Coronavirus impact: Jadavpur University, Calcutta University teachers go online

In the wake of lockdown triggered due to coronavirus pandemic, teachers of Jadavpur and Calcutta universities have begun conducting online classes for students, similar to what many schools in the city have done. To hold classes from home, some teachers at Jadavpur University are utilising gaming platform “Discord”. Discord helps to join a large number of students in a better communicating mode. Designed for video games, Discord is a digital distribution platform. It specialises in image, video, text and audio communication between users through a chat channel. On Tuesday midnight, the 21-day lockdown began covering the entire country. Likewise, to hold classes, teachers on the Ballygunge science college campus of Calcutta University are making use of the videoconferencing app “Teamlink”.

Last week Garden High International School had started conducting classes over Skype for students of classes 9-12. Teachers are holding classes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. As per Ekabali Ghosh, a student of MPhil in English at JU, Discord provides access to a large number of students, needs low bandwidth and is quite caring of the privacy of students.

According to Sujay Ghosh, an associate professor of zoology at Ballygunge Science College, he had downloaded the videoconferencing app Teamlink. After launching the app, one is meant to tap on start, enter an ID and password. The data gives access to the camera and microphone and users are redirected to the virtual class. Sabuj Kumar Chowdhury, an associate professor of library and information science at CU, said he had taken six classes online since March 16, using Microsoft Link.

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