BigBlueButton: Guide for teachers

BigBlueButton (BBB) is a free and open source software for video conferencing.

BBB can be used directly in a TeachCenter course.

Open/Close

Before the meeting

Creating a BigBlueButton activity in the TeachCenter

To use BBB in your TC course, turn on the edit mode. Go to the section where you would like to add BigBlueButton, click on the plus icon and activity or resource, and choose BigBlueButton.

List of activities and resources, BigBlueButton activity is highlighted — Add BigBlueButton activity

You can reuse this BBB activity for all the meetings in this TeachCenter course. You do not need to create a new activity for every meeting.

By default, your BBB room is set up as a room with recordings. You can record the conference and it will then be automatically uploaded to TUbe (see section about Recording).

Meeting settings

In the General section, you can assign a name and description, as with any TeachCenter activity.

In Room Settings, you can define whether students need to wait for a moderator before they can join the meeting. If you deactivate Wait for Moderator, you should set a welcome text for students.

General room settings menu with checkboxes for Wait for moderator, This session may be recorded and Mute on start — Room settings

You can also specify here that all participants are muted when they join.

If you want to record your meeting later, make sure to check the box "The session may be recorded".

In Lock Settings, you can revoke certain rights before the meeting instead of revoking them later during the meeting (see section Managing participants' rights).

The Lock Settings option in BBB where you can disable webcams, microphone, chat or notes in advance — Lock certain settings before a meeting

These settings are particularly useful for exams. For example, you can revoke the right for participants to see each other.

In Role assigned during live session, you can set roles for specific people or groups. For example, you might want to give all tutors the moderator role. By default, all teachers enter the meeting as moderators.

Use the Session timing to set a start and end time between which students can join the conference. Outside of these times, students will only see the activity on the course home page, but will not be able to join.

Session timing section with dates for "open" and "close" — Session timing

N.B.: Always leave the group mode of a BBB activity on No groups. Otherwise there may be issues accessing the meeting as participants are not allowed to see each other.

Set the group mode to no group mode in the common module settings — No group mode

Conducting a meeting with BigBlueButton

Accessing the meeting, waiting room

On the course home page, click on the BBB activity.
Click on Join session. If this button is missing or greyed out, you may be outside the predefined time period (see Meeting Settings), or you may have to wait for a moderator to open the meeting.
Joining a session (student view)

You will be asked if you want to join with microphone or audio only. For participants with microphone, there is an echo test before joining the conference.
By default, students can join the meeting whenever it is open.
To activate a waiting room/lobby, click on the gear icon next to the participant list - Guest Policy - Ask moderator. The setting "always deny" means that no one can join the meeting from this point on. We recommend using "ask moderator" instead. Otherwise, students who drop out of the meeting for technical reasons cannot rejoin.
You can switch your video and audio on and off and share your screen via the menu bar at the bottom centre. The small arrow on the button takes you to further settings such as virtual backgrounds.

Five buttons for audio, video, screen sharing, reactions, raise hand — Menu bar

Managing participants' rights

Managing presentations and documents

In BigBlueButton, you can upload a presentation or document in advance instead of sharing your screen. This feature is particularly useful if you want to annotate the document.

To upload your presentation or document, click the plus icon (Actions) in the bottom left corner of the default classroom presentation, then choose Upload/Manage presentations.

Office documents (.ppt, .pptx, .odp etc.) without animations and PDF files are supported.

When clicking on the three dots, you can enable or disable download of the original document, or send a link to the annotated document to the chat for all to download.

Actions menu for presentations, the menu with the three dots in the middle opens further settings — Allow students to download the presentation or annotations

Recording a BigBlueButton meeting

Please note: Only the main session can be recorded. Breakout rooms cannot be recorded.

In order for your recording to be uploaded to the corresponding Tube series, TUbeDrop must be activated in your TeachCenter course. TUbeDrop can be requested via the TUbe Services form.

To record, "Room with recordings" must be chosen in the main settings and the checkbox "The session may be recorded" must be ticked.

You need to start the recording of audio and video manually directly in the BBB meeting. To do so, click Start recording. Confirm in the window that appears. You can pause the recording by clicking on the corresponding button.
The recording does not need to be stopped; it stops automatically when you leave the conference.
Start recording

pause recording

The recording is automatically converted and transferred to your TUbe series after the conference ends. This may take up to 48 hours on weekdays or longer during holidays.

The recording is available to students later in your TUbe series and can be managed via TUbeDrop.
Recording process

If you only want to make a recording (a screencast), we recommend using the TUbe Recorder instead.

If you are only making a test recording, please contact the TeachCenter support if it does not appear on TUbe. Very short recordings might not be converted and sorted out.

Interactions with students: notes, chat, raising hands, annotations

Shared notes

Click on Shared notes above the participants list to create a shared note, e.g. for minutes of the meeting. Everyone can edit this note. The notes can be converted to a presentation (PDF) or pinned to the whiteboard so that they are shown in full-screen instead of a presentation. To do this, click the three dots menu.

