Problems in Video Conferencing-Mediated Teaching: Experiences of Three User Roles of a University in Bangladesh

Video-conferencing systems (VCS) became a defacto tool for online and hybrid teaching during COVID-19 and the gradual return to physical classrooms. As part of the EdViCon Erasmus+ project, towards defining the scenarios for improving teaching with additional portable tools by university teachers, this study reports users' problems in the context of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB). Classroom observations, problem-tree analysis, interviews, and focus-group discussions with academics, e-learning and IT consultants, and students provide different perspectives on the central problems, underlying causes, and the effects of VCS use during live teaching sessions. While teachers emphasized the lack of resources and technical barriers, students' problem statement focused on the reduced quality of interactions due to the differences between VCS-mediated and physical classrooms, and the IT & e-learning professionals emphasized technological issues (audio, tone, lack of facial expression etc.), lack of collaboration, and differences in expectations among participants. The central contribution of this paper is three diagrams showing problem tree analysis from the perspectives of the three roles. Each of the causes, effects, and problem statements will be considered as point-of-view statements for generating ideas for supporting hardware and software tools and training on technology and pedagogy,