8 th International Scientific Conference Technics and Informatics in Education Faculty of Technical Sciences, Čačak, Serbia, 18-20 th September 2020 Session 2: IT Education and Practice Original paper UDC: 37.018.43:616.98 124 A Rubric-Based Evaluation of Video Conferencing Services for Educational Use Dimitrios Margounakis 1 , Theodore Pachidis 1 , Dionysios Politis 2* Department of Computer Science, School of Sciences { 1 International Hellenic University, Kavala || 2 Aristotle University of Thessaloniki }, Greece * dpolitis@csd.auth.gr Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about rapid changes in the educational process in all countries where extreme measures, such as lockdown, were applied. Almost all levels of education have turned to synchronous teaching, using various video conferencing services. This study will attempt to evaluate specific applications with the assistance of appropriate methodology based on rubrics and the SUS questionnaire for interactive systems. A comparative evaluation of 5 popular video conferencing tools (Big Blue Button, Google Meet, Skype for Business, WebEx, Zoom) was attempted based on a methodological approach with usability and functionality criteria. A rubric was generated to assist the authors in assessing the selected five video conferencing tools. The research took place in May 2020. The sample of the survey included 73 adults (teachers at all levels of education) that used those video conferencing services. The aim of this study is to highlight teachers’ views and needs from tools supporting synchronous education in order to improve the online learning process at all levels of education. Keywords: video conferencing tools; COVID-19; rubric; usability; SUS; synchronous education; distance learning 1. INTRODUCTION The pandemic of COVID-19 brought rapid changes in many aspects of everyday life. Especially in the field of education, there has been a shift towards completely online courses, thus radically changing the educational systems worldwide. The goal of using new technologies and methods at all levels of education is to enrich the online environments and lead to an increase in student engagement, retention, and student – teacher collaboration. From the COVID-19 pandemic that forced schools to transition completely to online learning, it has become apparent that educational institutions must learn to adapt in order to provide students with the education they need to succeed. However, responses by higher education providers have been diverse worldwide, from having no response through to social isolation strategies on campus and rapid curriculum redevelopment for fully online offerings [1]. Several studies have begun to appear in international literature to highlight the transition to online education, e.g. [2] [3] [4]. It is said that in difficult situations there is always a benefit. The pandemic seems to confirm this saying in the field of education in the case of Greece. For their students to stop remaining inactive, teachers have surprisingly embraced distance education, both synchronous and asynchronous, mobilizing their students creatively - to the extent that distance education has allowed. 2. THE TRANSITION TO DISTANCE LEARNING The field of education was perhaps one of the few areas that made a direct transition to its distance equivalent. The reason is that the tools and methods were already widely available. However, in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic, the purely online model was not preferred by many educational organizations, as face to face education (when feasible) has advantages that seem to prevail over the online version: interaction among students and a teacher, interaction between classmates, immediate feedback, increased reinforcement efficiency, etc. [5] [6] . 2.1. The Case of Greece On March 10, 2020, the Greek government abruptly announced the closure of all educational units (private and public) at all levels, from nurseries to universities, for precautionary reasons for 14 days. On May 11, 2020, the schools reopened for the students of the 3rd level of Lyceum, while a week later (18/5/2020) all the children who attend secondary schools / high schools of the country (14+ years old) were able to return to the educational structures. On June 1, 2020, all educational structures reopened for all