Introduction
The guidance in this section relates to live presentations or Vivas delivered via Blackboard Collaborate. or Microsoft Teams. If your assessment requires students to create and submit a video or audio recording then please refer to the guidance on video assignments. For Vivas it is a UCL requirement that these are recorded.
Set expectations for participation
It is important to set expectations for your participants within a session, this is particularly important for assessments.
You may wish to inform your participants about:
- How you will communicate within the session;
- What role student(s) will have and when;
- When participants are expected to participate and how this will be managed, e.g. with simple 'hand raising' functionality;
- How partcipants are expected to participate, e.g. with use of visual cues, and verbally or within the text chat;
- Whether the session is being recorded.
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Blackboard Collaborate: General Guidance
For students to be able to present effectively during a Blackboard Collaborate session they will need to be promoted from Participants to Presenters, the assessor(s) will take the role of Moderator or as Participants. The following guidance will outline how to effectively Moderate a Blackboard Collaborate session.
Familiarise yourself with Blackboard Collaborate and review the Moderator Checklist. If the session will have External Examiners then Guest Links will need to be generated and shared prior to the session. Please do not share Guest Links with anyone other than those that require them as anyone with the link will be able to join the session.
Setting Up a Collaborate Session
Collaborate sessions are set up by adding an activity within Moodle. This video (17 minutes) shows how to set up a Blackboard Collaborate room within Moodle and use it for a live seminar or teaching event. Thanks to Ian Calder, UCL School of Management, for giving us permission to use this video. This video has captions and a transcript.
Alternatively, follow the instructions in the Blackboard Collaborate Resource Centre article Creating a Collaborate Session.
Technical requirements
At a minimum it is recommended that moderators have the following hardware and software available:
- An internet-connected desktop or laptop computer;
- An up-to-date web browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Safari; see Blackboard's list of supported browsers);
- A USB headset with combined headphones and microphone. Use of an internal laptop microphone can result in poor quality audio and should be avoided if possible;
- A webcam (optional). A laptop or inbuilt camera is sufficient.
Recording the Session
BB Collaborate sessions can be recorded. The recording will appear in the Moodle course once it has been processed.
To record a session, open the Session Menu in the top-left corner of the BB Collaborate window. Select Start Recording from the menu. A pop-up box will appear briefly on the right-hand side to say that recording has started. A video camera icon containing a red dot will also appear next to the Session Menu icon.
To stop a recording, open the Session Menu and select Stop Recording. A pop-up box will appear briefly on the right-hand side to say that recording has stopped and the video camera icon will disappear.
Session Settings
To enable communication with and between participants in a session, you need to enable the communication features. This can be done in the Settings Panel, to access the Settings Panel click on the cog icon (highlighted with a rectangle).
The Settings Panel is accessible to Moderators, Presenters, and Participants, and acts as the location in which all session participants can control their audio and video and notification settings. In addition, Moderators can:
- Control session settings for all participants in this location;
- At the start of each session the Moderator(s) should enable 'Share audio' and 'Post chat messages' at a minimum;
- 'Share video' and 'Draw on whiteboard and files' can be toggled on and off throughout the session if needed, but should be controlled in order to reduce impact on bandwidth.
Managing Participant Roles
The student(s) who will be presenting will need to be promoted to Presenters during the session. By default students will join a BB Collaborate session as particpants. This can be done in the Attendees Panel.
The Attendees panel displays the Moderators, Presenters, and Participants who are currently in the session. The panel includes:
- The participant name and their session role, whether they have joined via Moodle or a guest link;
- A button with three lines to display their connection status;
- A button with three dots to access additional actions for that user, e.g. to send a private chat message, change their role, or remove them from the session entirely. Note that these controls are only available to Moderators.
To make a student a Presenter. Click on the three dots next to the participant you want to promote. Select Make presenter from the menu that will appear. Once the student(s) have completed their presentation and any Q&A, their role can be returned to Participants.
The Participants panel also displays any feedback the individual has provided via the interaction menu.
