Canvas Video Conference Tool: Big Blue Button

Overview

BigBlueButton is Canvas's built-in video conferencing tool. It has lots of great features such as annotation, video and screen sharing, quick polling and much more. Since BigBlueButton is built right into Canvas, you and your students don't need to do anything special to start or join a video conference.

Starting a Conference

1. Select the course you wish to have the conference in (example: if you want to have a video conference with LART 1000, then you need to select your LART 1000 course from the Canvas Dashboard).
2. Choose Conferences from the breadcrumb menu (Towards the bottom on the left side of the screen). Conferences are below Quizzes and Modules. 
3. Click the blue [ + Conference ] button in the upper right of the screen.
   • A new conference setup box will appear.
4. You are given the option to create a name for the conference, set the options, add a description, and choose to invite all course members or just some course members. 

• Name: This is what you will name the conference and what the students will see in the email.
• Type: BigBlueButton. This is our LMS's integrated video conferencing platform.
• Duration: if you want to set a time limit on the conference.
• Option 1 Recording: if you want to allow the recording of the conference.*
• Option 2 No time limit: if you do not want a time limit on the conference (most people choose this option).
• Description: Add a description of the conference.
• Invite all course Members: this invites everybody in the course to the conference (regardless of their role).
  • If you untick this option, you are given the ability to invite individual members of the course.
• Remove all course observer members: this removes people who are listed as a course observer from the conference.

        5. Once you have your desired settings, click the blue update button at the bottom of the setup box. 

• Settings will be saved for the conference and the settings box will disappear.
• To go back to the settings, click the gear icon located next to the grey start button.

        6. When you are ready to start the conference click the grey Start button to start the conference.

• The conference will load in a new tab.

        7.  To exit the conference, click the three white vertical dots in the top right corner of the conference and choose either End meeting or Logout. [ An Are-You-Sure ] dialogue box will appear and a feedback survey window may appear. Click Yes on the [ Are-You-Sure ]. The feedback is optional (you can close the tab).

• End Meeting: Ends the conference and kicks everybody out of the conference.
• Logout: Only you leave the conference, but the conference is still active. You can rejoin the conference by selecting Conferences from the Breadcrumb menu within the corresponding course (Step 2 in this tutorial) or choose to end the conference by clicking either the grey End button or the blue Join button respectively. 

To continue this tutorial, please watch these video tutorials:  

Features and Tools of BigBlueButton (Instructor/Moderator Perspective)

Features and Tools of BigBlueButton (Viewers/Student Perspective)

*Recordings are saved for 14 days and then automatically deleted from BigBlueButton's servers. 

If you wish to have training on BigBlueButton or would like to have a few practice sessions, request training here. We would be happy to meet with you!