Sakai: Meetings

Meetings

Meetings (BigBlueButton) is an open source webinar tool that allows you to share content with your students remotely. You can share your desktop, upload and display presentations, use a white board, use a webcam, and use text chat with your students. It's still a new tool, so it's great for conducting meetings, but it's not ready to be used for recording lectures.

Update! What version of Meetings (BigBlueButton) do we have?

• We have the latest version, released August, 2013 .81 of bigbluebutton.

Update! What can you do with Meetings?

• What can an instructor do with the latest Meetings tool/BigBlueButton? (BigBlueButton)
• Latest Tutorials for Instructors and Students (BigBlueButton)

Minimum computer requirements

• You must use a web browser running Adobe Flash 10.3 or higher, according to BigBlueButton .
  • To check your web browser flash version (and download the latest version), visit Adobe's Flash Version Check
  • If using a Mac, please follow the instructions and link provided by BigBlueButton
• Instructors and Presenters only:
  • To share your desktop, you must have Java installed on your desktop: BigBlueButton Instructor/Presenter Set-up Instructions
  • Recommended Number of Users per meeting session: 25 or less. According to BigBlueButton, you may experience performance problems with more than 25 students in a single session.

New! Creating and Starting a Meeting

• Are step-by-step instructions available for creating and starting a Meeting? Yes. Here are the instructions: Create a Meeting Handout (DTCC)

New! Layout Manager

• Are there different layouts available, so I can make one part of my Meeting session larger than the others? Yes.

Uploading and Displaying Presentations

• Can I upload Microsoft documents to BigBlueButton? Don't, they may not display well. Tip: Save your file as a PDF (BigBlueButton)

• Will my animations in PowerPoint convert when uploading to BigBlueButton? No. (BigBlueButton)

• Is there a page limit for uploaded files? 100 pages. (BigBlueButton)

Desktop Sharing

• What does an instructor need to do to share their desktop? Tip: You must download Java (BigBlueButton)

• Can I share a specific window when sharing my desktop? Yes. (BigBlueButton)

• As a presenter, in addition to BigBlueButton, I see a small preview window. What do my students see? (BigBlueButton)

Voice Conference

• Why can't others hear me when I join the voice conference? (BigBlueButton)

• Why do others only hear part of my audio? Your microphone volume may be too low. Move your microphone closer to your mouth. You may need to change the volume setting of your microphone. (BigBlueButton)

• Why do I hear music when I join a voice conference? (BigBlueButton)

• Why is there an echo in the voice conference? Tip: Students should use headsets or the presenter can mute students (BigBlueButton)

Using Chat in Meetings

• How can I copy all chat messages to the clipboard? (BigBlueButton)

Record and Playback

Updated August 2013: Meetings does record lectures now. But recordings may not show up for over 24 hours. You must "show" Recordings (make recordings available) to students, too.

• Is there a record start/stop button? No.

• How do I set up a recording? When you create a meeting, you can click on the box beside Recording.

• When does a recording start and stop? BigBlueButton will record all of the meeting, from the time the first person joins to when the last person leaves. When you set up a meeting, you can also state it's duration, therefore, a meeting may also end when it reaches your stated meeting duration. (BigBlueButton)

• What parts of the session does BigBlueButton record? August 2013: Whiteboard and mouse movements are now recorded, plus webcams, desktop sharing, chat, as well as file uploads and audio (BigBlueButton)

• What does a sample recording look like? You have to wait for it to "load", then click on the Play button to start the recording.

• What web browsers play recordings? Tip: Firefox and Chrome do playback recordings, but Internet Explorer and Safari do not. (BigBlueButton)

• August 2103 Update: After 24 hours after you make a recording: Click on the Recordings button in Meetings, to the right of your Meeting title, you can click on one of two links to recordings of your meeting. Click on a recording link to review it.

• Update! How do you Share Recordings?
  • 1) Click on Meetings, Click on Recordings.
  • 2) Move your cursor over the title of the Recording-below the title, click on the "Show" link.
  • 3) Now you can direct students to the Meetings Recordings area link, or after clicking on the recording link, you can copy the web address of the link and share it with others.

• Can I download recordings? Not at this time. This is an open source product. Recording capabilities were a recent update for BigBlueButton.

New! Accessibility (August/2013)

• Are Meetings/Chat/Recordings Accessible to those using screen readers? Yes, with the latest release.