eLearning Infrastructure
This eLearning platform is already in use since 20.04.2020
ITS (IT from the CS department) provides a set of tools to enable teachers of the University of Applied Sciences to facilitate remote lecturing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
up to 1.11.2020 the First-Level-Support for this eLearning platform is provided by IT-Dua (central IT of the University of Applied Sciences: it-service@h-da.de)
The eLearning platform is working with stable operation for the ongoing semester. Nevertheless we are continuous implementing new features. This document is in the meantime really long. Here we describe rooms.h-da.de, which contains bbb and jitsi. The most important things are summarized in "FAQs" and "most occured problems/issues". Please read this carefully before you contact us.
Provided Tools: TL;DR
ITS provides the following three tools:
- BigBlueButton - Static Class Rooms for Lectures, Labs, and Large Committees
- Provides a virtual alternatives for our physical rooms in D14/D15/D19/C20/etc.
- Functionality: moderated voice/video conferencing, breakout rooms, participants pooling, whiteboard, screen sharing, chat, many more.
- Overview of rooms: rooms.h-da.de
- Links to rooms are also included in OBS, OBS calendar and moodle.
- Jitsi - Ad-hoc Meetings for small Groups
- Provides ad-hoc video conferencing for small groups (2-10 participants)
- Functionality: simple voice/video conferencing, screen sharing, basic chat functionality
- Service available at: meet.fbi.h-da.de
- Create your own room by simply creating your own link: meet.fbi.h-da.de/name_of_your_room or using the UI
- Riot/Matrix - Chat-based Team Communication with Jitsi Integration
- Provides text-based dynamic chat-rooms (similar to Slack)
- Within a room Jitsi-based video conferencing can be started ad-hoc (e.g. for Stand-up meetings)
- Service available at: chat.fbi.h-da.de
- Install the Riot Client (or run it in the browser), connect to the Matrix server, and create your own rooms
General Recommendations
Here are some generell recommendations for using any video conferencing service:
- Make sure you have a stable broadband internet connection.
- Your home wifi is probably too shaky for real-time traffic; rather use a cat.6 lan cable.
- ISDN + Video = No!
- Use a headset! Your fellow participants will hate you for echos or white noise.
- If you are in a bigger meeting (>3 part.), mute yourself when ever you are not speaking.
- We recommend using Chrome or Firefox for all our services
- We recommend to disable all privacy plugins and if necessary disable your firewall (alternatively allow the WebRTC udp-ports)
- If you want to test your headset/webcam, you recommend this Testing Service
- Don't be like this ;-)
Please see detailed descriptions of our infrastructure below.
BigBlueButton - Static Class Rooms for Lectures and Labs
General Description
BigBlueButton is an open-source web conferencing system designed for online learning. BigBlueButton provides real-time sharing of audio, video, slides, chat, notes and screen. Students are engaged through sharing of emoji icons, polling, and breakout rooms.
The full overview of all available rooms is available at: rooms.h-da.de
FAQ
How do I use BigBlueButton
See the video tutorials below.
How do I log into BigBlueButton?
Choose rooms.h-da.de, login with your h_da user id (e.g. st* /fbi* /hda*) and open the room. Every user listed in the h-da active directory is able to use rooms.h-da.de.
IMPORTANT: THE USER MUST HAVE CHANGED THEIR PASSWORD AT LEAST ONCE SINCE 05/2019 sd-tool -> Datenpflege -> h_da-Kennwort
How do I use BigBlueButton without a h_da user id, e.g. guests, TU-students
Before starting the room, please choose "allow guests" in the selfservice-portal.
Where do I find a full list of all available BigBlueButton room?
Find an overview here: rooms.h-da.de By now the list of rooms is really long. We differentiate between "general rooms", "personal rooms" and "home rooms".
Where can I have a Student Learning Session in BigBlueButton room?
All students are allowed to use "Studentischer Lernraum 1-20" for their learning sessions.
How do I find out where my lecture will take place?
If your schedule says that your lecture takes place in D14/01.04 your virtual classroom is D14/01.04 available under rooms.h-da.de/D14/01.04.
Further you will find a link to the room in OBS (FBI) or moodle.
Can I get my own BigBlueButton room?
As a new feature you can create and open two different types of rooms.
you can open your personal home room ("eigener Besprechungsraum"). Only you can open the room. Your personal home room can be displayed on front page, if you configure it so with the pen icon left from the "Start" buttom.
The link of your personal home room is like this
https://rooms.h-da.de/r/home-vorname.nachname@h-da.de
and can be copied with the copy icon.
a second type of own rooms are your personal rooms. All staff members of h-da can create 10 personal rooms by default. You can also configure a co-owner, who can open your personal room as well.
If it is nescessary to create more than 10 personal rooms, please open a ticket (it-service@h-da.de)
You find your co-owner by typing his name in the above "filter" field. A selection of names will be listed in the underlying left field. You have to click the specific person from the left to the right field.
If I upload presentations to the BigBlueButton room, what happens after the lecture
The room will fully be reset when you close the room by choosing End meeting. Alternatively, the room will be reset once the room was empty for more than 2 minutes.
