Webex

Webex provides a real-time, collaborative web environment for meetings and learning & teaching events. Webex is available for all staff and students using standard University IDs and passwords.

• A tour of the main features is available in this video (please also view the recent updates to Webex).
• Polling can help to engage students in your live sessions, so view this overview video for creating polls and for suggested polling strategies
• Follow the steps when accessing Webex for the first time guide to verify your email address.
• This student quick guide to Webex will help them prepare for your session.
• All recorded Webex Meetings are automatically captioned in order to meet the University’s web accessibility obligations, and further details view the Captioning Guidelines for Recording Teaching Events.

Webex sessions can be scheduled

• from http://edinburghnapier.webex.com when you wish to email the meeting link (ensure you enable audio) or use your personal room.
• from Outlook when you wish to send a calendar invite (see below)
• or from Moodle for students on a specific module (see below).

Your personal Webex room has a persistent URL which can be included in your email signature, and a lobby where invitees wait until you admit them. Great for 1:1 meetings!

The two Webex session types are

• Webex Meetings which is the standard Webex where you can communicate using audio, video and text chat, share the content of your screen, and run polls. It has recently been updated with break out sessions.
• Webex Trainings is an older technology that has additional features to allow you to receive attendee feedback using emoticons and attention indicators, to track questions using the threaded Q&A, and to assign attendees to breakout rooms.

Recorded Meeting and Training are handled differently as shown in these screen images. Meetings record to mp4 and so can be played back easily from a web browser. Training records to an ARF format so a local Webex player  must be downloaded to play back. Therefore it is best to use Webex Meeting when access to recordings is paramount.

Moodle integration

The plugin allows anyone with a Teacher role in a Moodle course to host Webex Meeting or Training sessions within a Moodle course so that the session link is conveniently available to enrolled students.

Sessions can be scheduled on behalf of colleagues so please view this guide to Changing Webex Host in Moodle. The plugin also allows access to session recordings, and an attendance register is automatically generated for the session host.

To add the plugin to a course page click Add an activity or resource, select External tool and then Edinburgh Napier Webex from the Preconfigured tool option.

You can then schedule all sessions from this link, and so the plugin only needs to be added once. View this article for help with scheduling.

The plugin also provides an “Appointment Booking” tab which allows you to offer bookable slots for online private meetings with students, as shown in this help video. The following series of short videos provides an overview of the features and functionality available to teachers.

Outlook integration

Webex can be integrated with your Outlook calendar by installing the Meetings app from the downloads page. The app runs on your desktop and is also an easy way to schedule and host meetings. From the Preferences menu choose which Office applications are to integrate the app, and ensure that the site URL is edinburghnapier.webex.com.

Check your computer

If you have never joined a Webex session from your computer then you can perform this quick check.

• Click on the link: https://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html
• Enter your Name and Email Address, then click the Join.  Follow the prompt to install the Webex desktop app and your test meeting will load.
• This is followed by a dialog box stating ‘The host has not yet joined the meeting’. Click OK to close the dialog box.

At this point, you have joined successfully and the Webex client is installed. If you have a webcam installed then it may activate automatically in the Webex test room. You can check that your headset is working with Webex using this guide for checking your computer audio.

Access from mobile devices and telephones

The Webex app for iOS and Android devices allows participation in Meeting or Training sessions. When joining a session from the browser the device will prompt to open Webex in the app, and which will then prompt to use the device’s microphone and camera.

Webex provides support call-in toll numbers for a range of countries which allows attendees to join a meeting from telephone (audio only). The call-in numbers are displayed in the session invitation email or Moodle link. Each Webex session has a unique session number which is entered after dialling the call-in number.

FAQs

Visit the Webex FAQs in askNapier for further information.