BigBlueButton for teachers

BigBlueButton, accessible via Moodle, is an effective video conferencing tool for presentations, seminars and lectures. This tool allows you, for example, to share presentations with your students or start polls. Students can participate not only by using their microphone (audio) but also via a live-chat. It is also possible to allow additional people to participate by sending them an "external guest access link".

Contents

Part 1 - Preparation and implementation in Moodle

Adding a session

To use BigBlueButton as part of your Moodle course, you first have to integrate it by selecting Add an activity or resource.

Configuration

1. Selecting the type of the Meeting (Instance type):

You can choose between three options:

• Room/Activity only: basic use of the session in your Moodle course with a live presentation and a link to join it.
• Room/Activity with recordings: in additon to your live presentation you have the option of recordings which you can create during your session, but you can also display links to already existing recordings.
• Recordings only: only links to already existing recordings can be displayed.
  

2. Start by defining your General settings, like in every other Moodle-activity:

• Give your virtual room a name  in Virtual classroom name (which will be displayed as a link in your Moodle-course).
• To notify e.g. students of a new BigBlueButton session, enable the option Send notification.

after klicking on Show more, you can also:

• add further information under Description. Tick Display description on course page, if you would like the description to be visible under the name of your room.

3. In Activity/Room settings you can create a Welcome message which will be shown in the chat after somebody joined the session. You can decide if you want that students have to wait for a moderator can  before they can enter the room; and you can create a waiting room.

If you have chosen Room/Activity with recordings in the instance type settings above, you can authorize that the Session can be recorded.

If the option Waiting room is enabled, the moderator will get a message to inform him that somebody wants to join the session and he can then authorize their access.

A person who joined your session will then see:

And a moderator:

4. In the section External guest access link you can allow external people (who have no active u:account) to participate in your BigBlueButton session.

You have to activate this function by choosing the checkbox Create guest access link for external participants.

Further settings need to be configured directly on the activity page of the session (further information: Using the external guest access link).

5. In Presentation content you can add one file (number of files is limited) that you can use as a presentation during the session. File formats which can be used are Office documents (.ppt, .pptx, .odp etc.), but we recommend to prefer PDF files.

6. In the section Participants you first have to define which Moodle course participants may join the session.

• All enrolled participants
• Participants with a specific Role in the course
  
  
  
  

  Next, you can set what role they should be given during the session:

• Moderator: has extensive permissions and leads the session (teachers, tutors)

• Viewer: participates in the session and can be given more permissions by the moderator (students)

7.In section Participant's Rights you can grant viewers (≠ moderators) certain rights to actively take part in the session. These are:

• Share webcam: let other participants see your webcam image
• See other viewers webcams: see webcam images of all other participants, not only moderators'
• Share microphone: make your audio available to others
• Send public chat messages: to chat with all other participants
• Send private chat messages: send private messages to other participants (sending messages to moderators is always possible)
• Edit shared notes: use the shared notes feature
• See other viewers in the users list: see the names of other participants in the session

8. You can limit the access to the session by using the Schedule option. You can set the start and end date of the session, between which students may join the session. Outside of this time frame students can still see the activity on the course page but are unable to join.

9. Further options to customise the activity can be found in the sections: Common module settings, Restrict access and Tags. These options include the availability of the activity on the course page and the group mode, for example.

9. Save your settings and return to the course page.

Accessing the virtual classroom

1. Open a BigBlueButton-activity on the course page .

2. Within the time period you specified under Schedule for session, the option Join session will appear, that both the moderator and the viewers can see. Click this button to join the session.
This button will not be visible to the moderator or the viewers outside of the specified time period.

If you ticked the box in Activity/Room settings that allows viewers to join the session before the moderator enters the session, the button will be displayed. However, viewers cannot access BigBlueButton until the moderator is present.

Using the external guest access link

If you have activated the option to use the external guest access link (within the BigBlueButton activity settings), persons without a u:account can also access your session.
They will be redirected to an invitation page, where they can login to the session.

For configuring the external guest access link please do the following steps:

1. Click the new activity you created on the course page (the date of the session).

2. As a teacher here you will find the generated guest access link in the field "Invite Participants", which you can copy by using the button (on the right of the field).