How many breakout-rooms can created per room?
We recommend you to create a maximum of 10 breakout-rooms. It is possible to create a maximum of 16 rooms. This is a new BBB feature and can not be changed by us.
How can I create breakout-rooms?
Please click on the toothed wheel next to the participants of your room. There you can create your breakout-rooms and usefull other adjustments.
How can I configure my breakout-rooms?
After clicking "Breakout-Räume" erstellen, you get the following dialogue:
You can choose, how many breakoutrooms to create, how long they exist and additionally you can split the students to the rooms or you can enable the feature "Den Teilnehmern erlauben, sich selber einen Breakout-Raum auszusuchen".
Who is moderator or user?
All employees of h-da are enabled to join as moderator in all meetings hosted on rooms.h-da.de. All students are only users/attendees in meetings (can speak/listen and watch).
What is with my tutor-students?
Special case students with openLab cases has been added to a moderator-group. If you need moderator-access for your students please open a ticket (it-service@h-da.de) with name, st-account, accountable-prof, name-of-lecture.
Can I enable single users during a session to be moderator?
Yes. Click on the single user in your participant list and choose "zum Präsentator machen" from the dropdown menu. The same way you can disable this user to be moderator.
What RoomsTypes exists in rooms.h-da.de?
"Discussion with guest" is an openspace. Here we offer moderator to everyone including external (anonymous Guests)
"Discussion" is a InHouse openspace (h-da only) . Here we offer moderator to every h-da user.
Default space is "Lecture", where no guests are allowed and students are only attendees, all h-da employees are moderators.
"Lecture with Guest" enables all h-da employees to moderate, all students and guest are only attendees
"Lecture with recordings" enables all h-da employees to record a session after login.
Who can present something to the class?
Every presentator can present in bbb. Every moderator is also presentator and can present in bbb. Every moderator can enable attendees to be presentator or moderator.
Who can I present documents in the class? As moderator you can upload documents (see the "+" buttom left corner, then "Eine Präsentation hochladen"). After the upload, you can mark the document as downloadable, if you want to do so. If so, this document can be downloaded during presentation by clicking on the download symbol in the buttom left corner in the screen of the document.
How to unmute users?
We prefer all user to enter as muted participant to a call. We can lock the usage to moderators only but at the moment preference the netiquette. Every user can unmute himself/herself without moderators action.
Are Webcams enabled / allowed?
We do not lock the webcam usage of the user, please be prudent in the use of it in larger rooms. We can lock the usage to moderators only, but at the moment preference the netiquette. As rule of thumb the more users the less webcams enabled.
Can I record my session?
Yes you can record your session. We published a self service portal, where you can activate some additional features before you start your room, such as recording. Please read more below, where recording is described in the self service portal.
How can I use the self-service-portal?
The self service portal will be opened for you when you are starting the room. You can choose between the following features:
Everyone is muted on start: self-explanatory
Everyone is moderator: self-explanatory
Disable camera for non-moderators: Webcams are disabled and cannot be activated by users until the moderator enables individual or all webcams.
Disable microphone for non-moderators: microphones are all disabled until the moderator enables individual or all microphones.
Disable shared notes - editing only for moderators self-explanatory
Disable public chat - editing only for moderators self-explanatory
Disable private chat - editing only for moderators self-explanatory
Allow recording: You can enable your room for recordings and start the recording in your session. So you have to click twice: first to enable the recording in the self-service-portal before you launch your room and second you have to start recording within your session. The postprocessing of the recordings is automated when you finished your conference. So please always FINISH your session to get your recording some time later. DO NOT give the room to the next session. In this case we could not seperate the recordings.
Allow guest: Guests are generally allowed
Access Code: This feature is for the additional protection of your session. Only users with a valid access code can enter your session. For everyone: each user has to supply this access code. User with a h_da login has to supply this access code additionally (h_da internal and external entry restriction) Only for guests: only guests have to supply the access code (h_da external entry restriction)
Enable Guestlobby: Please select "Approval by Moderator". The other options are useless, but cannot be disabled. Selecting "Approval by Moderator" the moderator opens a major room with a waiting room in front, like a doctors room. Each person, which would like to enter the major room, is entering the waiting room. The moderator is able to decide, which waiting person may enter the major room.
Welcome message: Your welcome message will be shown within the chat-area.
Dial number: without any function
Max.Number of participants: If you expect many participants (more than 150), we recommend due to performance to give a limit of maximum participants for your actual session. In the case, we recommend to open a second room with "max. number of participants". We are already working for a solution for meetings with more than 150 participants.
RTMP Streaming URL: you can stream into a live stream (e.g. youtube) by giving here the RTMP streaming URL. In this case, a user "live" will participate to your session and paste a message into the chat area.
How can I get the playbacklink or mp4-file of my recording?
If you had started your recording within your session, the recording will be postprocessed automatically after you have finished your conference. The preparation of your playback will last some time (as rule of thumb: time duration of your record multiplied by 2). As a logged-in user, you find all your recordings (playback- and download-link) in rooms.h-da.de in your personal view under the point recordings. As a new feature, you can copy the playback-link or send it as mail.
