“All the world’s a stage” – the Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) as enabling technology to overcome restrictions in online teaching

Abstract

The Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio is a free software that enables tutors to overcome the typical restrictions of video conferencing software like MS Teams or Zoom. This paper develops from a real-life situation where the pandemic-induced move to online teaching has put severe restrictions on otherwise engaging teaching and student activities – specifically role-plays and use of props - hitherto run in the classroom. The goal is to demonstrate how OBS Studio was set-up and employed to overcome this situation. In doing so, the paper offers a simple set-up tutorial for two scenes against this background to show that using OBS Studio is straightforward and intuitive.