Deep Dive: Webinars with BigBlueButton

BigBlueButton (BBB) is an open-source web conferencing system readily available inside the atingi digital learning platform. You can use this feature inside any of the courses that you create and host on atingi without having to install additional software. In this chapter, we will give you an overview over the most important functionalities BBB has to offer. 


To set up a BBB room, go to your course, turn editing on and select “BigBlueButton” from the activities’ menu. In the settings you can already decide if you want to allow recordings of your session.  

Additionally, you can give your virtual classroom a name, a description and welcome message. If you add a description and tick “Notify this change to users enrolled” your learners will get an automatic message that informs them about the session. 

 
It is also possible to only start the session whenever a moderator enters the room. 

The roles of “moderator” and “viewer” are not connected to platform roles on atingi – this means that you can also give all participants of the session “Moderator” rights so that they can share the screen, etc. 

 

 

Usually, you want to schedule your session for a specific point in time. This means that the virtual classroom is only open for this time period. We recommend planning with a little buffer to make sure that everyone is able to enter and leave the meeting on time.

To make sure that participants from different parts of the world can join the session on a timely manner, you may need to indicate the exact timezone of the scheduled session in the description so that confusion can be avoided.  

After being done with the basic settings, click “save and display”. The session is now available in your course. If the starting time has arrived all participants will see a “Join session” button to enter the BBB room. 

 

The BigBlueButton webinar room

Before being able to participate, every user needs to enable their microphone and optionally their camera. For this, choose the left microphone symbol (when choosing the headphones, participants can only listen, not talk). Additionally, your browser might ask you to allow using the microphone (sometimes you need to change some privacy settings to enable this or use a different browser if it’s not working). 

 
After having completed the soundcheck, you will find yourself in the BBB classroom. 

 

If you are a moderator, the bottom navigation does not only allow you to turn off/on your camera and/or microphone but via the (+) sign it gives you also the option to share your screen, start a poll or show a presentation

 

At the top of your screen, you can also see a “start recording” button if you have allowed recordings in the settings. When you press on it, you need to confirm one more time that you want to start recording. The recording can be ended the same way by clicking on “stop recording” at the top. 

 
All recordings will be found in your BBB activity on atingi after the session has ended. Please note that it might takes some minutes before the recording appears. 

On the top right of your screen, you also have additional options. For example, via “settings” you can change the language interface if you want. 

 
By switching to “Slide 2” (or one of the following) on the bottom navigation, you can start using the shared whiteboard. 

 
On the left side, you have several options to make use of your whiteboard: you can draw on it, write, make shapes, etc. This board can be used to work together, make notes or just have a fun warm-up game. 

 
On the other side of your screen, you see the participants who are in the session, a public chat and an option for shared notes. 

 
By clicking on your own username, you can for example set a status. If you click on another participants’ name, you can send them a private message. All messages in the public chat can be seen by everyone but will not (!) be saved after the session. If you want your notes to be saved automatically, please use the “Shared notes” option. 

If you are a moderator, there is also a small cog wheel next to the “Users” heading, which offers you additional options.  

Especially when working with bigger groups, you might want to create breakout rooms to split up the participants into smaller groups. To do so, click on “create breakout rooms” shortly before you want to start with the group session. 

 
You can choose how many rooms you want to create, allow users to choose the room they want to join themselves or assign them to a room. You also need to schedule a time after that the room closes automatically, and all participants are being brought back to the main room. As the person who sets up the rooms, you can switch between all rooms or just stay in the main room. 

 
Another useful tool that can be accessed via the cog wheel is the “Learning Analytics Dashboard”. 

 
As a moderator, this shows you how active your participants have been in the session.  

These analytics are a useful tool to evaluate your learner behaviour and interest


After you have ended your session, all recordings, shared notes and statistics will be made available within the BBB activity on atingi below the scheduled session

    

The statistics look a bit different here, but the report covers the same data as the one within the session. 

   
In the toolbar next to your Recordings in the course you can choose if you want to make them available to your learners as well or not. When the “eye” is closed and the “lock” locked, only course administrators will be able to access this content. By clicking on the bin, you can also delete recordings. 

 
This was a quick insight into BigBlueButton.  

Another feature that might be helpful for you if you want to organize BBB sessions based on a booking system is the appointment booking activity. 

 

Appointment Booking 

Go to you course, turn editing on and click the plus in the same section as your BBB room to add another activity or resource. Choose “appointment booking” from the activity menu. 

 
As always give your activity a name and a description. For “Calendar options” you should choose “Show entry on user’s calendar”. If you set up appointment bookings (and/or BBB sessions) it makes sense to add the calendar block to your course as well. 

No other settings are needed – click “Save and Display”. In the next step you can add appointments. You can either choose “Appointment” or “Multiple Appointments”; the difference between the two is that in “multiple appointments” you define a certain timeframe that can contain multiple appointment options with breaks in between. However, adding the “Appointment” option also enables you to set up multiple sessions – we will therefore only have a look at how to set this up. 

 
When you click on “Add” and “Appointment” a window with session settings will open: 

 
You can set a date and timeframe and if you like add another session (for example right after the first one). 

 
Under “Capacity” you can define how many learners are able to book a place in the session. There is also the option to set up a waitlist and allow learners to cancel their booked session later. 

 
After you saved it, the appointment will show up in your course. Learners can see the date, time and capacity and will be able to book a place via the “book” button. As a course administrator, you can also see who signed up for a session if you click on the cog wheel next to the button and select “attendees”: 

 
Your learners will receive an automatic e-mail once they have booked an appointment, cancelled an appointment and shortly before the booked appointment starts. 

Please note that your appointments do not automatically create a BBB session! Therefore, you always need to coordinate date and time of your sessions with the appointments you provide for booking.