3. In area of "Access Code" further you can generate a password, which will then be required for logging into the session.

This access code needs to be generated manually by using the button (on the right of the field). With this button you can also generate a new one, if necessary.
Further you can copy the access code to your clipboard or delete it entirely , so that participants accessing the session via guest link don't need any access code to participate again.

Ending a session

There are three ways to end a session:

1. Automatically when the time period you specified under Schedule for session ends.
   
   
2. Manually by clicking the End session button on the Moodle page of the session. This button will be displayed on the right-hand side of the “Join” button as soon as a session is started (see screenshot).
   
   
   
3. You can also end a session from inside the session by clicking on the "End meeting" in the menu on the top right corner.
   

Part 2 - Using BigBlueButton

Getting started

At the beginning you will be asked if you would like to participate in the session with a microphone or to listen only.

As a teacher you most probably choose the option "Microphone". In the following step you will be asked by your web browser to allow BigBlueButton to use your microphone (the view of the message can vary with different browser).

Then an echo test is started, where you can check whether your audio is working and configured correctly or not (it may take some time to load):

If you hear an echo of your audio, please choose the button "Yes". Your audio is now working properly.

If not, please choose the button "No". Then you can choose a different audio device from your computer and do a rerun of the echo test.

Functions

You can use the following functions to customise the session:

• Uploading presentations in different file formats
• Recording sessions
  
• Creating and editing notes (also by students if needed)
• Sharing audio, webcam and/or screen
  
• Chat feature, both private and public
• Sharing videos
  
• Writing/drawing on uploaded slides (Whiteboard function)
• Polls with a maximum of 5 answer choices

• Dividing student groups across breakout rooms for short group projects (up to 8 groups) - instructions will follow

You can find information about editing the permissions of participating students under Editing participant permissions.

Uploading a presentation

You can upload a presentation when creating the activity. If you have not done so, you can do it also during a running session.

Click the plus icon in the default presentation. 

Most presentation formats (.ppt, .pptx, .odp, etc.) are supported as well as PDF files.

Recording a session

If you selected in the settings the instance type Room/Activity with recordings, you can record your session in the BigBlueButton virtual classroom. The recording includes audio, video, presentations or your desktop screen.
Using this option allows you to record the session and make it accessible to students afterwards. This is especially useful for large courses, since the maximum number of session participants is 100.

To start a recording, click the Start recording button above the presentation area. Confirm that you want to start the recording by clicking Yes in the dialog window.

The recording starts immediately but can be paused at any time by clicking the button again. To continue the recording, click Resume recording. The recording will be ended and saved automatically as soon as you select End meeting. It is not necessary for you to do anything else.

The recording will only be accessible in the moodle activity page after the session has ended. You can edit the meta data of the recording when the recording is visible.

Using the shared notepad

You can open a shared notepad by clicking Shared Notes above the list of participants on the left-hand side of the screen. It will be displayed on the right to this list, instead of the chat.

The upper toolbar offers some functions with which you can highlight and edit the text:

1. Bold
2. Italic
3. Underline
4. Strikethrough
5. Ordered list
6. Unordered list
7. Undo most recent action
8. Redo most recently undone action
9. Export all notes as file

Sharing audio, webcam and/or screen

You can decide to share audio and video via the bar at the bottom in the middle of your screen:

• Click the left button to restore your default settings. If you accidentally chose the wrong settings when entering the virtual classroom, you can rectify that here.
• Click the middle button to turn your webcam on and off.
• Click the right button to start or stop sharing your screen.

  You can share the entire screen, single windows or tabs of the current browser or a specific window of an opened application (according to the used browser).
  It is only possible to share only windows of applications which are currently in the front of the window/ tab of the browser, where you want to start the screen sharing (> the window/ tab where the videoconference tool has been opened).
  Application windows which are minimised or in the back of the window/ tab of the browser, where the session of videoconference tool is running, won't be shown in the list of available windows.

Chat feature

You can communicate with all students through public chat or with individual users through private chat.
Click on the person you want to chat with in the bar on the left. For every new message you receive you will see the number of unread messages as white number displayed on a red background.

