Since 2020, BigBlueButton has been an indispensable part of digital teaching at the University of Vienna. The platform is fully integrated into Moodle and supports courses, online meetings and group work. In the winter semester 2024/25, 10,229 meetings with 103,016 participants were held via BigBlueButton.
It was therefore a particular pleasure for the e-learning team of the ZID to welcome the global BigBlueButton community to Vienna for the developer conference from 24 to 28 November 2025, in collaboration with the consulting firm Think Modular.
Collaboration for the next version of BigBlueButton
The summit was all about innovation and cooperation with the clear goal of expanding BigBlueButton in a targeted manner and implementing noticeable improvements. Right at the start, project teams were formed to work on topics related to the upcoming BigBlueButton version 3.1.
With version 3.1 and the new plug-in system, the community is pursuing a more modular and sustainable development approach. The summit provided important impetus for this: more openness to contributions, faster release cycles and better adaptability to different teaching and learning scenarios. The plug-in system makes it possible to develop new features without having to change the core software.
The focus of the development work was on:
- Improving accessibility through live transcription and translation
- Integrating a matrix for chat and collaboration
- Connecting H5P for interactive learning content
- Further developing existing plug-ins
- Improving the user interface
- Optimising sound and video quality
- Performing stress tests
Exchange, networking and experiencing Vienna
Despite the intensive work, there was still time to discover the university and the city: a guided tour of the server rooms in the main building and a visit to the ballroom were on the agenda, as was an evening city tour with exciting stories about Vienna. The enthusiasm for development was also palpable outside the official program: ideas were discussed, possibilities explored and prototypes refined late into the night.
Finally, the teams presented their results in live demos – directly in BigBlueButton, of course.
