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think modular deepens BigBlueButton’s integration with Drupal

think modular implements open source-based collaborative solutions using Drupal. As part of their work, think modular has created a suite of Drupal modules to make it easy for any Drupal developer to integrate BigBlueButton within their applications.  In particular, think modular uses their modules to integrate BigBlueButton within one of Drupal’s most popular community-building modules: Open Social.

“The integration with BigBlueButton EXTENDS Open Social into the space of providing virtual live events and real-time collaboration”

says Christian Zange, managing director of think modular. 

Their choice of BigBlueButton occurred after reviewing the other commercial and open-source real-time collaboration tools in the market.

“In our experience, BigBlueButton is a strong open-source based competitor among big commercial players. While, there are other open-source based solutions, we identified BigBlueButton as the strongest with the most complete vision and architecture. Thanks to the large open source community behind BigBlueButton, we see the capabilities of BigBlueButton constantly growing,”

added Christian.

One of the projects that think modular created using Open Social and BigBlueButton is Connective Cities, a platform designed for dedicated professionals to meet and exchange on city development in all its facets and global trends around mobility, health, digitalisation, climate change, and economy.

“Integrating BigBlueButton within the Connective Cities Community enabled members to hold conferences and calls throughout the pandemic situation without any interruption,”

says Christian.

The power of open source:
Drupal + BigBlueButton

Both Drupal and BigBlueButton are open source projects. Drupal is an enterprise-grade content management system (CMS) that is used by many large government, education and corporate organisations for creating large-scale solutions. Today, Drupal forms the platform for 14% of the world’s top 10,000 websites.

For adding BigBlueButton to any Drupal-based application, think modular created three base modules (developed in collaboration with their partners from WITS):

For OpenSocial, think-modular maintains an additional module:

“These modules make it easy for anyone to use BigBlueButton within Drupal and Open Social. The launching of sessions and access to recordings works seamlessly within DRUPAL, giving the site administrators fine grained control over access to BigBlueButton and subsequent recordings.”

says Christian.

The BigBlueButton project used Open Social to host the BigBlueButton World 2022 online conference. The four day conference had over 24 sessions with hundreds of registrations from over 30 countries.

“We really appreciate think modular’s support in setting up an Open Social platform to coordinate and host BigBlueButton World 2022.  The platform made it easy for us to coordinate the event and focus on delivery of sessions using BigBlueButton.”

says Fred Dixon, BigBlueButton’s Co-Founder.

Thanks to the efforts of think modular, the future of Drupal developers using BigBlueButton in more applications looks bright.

“We believe that BigBlueButton is the best open-source virtual classroom available. We look forward to working together with the BigBlueButton community to continue to advance the project for ourselves, our customers, and for all teachers and students world-wide.”

says Christian Zange.

About BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton is the world’s virtual classroom. Originally created in a Canadian university, it is now built-into the world’s most popular learning management systems (LMS), including Moodle Canvas, Sakai, D2L, Jenzabar, and Schoology – together comprising over 75% of global LMS deployments.

BigBlueButton is a growing open source project, with over 150 developers and commercial companies around the world enhancing the project for teachers and students. Thanks to this community, BigBlueButton is now localised into over 55 languages. 

For more information see: bigbluebutton.org/.

About think modular

think modular is headquartered in Vienna, Austria, founded and run by Christian Zange, Gerald Henzinger and Gerhard Schwed.

Their solutions include:

  • E-learning platforms – Learning management systems, e-learning content, focusing on implementing formal training processes
  • Collaboration systems – For peer learning and communities of practice, digital workplace
  • Digital libraries and media asset management systems

 

To learn more about think modular, visit: https://think-modular.com/en