Playing audio or videos

Click the plus button on the bottom left and select Share an external video to share videos from external video providers.

The following providers are supported:

• Youtube
• Vimeo
• Instructure Media
• Twitch
• Daily Motion
  
• any audio or video file, available to all participants on the internet, which has one of the following file-extensions: *.mp3, *.wav, *.ogg, *.mp4 or *.mov. These can be files uploaded to Moodle. Files in the u:cloud or Kaltura are currently not supported,
  

Writing and drawing on slides (whiteboard)

You can find tools to interact with your slides with on the right-hand side in the middle.

Click the hand to change tools. The following tools are available:

• Hand: All students see a dot on the slides where your cursor is (similar to a laser pointer).
• Line, triangle, ellipse, rectangle: Draw the respective geometric shape on the slides. Hold down the mouse button to draw.
• Pencil: Directly draw any shape with a pencil.

Use the buttons below to undo the most recent action, clear all annotations and allow all participants to use the drawing tool.

Conducting polls

You can get feedback from your students by using the polling tool.

To create a poll, click the plus button on the bottom left: Then click Start a poll.

There are different types of polls you can choose from:

• Yes/No Choices
• 2–5 answer choices indicated by the letters A–E (you would have to communicate to your students which answers correspond to which letters)
  
• Custom poll with custom choices (up to 5)

As soon as you click Start a poll, all students will be able to vote through clicking.

Click Publish polling results to end the poll and display the results for your students. The result will be displayed on the bottom right of your slide.

Breakout rooms

During your session you can split the participant group into sub-groups for discussions in so called breakout rooms. Several session rooms are opened next to the main room, where two or more participants can discuss an assignment via audio, video or chat. After a predefined time span all participants are automatically redirected back to the main room.

Moderators of BBB-sessions can create a breakout session by clicking the gear icon in the panel on the left and choosing the option Create breakout rooms.

A window appears, where you can select from the following settings:

• the number of the breakout rooms (2–8)
• the duration of the working phase in the breakout rooms
• whether participants will be allowed to choose by themselves, which room to join
• an option for an automatic random distribution of participants to rooms
• the possibility to assign rooms to participant by hand

When your setup is ready, click Create. Participants who were assigned to a breakout room are asked, whether they want to enter the breakout session. To end the breakout session, they can choose Logout in the menu in the upper right corner to get back into the main room.

If moderators allowed participants to change rooms by themselves, they can also change the rooms by choosing Breakout rooms in the panel on the left. Moderators can also end the breakout sessions by clicking End all breakout rooms.

Editing participant permissions

You can control, what participants will be able to do during a session on the left side of the screen. Next to the heading Users you can click the gear icon and select Lock viewers:

Details

Session configuration

Click the button on the top right of your screen and select Settings.

Here you can edit several basic settings:

Closing a session

There are several ways to end a session, so students will no longer be able to enter it.

• After the scheduled duration has passed
• When all moderators have left the virtual classroom
• A moderators ended the session manually

To end the session, click ... on the top right of your screen and then select the option End meeting.

Part 3 - Follow-up in Moodle / Publishing recordings

Recorded presentation / webmeeting

If you have selected the instance type Room/Activity with recordings, you can make recordings in the BigBlueButton virtual classroom.

The recording will be made accessible to students a short time after the session has ended.

Existing recordings can be played back by clicking Presentation.

You can edit the details of the recording at any time (i.e. name of the recording, description) and, if necessary, hide it manually (by clicking the eye icon on the right) or delete it (by clicking the recycle bin).

Importing recordings in other courses/ semesters

If you want to reuse existing recordings of BigBlueButton in another Moodle course, you can link them to another BBB-activity in that new course.

In the first step you have to add a new BigBlueButton activity in the course where you want to use the recordings or import the whole activity using the function import (description German only).

Switch to the new BigBlueButton activity and press the button Import recording links.

In the next step please choose the Moodle course (via the dropdown menu), where you want to link some recordings from.
All available recordings of the chosen course will be listed afterwards and you can choose the recordings you want to import by clicking the icon  (Import) in the column Toolbar.
Please press the button Go back after importing, to check whether all the needed recordings were linked.

FAQs

Video Tutorials