Please note, that only you see your recordings within the rooms-portal! Meetings with recording, started from rooms, are listed in rooms. Meetings with recording, started from moodle (http://lernen.h-da.de/), are listed in moodle. As a difference, in moodle each logged-in user sees your recording-playback-link. mp4-downloads are not possible within moodle. So, if you want to get your recording as mp4-file afterwards, please start the meeting with rooms.h-da.de!
How can I upload a presentation?
Click the "+" in the left buttom and become moderator. Click again the "+" und choose "Präsentation hochladen".
How can I mark a presentation downloadable?
Directly after the upload of the document you can mark it as downloadable. Default is not downloadable.
Are the presentation slides of my room be present in the breakoutrooms?
Only the current slide of your basic room, the slide you currently see, will be seen in the breakoutrooms. Not all slides, you have uploaded at the beginning of your lecture. This is a bug in bbb and will be fixed by the bbb guys (not by the ITS guys).
Can I save the public chat of my room?
Yes, you can. The moderator has to save it before the conference will be closed. The public chat will be deleted with closing the conference. There is no way to recover them.
Can I save the shared notes of my room?
Yes, you can. The moderator has to save it before the conference will be closed. The shared notes will be deleted with closing the conference. There is no way to recover them.
How can I get help in rooms.h-da.de?
If you have time critical and technical problems within BBB, you can use the live-chat in the right bottom of rooms.h-da.de.
A red buttom left from the "+" means: live chat is offline.
A orange buttom means: at least one support person is online in the live chat.
A green buttom means: at least one support person has joined the conversation.
For all other problems please open a ticket (it-service@h-da.de).
Further h-da specific documentation and video tutorials
can be found here:
Recommended Video Tutorials
Viewer overview (student)
Watch this video if you are going to use BigBlueButton. If you are teaching with BigBlueButton, also watch the video to the right.
Moderators/presenter overview (instructor)
Watch this video if you are going to present or teach with BigBlueButton.
Breakout Room
How to use the breakout room feature in order to assign smaller student groups to their separate rooms (e.g. 2 student teams in a lab).
Pan and Zoom
How to pan and zoom in your document and use fit-to-width for portrait documents.
Shared Notes
Collaborating with your peers on a single set of notes for the session.
Shared YouTube Video
Presenters can share YouTube video’s and synchronized playback to all users.
Most occured Problems/Issues
What do I have to do, when I start a room und denied by mistake the bbb-server the permission to use micro or camera?
First delete all your cookies. If the problem exist further on, open a private browser window and and give micro and camera your permission to be used. If you have enough experience with your browser, you can rollback your wrong answer in one of your settings-tabs of your browser.
This is a firefox example: please see in the top left in front of your https://bbbxx.fbi.h-da.de/....
What do I have to do, when "Fehler 1007" occurs?
"Fehler 1007" is a clientproblem. Mostly there is a firewall, which disallow the connection. We recommend to disable all privacy browser-plugins and if necessary disable your firewall (alternatively allow the WebRTC udp-ports).
What do I have to do, when "mediaserver is offline"?
Please contact us with the Online-Chat-Support within our rooms-portal! We will help you immediately, if we are online. We try to be online Mo-Fr 8-17 Uhr.
Jitsi - Ad-hoc Meetings for small Groups (2-10 part.)
General Description
Jitsi Meet, a full video conferencing application that includes a web, Android, and iOS clients. We operate Jitsi Meet for University communications of groups between 2-10 people.
The service is available at: meet.fbi.h-da.de
Please notice ad-hoc jitsi meeting can also be created using rooms.h-da.de, by choosing create ad-hoc meeting.
FAQ
Who can open new meeting?
Everyone with a h_da user id (st* /fbi* /hda*). Once you join a meeting where no participant is present yet you will be asked to authenticate with your h_da credentials.
Who can join a meeting?
Everyone. No authentication required!
How is the host of a meeting
Whoever joint the meeting first.
How can I set my username as non-host?
Clicking the more actions icon and settings. See screenshot below.
Within the settings UI open your Profile settings.
How can I change my video quality?
Clicking the more actions icon and Manage Video Quality. See screenshot below.
Select your video quality.
Can I protect a meeting with a password?
Yes. If your are the host of a meeting you can set a password as illustrated by clicking the info icon and add password.
See screenshot below.
Please be aware, as soon as everyone has left the room, the password is lost.
How can I quickly invite participants to my meeting
Create a meeting and clicking the info icon and Copy.
See screenshot below.
This will copy the following text to your clipboard and you can past it to any email, telegram, whatsapp, etc.
How long exist my jitsi-room? Your room exists as long as somebody is in the room. The last one turns off the lights.
Recommended Video Tutorials
Start a Jitsi Meet as Moderator (German)
Watch this video if you are going to host a meeting on Jitsi.
Join a Meeting (German)
Watch this video if you want to joint a meeting, that you have been invited to.
Join Conference with Android/iOS (German)
Watch this video if you want to join a meeting using your mobile device.
Riot - Chat-based Team Communication with Jitsi Integration
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General Description
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FAQ
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Recommended Tutorials
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