Managing participants and the Interaction Menu
The Interaction Menu appears at the bottom of the main window. They enable you to share and mute your video and audio. You are also able to raise your hand, and view how many participants have raised their hands. If your audio or video are not active a line will appear through the icons. If they are active, the line will disappear and the icon will appear green.
To facilitate questions and answers during the session you may ask participants to raise their hands. A number badge on this button indicates the number of session participants who have raised their hands.
If a participant raises their hand you can invite them to speak. For them to speak Share Audio needs to be enabled in the Session Settings, this can only be done by a Moderator.
Lower Hand
You can cancel a hand raise, lower hand, in the Attendee Panel. Select the 3 dots next to the name of the participant whose had raise you wish to cancel. From the menu that appears select Lower Hand.
ISD has produced this video which explains a number of tools available for remote working. This includes Microsoft Office365 tools such as email, calendar, OneDrive and Teams and use of the virtual private network (VPN) and Desktop@UCL Anywhere for accessing central systems and software. This video has captions.
Teams
For student presentations or Vivas, you may wish to create a Microsoft Teams team for the purposes of assessment. View the Microsoft Office365 guidance: Get your team up and running.
Further information is available in the Go-to guide for team owners.
Meetings
Unlike Blackboard Collaborate, all participants in a Microsoft Teams meeting have the same privileges.
Set-up and joining a meeting
Microsoft Teams meetings can be scheduled from within Microsoft Teams or from Outlook:
It is recommended that those not speaking mute their audio.
Recording a meeting
The host can record the Meeting/viva with the approval of other participants. When a recording starts, this is flagged up to all participants and by continuing in the meeting they are giving tacit approval. The recordings are stored securely (see below) and are GDPR compliant.
Any participant from UCL in a MS Teams meeting can start and stop the recording of a meeting, but only one recording can be made. It is recommended that this is facilitated via theinternal examiner.
- To start the recording of a MS Teams meeting, click on the three dots in the meeting control panel.
- Select Start recording.
- To stop the recording, click on the three dots and select Stop recording.
The recording happens in the cloud, and is saved to Microsoft Stream.
Once the recording has been processed a link to the recording will be available in the meeting chat. This will be available for seven days. Anyone who participated in the meeting can access this link and download the recording.
The person starting the recording is the “Owner” of the recording
- The Owner also receives an email with a Stream link and they can expand access permissions to the recording if they want to.
- This is useful since an Internal examiner can grant a DGT access after the viva, so long as the Internal has a UCL Office365 account.
- This is an important issue, since the recording needs to be stored securely in Stream until the student is awarded their degree; we will at that point ensure that everyone deletes the Stream
- Alternatively, the recording can be downloaded by anyone at the meeting and given to other people. However, these are large files (1hr recording = about 500Mb) and downloaded files are potentially less secure.
- Note though that downloaded recordings can be converted to audio-only using Quicktime for example; such files are <1/10 the size of the original. Audio cannot be extracted within Teams or Stream.
If the DGT or supervisor is only starting the recording, then the following are also relevant:
- Recordings continue even if the person who started the recording (the Owner) has left the meeting.
- The recording stops automatically once everyone leaves the meeting.
- If someone forgets to leave the meeting, the recording automatically ends after four hours (the file may be over 2Gb at that point).
For more information see the Office 365 guidance: Record a meeting in Teams.
Captions
It is possible to enable live captions during a Microsoft Teams meeting. However, they are only available to those using the Desktop App version of Microsoft Teams and captions are only available in English US at present.
The automatic captions need to be enabled at an individual user level during the Teams meeting and are not saved, they are not available in a recording of the meeting.
To turn on the automatic captioning whilst is a MS Teams meeting, click on the three dots in the meeting control panel.
Select Turn on Live Captions (preview, English US only). Live captions should now appear.
To turn off the live captions, click on the three dots and select Turn off Live Captions.
More information
For more information on how to use MS Teams see the LinkedIn learning course Microsoft Teams Essential Training.