A video lecture is a dialogue of lecturers with their long-distance audience, happening in real time and providing an opportunity for live communication during the process of distant learning.

The idea of delivering video lectures is still relatively new, but due to the active promotion and development of broadband Internet access in Russia, this method has become increasingly popular in the field of education. A video lecture takes advantage of all the benefits of the videoconferencing technologies; moreover, it provides for a communication between the lecturer and the audience that is highly interactive. Transmission of video images in real time creates the effect of actual presence at the lecture, as if the listeners were sitting in the lecture hall directly facing the lecturer.

Introducing the system of video lectures at the AUDEAMUS website will enable every participant to study courses and take part in seminars provided by the leading professors and scholars of St. Petersburg State University, while physically being in any part of the world which has Internet access. Scholars and professors participating in the project will be able to deliver video lectures at any time they find convenient, while having an opportunity to publish the schedule and inform the students about the relevant classes.

Major benefits of the new system of video lectures:

• delivering lectures with simultaneous participation of as many as 100 invited listeners;
• opportunity for listeners and lecturers to engage in “live” communication;
• possibility for lecturers to provide listeners with previously prepared lecture support materials;
• possibility to test the knowledge of students in real time;
• recording video lectures, which makes it possible to watch the lecture later and create an archive;
• organizing multi-way video conferencing (up to 14 participants) — enabling contributions (speeches and presentations) from the participants;
• sharing presentations;
• sharing videos;
• electronic drawing board that can be used by any of the participants of the video conference;
• organising open or private chat sessions for the participants;
• possibility to adjust the video quality, depending on the bandwidth used by the participants.

System requirements

Users participate in webinar using web browser.