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One-room magic: UFS' immersive classrooms redefine learning

29 August 2025 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Stephen Collett

The university is transforming education across its Bloemfontein, Qwaqwa, and South campuses with its pioneering one-room spaces, mirrored across all three locations to deliver cutting-edge, immersive learning. Research for these innovative spaces began in 2023, sparked by a photo from the University of Leuven in Belgium, which the university identified as showcasing Leuven’s advanced classroom setup. Prof Philippe Burger, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, leveraging a connection there, led a team to explore this technology globally, collaborating with Canada’s X2O OneRoom to make the UFS the first in South Africa – and one of (as far as we know) two in Africa, alongside Kenya – to offer such immersive classrooms.

Unlike Zoom or Blackboard, where online students were often overlooked as small icons, one-room spaces ensure that everyone feels included. Designed for postgraduate training and PhD interactions, these rooms accommodate up to 40 in-person and 40 online participants, with large video camera feeds on screens, reminiscent of the TV programme Small Talk, where children’s faces lined the wall for engagement. Directional audio and personal cameras create a sensory experience, with sound coming from the speaker’s direction and eye contact feeling natural. Angelique Carson-Porter from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics shared her excitement about a postgraduate session led by Prof Aletta Olivier, Lecturer in the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies: “It feels like you’re right there, even from Pretoria or Ghana. You see everyone, interact, and never miss a beat.”

Gavin Coetzer at ICT Services, a key project leader, highlighted how lecturers struggled with older platforms’ limitations, often only addressing online questions at the end, disrupting the flow. The UFS’ one-room spaces, implemented in the UFS Business School, the Clinical Skills Unit, South Campus teacher training, and Qwaqwa, solve this with breakout sessions and global conference support. While other universities rely on Teams, the UFS’ user-friendly tech, with around 24 screens and ceiling microphones, allows lecturers to focus on teaching.

Staying ahead of tech trends is challenging, but the university is excelling, making education inclusive, engaging, and truly global.

News Archive

Moot Court competition bigger success than ever before

2009-10-27

Here are the members of the winning team in the Afrikaanse section: André Stander and Wilmie Stander.
Photo: Stephen Collett

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Law of Procedure and Law of Evidence again presented the First-year Moot Court Competition this year. This interuniversity competition was presented for the fifth time this year. The Universities of the Free State, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Rhodes, North-West, Zululand and KwaZulu-Natal (both campuses), as well as an international institution, the Charlotte Law School in North Carolina in the USA also participated in the competition.

The last-mentioned participant was indeed a highlight for the Department of Law of Procedure and Law of Evidence. The students of the Charlotte School also initiated a community service project for a school in a disadvantaged community. According to Adv. Mariëtte Reyneke from the Department of Law of Procedure and Law of Evidence, the students of the UFS’s Faculty of Law will also participate in this project. The team’s participation is a result of negotiations to work together between Prof. Neels Swanepoel, departmental head, and the Charlotte School of Law early in 2009 as part of the university’s internationalisation priority.

“We are really excited about the growth of the competition that started out with three universities to where it is today. We believe that it is a cause for celebration,” said Adv. Reyneke.

Only first-year students may participate. The competition will take place in the High Court and the final rounds in the Court of Appeal. The judges are compiled from retired judges, practising judiciary, magistrates as well as retired lectures of law. Only a small number of law practitioners get the opportunity to appear in the Court of Appeal and to do this in your first year in front of a judge is an excellent exposure and career forming. This is also the only competition in the country where students can participate in either an English competition or an Afrikaans competition.

Sixteen English teams (9 universities) and 7 Afrikaans teams participated in this year’s competition.

At the prize giving function the UFS team was crowned overall winners of the Afrikaans section and a team from the University of Pretoria as overall winners of the English section of the competition.

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