BigBlueButton explained

BigBlueButton
Developer:BigBlueButton Inc.
Programming Language:Java, Grails/Groovy, Scala (back-end), JavaScript/React (web framework) (front-end client)
Operating System:Linux
Genre:Collaborative software, Web conferencing
License:LGPL[1]
Website:bigbluebutton.org

BigBlueButton is a virtual classroom software program designed for online education. It is accessed through Learning Management Systems, providing engagement tools and analytics which enable educators to interact with their students remotely. BigBlueButton is open source, except for some versions of its database software.

History

The project was started at Carleton University in 2007 by the Technology Innovation Management program.[2] The first version, initially referred to as the Blindside project, was written by Richard Alam under the supervision of Tony Bailetti.[3] BigBlueButton is an affiliate member of the Open Source Initiative.[4] The BigBlueButton name derives from the idea that starting a web conference should be as simple as "pressing a (metaphorical) big blue button".[5]

In 2009, Richard Alam, Denis Zgonjanin, and Fred Dixon uploaded the BigBlueButton source code to Google Code and formed Blindside Networks, a company pursuing the traditional open source business model of providing paid support and services to the BigBlueButton community.[6]

In 2010, the core developers added a whiteboard for annotating the uploaded presentation. Jeremy Thomerson added an application programming interface (API) which the BigBlueButton community subsequently used to integrate with Sakai,[7] WordPress,[8] Moodle 1.9,[9] [10] Moodle 2.0, Joomla,[11] Redmine,[12] Drupal,[13] Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware,[14] Foswiki,[15] and LAMS.[16] Google accepted BigBlueButton into the 2010 Google Summer of Code program.[17] To encourage contributions from others, the core developers moved the source code from Google Code to GitHub.[18] The project indicated its intent of creating an independent, not-for-profit BigBlueButton Foundation to oversee future development.[19]

In 2011, the core developers announced that they were adding record and playback capabilities to BigBlueButton 0.80.[20]

In 2020, the project released BigBlueButton 2.2, a full rewrite of the client and server to support HTML5.[21]

In March 2020, BigBlueButton 2.2 was awarded by the President of the ENTD,[22] Pasquale Aiello, as the best web conferencing system and used in the project UNIOPEN,[23] approved by the European Commission for Digital Skills and Job Coalition[24] action plan.

In 2021, version 2.3 was released. BigBlueButton continued to depend on MongoDB, which became proprietary in version 3.6 and later, released in 2018. BigBlueButton 2.3 is the first which recommends using a proprietary MongoDB version but remains compatible with the free software 3.4 MongoDB.

In 2022, BigBlueButton was directly embedded into the Moodle 4.0 core, the largest Learning Management System. It also released two new updates that included BigBlueButton 2.4 in January and BigBlueButton 2.5 in late September. BigBlueButton continues to be used by organizations including the Ministry of National Education (France), the Air Education and Training Command, not-for-profits such as School on Wheels, and schools throughout the world for remote learning and teaching.

VersionRelease date
25 May 2017
11 March 2020
30 April 2021
20 December 2021[25]
9 June 2022[26]
2.621 March 2023[27]
2.77 September 2023[28]

Architecture

As a web page application, the BigBlueButton frontend uses React and the backend uses MongoDB and Node.js. It also uses Redis to maintain an internal list of its meetings, attendees, and any other relevant information. As of version 2.5, the server runs on Ubuntu 20.04 64-bit and can be installed either from packages[29] or an install script.[30]

Adoption among non-profits

In 2020, BigBlueButton was adopted by many FLOSS focused non-profits including Wikimedia Australia, Constant vzw[31] and new FLOSS focused coops like Catalan's The Online Meeting Cooperative.[32] In France it is recommended since May 2020 by the Digital Interministry Direction defining the state's information and communication systems.[33]

