Videoconference rooms in the university environment. Case study at the Catholic University of Salta 2020-2022

Abstract

This work results from Project N° 67/2021 “Video conference rooms as the environment for interaction between teachers and students in virtual contexts” from the Catholic University of Salta (UCASAL from its Spanish abbreviation). The purpose of this project was to reflect on interactive experiences in the use of video conferences in face-to-face academic programs, identifying the roles of teachers and students in the use of virtual tools in the period 2020-2022.The kind of inquiry developed was exploratory- descriptive of mixed characteristics with qualitative predominance. We worked with data from a selection of case studies with a statistically non-representative sampling. We mainly used digital questionnaires and teachers‟ and students‟ narrations that told experiences of academic activities with video conferences at university.The results show that the use of video conference rooms at UCASAL allowed to keep adequate levels of interaction between teachers and students during the pandemic, between 2020-2021, and that this use was radically reduced and replaced by face-to-face interaction in 2022. Besides, a series of difficulties detected by the own actors, like the lack of previous knowledge at the use of videoconferences and problems of connectivity in the platform, became evident.