BlueJeans: leading videoconferencing tool for small universities and the education sector
October 03, 2018
BlueJeans: leading videoconferencing tool for small universities and the education sector
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with BlueJeans
BlueJeans is currently being managed by a team that delivers videoconferencing services across campus, and it's also integrated to our CANVAS platform to be used by faculty. Its use is quite moderate, since not all of our courses require online meetings. We have had wide experience using it with our room systems on campus, and for courses imparted by professors outside our country. It's been very helpful to have an easy-to-use service that can be delivered to anyone who requires it. Furthermore the new features such as direct stream to Facebook have allowed us to offer new ways to deliver content to our audience for events in larger rooms, auditoriums, etc.
Pros
- Alternatives to join meetings from different types of systems.
- Great pricing models and more features included than other alternatives for cloud based videoconferencing services.
- Very reliable, easy to use interface backed by a stable service that performs well in many situations.
- Very low bandwidth and network resources required when compared to Skype.
Cons
- Missing essential features expected in a cloud videoconferencing service such as the ability to record chats after a meeting.
- Limited in-meeting controls for moderators. A moderator lacks the option to completely remove the audio channel of other participants, which can be a hassle when a lot of novice users are connected.
- Documentation isn't always updated and is not very specific or detailed.
- Most importantly, it opened up new deployment options for our main service: education.
- We now offer online courses that are part of the official curriculum and imparted in a 100% synchronous fashion.
- It has helped us foster innovation in the classroom by opening the doors to international instructors who connect remotely.
- The number of users and demand for this service in our campus has increased drastically since we first started with BlueJeans.
- WebEx Event Center and Zoom
When compared to Cisco Webex, BlueJeans offers a wide array of features and ways to connect that are far beyond the capabilities of Webex. It all comes down to compatibility with different types of operative systems and videoconferencing hardware. Also, Webex is a much more limited tool when it comes down to video and the way it is presented to the user in the application. Just the ability to have every participant use video makes a huge contrast when compared to the limited video connections in WebEx Event Center.
Zoom on the other hand offers many similar characteristics to the BlueJeans platform, but fails in my opinion to deliver a more consistent pricing model. Zoom offers less for the same amount of money and you have to pay for every H.323 endpoint, which is not convenient for our use case. The cloud recording options in Zoom are also more limited and you have to pay monthly to retain your content on their servers.
Zoom on the other hand offers many similar characteristics to the BlueJeans platform, but fails in my opinion to deliver a more consistent pricing model. Zoom offers less for the same amount of money and you have to pay for every H.323 endpoint, which is not convenient for our use case. The cloud recording options in Zoom are also more limited and you have to pay monthly to retain your content on their servers.
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