Rutgers.eduAnnual Review 2019-2020
Web conferencing at the forefront
Platforms for web conferencing
In 2020, Rutgers offered three main web conferencing platforms—Zoom, Webex, and Microsoft Teams—providing a variety of options to choose from. This allowed the Rutgers community to work together through a common workspace and participate in virtual meetings securely from anywhere during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The strength of these web conferencing platforms helped in the efforts to transition many faculty, staff, and students into teaching, working, and learning remotely.
Zoom
In July of 2020, the Office of Information Technology announced that Zoom would be available as a new web conferencing option at Rutgers. Zoom joined existing offerings—Webex and Microsoft Teams—and provided further choice for collaboration to Rutgers students, faculty, and staff. Both the amount of Zoom meetings and participants continued to steadily increase from July-September 2020 after Zoom became available and Rutgers remained in mostly remote operation.
Meetings per month
14,107
July
50,523
August
172,476
September
Participants per month
Webex
Webex is a Rutgers web conferencing tool that enables collaboration through online meetings and video conferencing. When Rutgers University had to switch to remote operation in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a massive increase in online participants and time spent on virtual meetings each week due to the need to conduct video conferences from home. The numbers continued to skyrocket through the end of April and even through the end of the fiscal year.
Participants per month
16,608
February
334,620
March
782,572
April
Participant meeting minutes per week
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration platform integrated within Microsoft Office 365. Teams has been steadily used as a Rutgers meeting resource. This is especially true from January 2020 through September 2020. The number of meetings increased dramatically as the university community adjusted to mostly remote operation.
Participants per month
175
February
3,654
March
8,665
April