case study The University of Washington Upgrades their eLearning with Zoom and Kubi The Information School (iSchool) at the University of University of Washington Washington is no stranger to online education. In fact, their Challenges: Introduce graduate degree program in Library and Information Science synchronous activities into eLearning programs to build has been hosting asynchronous online programs for the past stronger relationships and 15 years. better learning experiences for students and professors. Randy Orwin joined the iSchool in 2011 as the Online Learning Administrator and currently works remotely Solution: Deploy the tightly- from Australia. Orwin’s job was to introduce synchronous integrated combination of Zoom and Kubi in their classrooms. activities such as virtual office hours into their eLearning programs to, as Orwin said, “Build relationships among Business Benefits: Quick students, between students and their professors, and adoption and high usage of the new video solution, especially between students and content”. for small elective courses. At first, they just used Adobe Connect to build out asynchronous and synchronous offerings. Then, in April 2015, Orwin encountered a Kubi, the telepresence robotic stand that pans and tilts a tablet for more engaging face- to-face interaction on video calls. “I knew it would provide a better feeling of presence for remote and local attendees. We started using them for program meetings and received a lot of positive feedback about how the online person on the Kubi wasn’t feeling forgotten by local attendees,” explained Orwin. “It was an ‘a ha’ moment. We started using Kubi for our synchronous hybrid courses where online and in-person cohorts were sharing a class.” As the iSchool was finding success with the Kubis, Orwin was also searching for a better virtual meeting platform. “Being on the other side of the planet with a slow Internet connection, I was having problems with