HfG Offenbach and its first digital semester start
This weeek, the summer semester at HfG Offenbach starts for around 700 students – without traditional lectures and workshops on site, but on a digital platform we tailored to the University’s needs.
Wherever a large number of people used to meet in real space, the current situation calls for new approaches and solutions. The University of Art and Design Offenbach reacted quickly and we joined team with the internal IT department to set-up a digital learning environment providing temporal alternatives for their traditional forms of teaching and communication.
With our expertise in communication tools and server-side technology, we consulted the HfG task force to set up a powerful, easy-to-use, future-oriented, self-hosted open source solution based on Mattermost, BigBlueButton and NextCloud. With custom adjustments and configurations, the platforms allow videoconferencing, shared note taking, whiteboards, university wide group chat and file storage.
All within a standard web browser and without third party services. And within 14 days from project start to production.