings are still hosted on webex.uconn.edu. Host must start the session from HuskyCT for the links to appear.

Not at this time.

No

Yes, can schedule sessions or personal rooms on behalf of someone. Need to install Webex add-in for Outlook.

Yes, when initiating an Outlook meeting, Teams is an option for the meeting.

Only if a captioner is present and assigned the captioner role.

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, can save annotations but file resolution is low (PNG) and if sharing a file, the original document isn't saved with it.
Sharing files size limit 60MB, total 125MB.

Yes, can save annotations with the option to save as PDF. The resolution is good and the original document is saved with the annotation. Sharing Files or Whiteboard will affect the final recording.

Yes, can save annotations as PNG (lower quality) or open it in the Microsoft Whiteboard App and save it as a High-Quality Image (SVG).

Yes, using Chrome & Windows, can share Audio with Screen or Chrome tab. 
Yes, using Chrome & Mac, can share Audio with Chrome Tab.

Yes; before sharing, click Share computer audio.

Yes; before sharing screen/application, turn on share audio. Can also turn on system audio as you are sharing screen/application.

Not available

Yes, Music Mode

Yes

No, not directly. But can be connected to a computer (Mac/Windows) to share its screen.

Yes. The recommendation is to connect the computer (Mac/Windows) to host the session and connect the iPad or another similar device as a participant (do not turn on audio so you do not get feedback). Then share the screen.

Yes. if hosting the meeting, you have the option to join it a second time from an iPad without audio.

Yes, create questions at the moment. Recommendation: Set up questions in PowerPoint so you do not need to type out the entire question during the live session.

The Polling responses can be downloaded after the session is over to give credit to students.

Yes, Slido is a new app acquired by Cisco and can be used for polling. If you have a Slido account. You need a new Slido account using your Webex credentials. With it, you have the full version of Slido.

Using the Webex original Polling feature, you can create questions in any Webex room before the meeting starts to save questions. Then, once the meeting starts, questions can be opened. Uses ATP file format. Responses can be saved right after each question is asked; if they are not saved, the data is lost.

Can create Microsoft Form ahead of the meeting with the polling questions. Results can be found in the form on OneDrive.

Can use Slido integrated into Teams. Responses are saved with Slido. The Webex version of Slido cannot be integrated into Teams. A second account from Slido must be used if you want to use the integrated version of Slido in Teams.

Yes (limit 25)

Can leverage Blackboard/HuskyCT Group Sets to place participants in specific breakout rooms.

Breakout groups are randomized or manually populated. Group membership may change if participants go back into breakout groups again. To control participants in the Breakout room it is recommended you "allow attendees to switch groups" so students can move to their group after breakout sessions start. Alternatively, the instructor can create Groups in HuskyCT and add the Collaborate Tool for the group. Only students in that Group can see the Group Room, and the Instructor can go into any Group Room. 

Communicating with Everyone can be accomplished by sending a chat to Everyone.

Note: When recording the session, the recording will stop when breakout sessions begin. The instructor (moderator) must restart the recording when everyone returns to the main room. 

Yes (limit 100)

Breakout sessions can be randomized, manually populated, or participants can select their breakout session. There is an option to pre-assign the sessions when setting up the meeting but the recommendation is to use the option "Let participants choose any session" and then communicate with the participants which group they should join. Group membership remains the same throughout the session. 

There is a timer for the breakout group which Collaborate does not have at this time. Below are the default options for breakout sessions.

Recommended Options:

• Allow attendees to return to the main session: turn on if participants need to chat with the host.

• Allow attendees to join session later: recommended to turn this off.

• Show countdown warning before closing sessions: give participants some time to complete their conversations before returning to the main room. 

Note: When recording the session, the recording will continue recording the main room when breakout sessions begin. If the instructor (host) is in the main room, anything said or displayed is recorded.  The recording can be paused but would need to be started again when the breakout session ends.

Yes (limit 50)

Automatically: Teams divides participants equally between the rooms.

Manually: You can choose which room each participant is placed in.

The meeting organizer can send announcements to all participants while breakout rooms are open. Select the ellipses […] in the breakout rooms header.

Note: Each breakout room can be recorded as separate meeting recordings. The host would need to go into each room to initiate the recording if participants do not have this access.

Yes, the host is the moderator. Instructors and TAs have the role of moderator, but anyone that joins the session can be assigned the moderator role.

Yes, after a meeting starts, anyone in the session can be assigned as co-host. Co-hosts can also be added when a meeting is scheduled if the participant has a UConn Webex account and their email is added to the invitation. 

The organizer of the meeting can change the roles of participants to either Presenter or Attendee. Anyone with the presenter role has the same permissions as the organizer of the meeting and can even start recording.

Yes, off by default when creating sessions.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes: chat, raise hand (student that raises hand goes to the top of the attendee list), my status icon gives options to indicate different emotions (happy/sad, etc.), and responses (agree/disagree).

Yes: chat and raise hand. The hand appears next to the attendee. By default, the attendee list is sorted by who raised their hand first. Reactions are also available, such as thumbs up/down, clap hands, smile, etc.

Yes: chat, raise hand, clap, thumbs up, and other emojis.

Collaborate offers attendance reports for each Collaborate session and can be downloaded to a CSV file.

Webex offers Insight/Reports that include attendance for sessions and can be downloaded to a CSV file.

Teams allows for downloading attendance list during the meeting; if this is a scheduled meeting in Channel, it can be downloaded after the meeting. It is found in the Channel.

Yes, requires Safari on iOS; Chrome on Android (but only use as participant, not host).

Yes, using the Webex Meet app.

Yes, using the Microsoft Teams app.

Yes

Yes

Yes