Web Conferencing: Free up Your Research Dollars by Using These 3 Great Free Tools

After searching high and low for tools to help improve our group's ability to communicate with colleagues all over the world, we discovered a great combination of free web tools that work together to make it possible to screen share and conference for free. We've been using the combination for over a year now and haven't found anything better AND free:

1) First get Skype- VoIP
2) Then set up a conference room atHighSpeedConferencing
3) Finally, register for screen sharing withYugma

To get it started, you must sign up for accounts with each site. Registration for all sites, again, is FREE. After you have your own conference room number from HighSpeedConferencing, you can set up and have meetings with up to 500 people at anytime using your number. The great thing about HighSpeedConferencing and Skype, is that they work together to provide a way for your colleagues to access the conference call for free via VoIP on the net, or if you prefer to call in to the conference call, there is a US number you can dial in to. The only charges incurred are the long distance charges to call the number, if you choose not to call in via Skype.

When your conference room is ready, you can simply instruct your colleagues to access your computer screen via yugma. After you use this system a few times, it becomes very easy to coordinate and set up. Just in case you need some help, we have instructional videos for using Skype and Yugma:

Skype:


Yugma Video (click here)

But don't just take my word for it, try it out for yourself!