Third-party integrations

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Open Source License | Open Source Project | BigBlueButton.
  2. Nettleton, Rob "BigBlueButton", EDC Blog, June 4, 2010.
  3. Web site: Lead Projects. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20140329224659/http://timreview.ca/article/98. 2014-03-29. TIM Review. 2012-08-15.
  4. Web site: OSI Affiliate Membership. live. 2021-02-18. Open Source Initiative. 22 May 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120613171332/http://www.opensource.org:80/affiliates . 13 June 2012 .
  5. Web site: BigBlueButton : FAQ. BigBlueButton. 2020-11-27.
  6. Dixon, Fred "Lessons from an Open Source Business", Open Source Business Resource, April 2011.
  7. Web site: Home – Contrib: bigbluebutton – Confluence. live. sakaiproject.org. 2010-10-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20101022113617/http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/BBB/Home. 22 October 2010.
  8. Web site: WordPress Plugin Directory: BigBlueButton. live. wordpress.org. 2010-10-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20101106173915/http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bigbluebutton/. 6 November 2010.
  9. Web site: Moodle.org: Modules and plugins: BigBlueButton. moodle.org. 2010-10-23.
  10. Web site: BigBlueButton releases activity module integration for Moodle 1.9 & 2.0. lmspulse.com. 2011-01-18.
  11. Web site: BigBlueButton Integration – Joomla! Extensions Directory. dead. joomla.org. 2010-10-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20101020050903/http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/communication/video-conference/14317. 2010-10-20.
  12. Web site: Redmine – PluginBBB – Redmine. live. redmine.org. 2010-10-23. https://web.archive.org/web/20101003055652/http://www.redmine.org/wiki/redmine/PluginBBB. 3 October 2010.
  13. Web site: BigBlueButton - drupal.org. 8 March 2010 . drupal.org. 2010-10-23.
  14. Web site: BigBlueButton – Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware. tiki.org. 2011-01-22.
  15. Web site: BigBlueButtonPlugin - foswiki.org. live. foswiki.org. 2010-11-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20101117130027/http://foswiki.org/Extensions/BigBlueButtonPlugin. 17 November 2010.
  16. Web site: BigBlueButton integration - lamscommunity.org. lamscommunity.org. 2011-05-04.
  17. Web site: GSoC Organization for BigBlueButton. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100726085331/http://socghop.appspot.com/gsoc/org/show/google/gsoc2010/bigbluebutton_soc. 2010-07-26. appspot.com. 2010-10-23.
  18. Web site: Dixon. Fred. Minutes from BigBlueButton committers meeting 2010-04-27 – BigBlueButton-dev – Google Groups. 2010-10-23.
  19. Dixon, Fred "BigBlueButton Foundation", BigBlueButton Blog, July 12, 2010
  20. Web site: Dixon. Fred. BigBlueButton 0.8-beta-3 released – BigBlueButton-dev – Google Groups. 2010-11-24.
  21. Web site: Dixon. Fred. BigBlueButton 2.2. 11 March 2020 . 2020-03-11.
  22. Web site: ENTDI. Direzione. Home. 2021-02-18. ENTD - Ente Nazionale Digitale ed Innovazione. it-IT.
  23. Web site: Pledge Viewer UNIOPEN. 2021-02-18. pledgeviewer.eu. 29 December 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201229075825/https://www.pledgeviewer.eu/pledge/initiative/482. dead.
  24. Web site: oestean. 2014-10-10. The Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition. 2021-02-18. Shaping Europe’s digital future - European Commission. en.
  25. Web site: Release BigBlueButton 2.4.0 · bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton. GitHub.
  26. Web site: Release BigBlueButton 2.5.0 · bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton. GitHub.
  27. Web site: Release BigBlueButton 2.6.0 · bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton . 2024-03-11 . GitHub . en.
  28. Web site: Release BigBlueButton 2.7.0 · bigbluebutton/bigbluebutton . 2024-03-11 . GitHub . en.
  29. Web site: BigBlueButton : Install . docs.bigbluebutton.org.
  30. Web site: bbb-install. 2 January 2022. GitHub.
  31. Web site: VJ13 live Prototypes for · pour · voor transmission. 2021-03-06. en-US.
  32. Web site: About – The Online Meeting Cooperative. 2021-03-06. en-GB.
  33. Web site: Socle interministériel de logiciels libres. 2020-05-22. .

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "BigBlueButton".

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