Making Teams work for everyone at Oxford

As we are all becoming more accomplished at working or studying remotely, we are exploring new online tools to help with certain tasks. Many of us are finding Nexus365 Teams the go-to tool, and new features are being added almost daily to support educational uses.

Offering full integration with Nexus365 (Office 365), whether for teaching or other work, Teams is the University's approved, and preferred, tool for video conferencing. It is secure, suitable for internal, confidential or public information (unlike many other choices), and is centrally supported by IT Services.

Teams: for teaching and much more

Teams is a versatile tool which can be used for document collaboration, meetings, lectures, tutorials, and real-time supervision - see the Centre for Teaching and Learning's remote teaching page for more information. Staff at Oxford can even record in Teams if it's for teaching purposes.

Some of the features particularly useful for teaching and learning include:

• Sharing files and other content using simple screen sharing
• Chat function which is accessible to all participants
• Private ‘in-meeting’ chat by hovering over a participant’s image
• Live polling using the Forms app to create a simple poll
• Meeting notes in real time available for all participants

Our article Ten things you can do with Teams has more information about some of the features available and includes handy links to short LinkedIn Learning courses about each feature. University staff and students can access this training material for free.

New features, including gallery view to show more participants and the ability to put your hand up to ask a question, are coming very soon and many more are in the development pipeline. We will publish updates about new functionality and links to guidance when they are available.

Courses and resources

There are many other features to explore in Teams and lots of resources available to help. If you are just getting started visit our quick help guides. We also recommend joining one of our Nexus365: Kick-off with Teams workshops to have a go at using some of the tools available with expert help to hand, or joining our remote working using Teams webcast on 30 April. 

You can also join the Nexus365 User Group (NUG) to access tips and tricks, a range of quick start guides, and other useful information for Nexus365 Teams users at Oxford University. Join with three easy steps:

1. Enter Teams as usual, and click ‘Join or Create a Team’
2. Click the ‘Join a Team with a Code’ option and enter the code LNJVOFR
3. Click ‘Join Team’ to confirm, and you’re in.

And finally…

At the beginning of March 2020, Oxford had just over 1100 Teams with around 5000 users every day; at the time of publishing this article, this had increased to nearly 4700 Teams with around 17,000 daily users! Spare a thought for the teams behind the Teams, working hard to make it all come together.