The note will not be saved automatically at the end of the presentation, but it can be downloaded (Download icon).

Text editor next to the menu on the left in which you can write shared notes — Creating shared notes

Three dots menu in the upper right corner of shared notes for pinning them to the whiteboard — Pinning notes to whiteboard

Chat

BigBlueButton has a public chat as well as private chats between single participants. The public chat can be found in the menu on the left.

To write a private chat message, click on the person with whom you want chat.

The chat history is not automatically saved when you exit, but can be exported via the menu.

Public chat next to the main menu on left; three dots at the top right allow you to save, copy and clear the chat — Saving the chat history

Raising hands

Participants can raise their hand via the hand button in the menu bar at the bottom.

Menu bar at the bottom with the hand icon on the right — Raise hand

As a moderator, you will see who has raised their hand in a pop-up window. In this window, you can also lower all or individual hands.

Annotating slides

To the right of your presentation, there is a toolbar that you can use to annotate slides. You can add text, drawings, shapes, sticky notes.

The slide icon at the button turns on multi-user mode, which allows certain or all students to annotate the shared document. You can give individual users access to the whiteboard by clicking on them in the participant list - whiteboard access.

Icon for shared annotation mode — Shared annotation mode

To save annotations, you can make a screenshot of the current slide by clicking on the Options icon on the top right - Snapshot of current slide, or you can send a download link to the public chat via the Plus icon (Actions) - Upload/manage presentations - three dots - send out a download link for presentation including whiteboard annotation.

A presentation with annotations, on the top right the settings icon and below a dropdown with "snapshot of current slide" highlighted — Download annotations in a presentation

Creating and managing breakout rooms

You can create breakout sessions via the gear icon next to the participant list - Create breakout rooms.

Gear icon menu from the participant list, where you can create breakout rooms — Creating breakout rooms

You can then specify the number of rooms and for how many minutes the rooms should be available. You can use drag & drop to assign participants, randomly assign participants, or allow them to choose a room themselves.

You can also set that the presentation and shared notes from the breakout rooms will be saved when the room is closed.

Creating breakout rooms menu: You can assign participants, change the number of rooms and duration — Settings for creating breakout rooms

Participants will see an invitation to join the breakout room. It opens in a new tab.

Pop-up window in which students have to confirm that they want to join the breakout room — joining a breakout room

Participants in breakout sessions can use all the features such as the whiteboard, shared notes, chat, annotations. Breakout rooms cannot be recorded. The time remaining for the session is displayed at the top of the screen.

Picture of a screen with a blue bar at the top indicating the remaining time — remaining time in the breakout rooms

Moderating breakout rooms

Moderators see a breakout rooms menu in the original session. Use this menu to:

see the remaining time
join different sessions
message all rooms
change the duration of the breakout rooms
manage participants and move them to other breakout sessions
end the breakout rooms

Separate breakout rooms menu with overview of the duration, rooms and menu with three dots in the upper right corner to end and manage rooms — Manage and end breakout sessions

Actions menu: Sharing videos or additional camera, polls, stopwatch, random student selector

The Actions menu (Plus icon) gives you additional features to share content or manage your lesson.

Actions menu with options to upload presentations, start polls, share videos, activate a timer, share camera as content — Actions menu

Sharing an external video

By using the Plus button at the bottom left and Share an external video, you can share videos from external video services. Use this feature instead of sharing your screen if you want to show a video, as this feature is optimized for video sharing.

Polls

You can create a survey via the plus button at the bottom left - Start a poll. Anonymous polls are also possible.

You have several types of polls to choose from:

True/False
A/B/C/D
Yes/No/Abstention
Typed response (free text)
Custom question and answer options (upload via file)

After creating your polling question and answers, you have to start the poll. The moderator will see the participant's answers in a separate Polling menu on the left.

Creating a poll and choosing from response types — Creating a poll

Slider for anonymous poll — Anonymous poll

To end the poll and publish the results to students, click Publish poll. The results are published in the chat and shown on the presentation as an annotation, where you can move them around or delete them.

Additional features: set a timer, share camera as content

The Actions menu also allows you to set a timer/stopwatch.

Share camera as content will show your camera in full-screen instead of a presentation. This is useful if you are demonstrating something on camera or are using a document camera to present an experiment or document.

Ending the meeting

Help & Contact

In case of technical issues, please contact the IT Support: videokonferenz@tugraz.at

For any questions regarding BBB settings in the TeachCenter: tc@tugraz.at

Advice for using BigBlueButton can also be found in the two TELucation articles #03 BigBlueButton - Technical Tipps and #04 BigBlueButton - Didactical Tips.

BigBlueButton can also be used for work meetings between employees in the TU Graz cloud. See TU4U for more information.

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 International

TU Graz Educational Technology