Category Archives: For Staff

Pre-assign breakouts in Webex Meetings!

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Webex Meetings now allows meeting hosts to setup meeting breakout sessions and pre-assign invitees to specific sessions while schedule the meetings. For full details on how to use pre-assignment for Webex Meetings, see Cisco’s article “Preassign Participants to Breakout Sessions.”

Breakout sessions can be assigned in advanced using the web scheduler one of two ways:

Instructors: If you schedule your class virtual meetings in Canvas, you can take advantage of this feature, but it will mean that students will not need to log in to Canvas to join the meeting, thus making the attendance feature less accurate.

  • To use pre-assignment, instructors will need to go to their Webex account and adjust your meeting settings.
  • Instructors can easily download a class list as a CSV file using Canvas, modifying the CSV file to include the necessary elements from the Webex template.
  • By importing a CSV file of your students to the meeting in your account, you will effectively invite them through the web scheduler. This action will send them an invitation email with the meeting link.

Things for everyone to keep in mind:

  • If you currently have a meeting scheduled from your account, you can edit the meeting to include pre-assignment.
  • A meeting previously scheduled through Outlook can not be edited it to allow for pre-assignment.
  • When using a CSV file, download the template (see image below) and enter the names of the breakout sessions as well as the email addresses for your attendees, which will automatically invite these people to your meeting.
Screenshot of where to locate the template to import a list of attendees from a CSV.

If you have any questions or concerns about this update, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Learning Technology Center Support Operations

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With the shift to all Alternate Course Delivery starting on November 21st, we wanted to provide a reminder of the resources that are available to support you and your students.

Canvas 24/7 Support.  Using the “Chat” feature is the recommended method for contacting Canvas Support for timely issues. They have been expanding their staff and wait times have been greatly reduced. You can also call or email if you prefer.  As a reminder, the support information is located on the Canvas Login Page http://uww.edu/canvas

LTC Staff Availability.  The LTC Staff will continue to be available Monday – Friday from 8:00am to 4:30pm (excluding holidays) via phone and email.  We are happy to schedule a Webex consultation – just reach out and let us know what you would like assistance with and we can schedule a time with the appropriate team member.

Trainings and Workshops. We will continue offering virtual training to support your remote teaching and work. Please visit http://go.uww.edu/ltc-workshop-signup for the most up-to-date list of training sessions!

LTC Media Studio Available.  The LTC Media Studio will be available until December 22nd.  The studio will then be closed and will reopen on January 4th. https://www.uww.edu/icit/services/media-production#Scheduling

AV Checkouts / Media Lab.  The AV Checkouts and Andersen 1008 Media Lab will be open during the remainder of the semester at reduced hours.  The current hours can be found on the website: https://www.uww.edu/icit/services/ga-labs

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Canvas Text Editor Enhancements

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The New Rich Content Editor is an update to the previous Canvas Rich Content Editor. It provides a condensed, more intuitive toolbar that is grouped by common icons and interactions. We will be enabling the New Rich Content Editor on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020.

Old Rich Content Editor
New RIch Content Editor

We have scheduled 30 minute training sessions if you are interested in learning more about the New Rich Content Editor.

Date/TimeLocationRegister
Tuesday, December 1st
1:00pm – 1:30pm		WebexRegistration
Monday, December 7th
10:00am – 10:30am		WebexRegistration
Tuesday, December 22nd
2:00pm – 2:30pm		WebexRegistration
Wednesday, December 30th
1:00pm – 1:30pm		WebexRegistration
Thursday, January 7th
11:00am – 11:30am		WebexRegistration
Monday, January 11th
11:00am – 11:30am		WebexRegistration
Wednesday, January 20th
10:00am – 10:30am		WebexRegistration

If you have any questions or concerns about this update, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Webex Update (11/10/20)

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On Tuesday, November 10th, Cisco will release the Webex Meetings 40.11 update. The highlights of this release are listed below. Full release notes are also available.

  • Animated In-Meeting Reactions (Available Tuesday, November 17th). Express yourself non-verbally with in meeting reactions. All participants in the meeting can see and use these reactions.
Animated In-Meeting Reactions (Available Tuesday, November 17th).
  • Breakout Sessions Screen Sharing Updates (Available Tuesday, November 17th). Adds the ability to share your screen with “Optimize for motion and video” and “Share computer audio” within the breakout session.
  • Host or Cohost Can Lower a Participant’s Hand. Simply hover over their raised hand in the participants panel and click “Lower hand.”
  • Automatic Notification When Talking on Mute. Webex Meetings and Webex Events will now let you know if you’re talking while on mute. You can press and hold the space bar to temporarily unmute yourself.
Automatic Notification When Talking on Mute
  • Request for Post-Meeting Emails to Contain Details on Meeting Usage. After the meeting, hosts will receive a summary with a list of top participants who attend their meeting, along with join time, join duration and connection type.
  • Continue Live Streaming Even After a Crash. An updates has been made to the Windows and Mac Meetings Apps to allow the live streaming to continue, even if the host’s network disconnects or the computer crashes. As long as there is one participant the stream will continue.
  • Improved Video Quality for Grid View.
  • Enable Digital Automatic Gain Control (DAGC) for Webex Meetings. Increase audio levels on lower microphone inputs and decrease the audio level as needed to prevent echo.
  • iOS 14 Widget Support. Mobile iOS 14 OS users will now be able to use a Webex Meetings widget on their iPhone or iPad app screens.
  • iPhone 12 Official Support. Apple’s new iPhone 12 devices are now officially supported.
  • Android R Support. The new Android R operating system is officially supported.

Here are some of the additional highlights that were included in the 40.10 update, which was released in October.

  • Hide Meeting Controls. You can now hide the bottom control bar in Webex Meetings and Webex Events by hovering over the control bar to review the “Hide Control bar” button, or by going to the View menu at the top and unchecking the “Show Meeting Controls” options.
  • Introducing the Dark Theme. You can now choose whether you want to view the meeting window in the standard Light Theme or the new Dark Theme, available from the View menu.
  • Remove Background Noise from Meetings and Events. When the “Remove background noise” setting is turned on, your desktop app will remove your barking dog or home improvement project noise, while enhancing your voice.
  • New Advanced Video Settings. An “Advanced Video Settings” area is now available below the Camera tab of the desktop app for Windows and Mac.
    • Hardware acceleration for video (Windows only) – This setting reduces the load on the main system processor when possible by off-loading video processing to dedicated hardware when available.
    • Automatic adjustment of camera brightness (Windows and Mac) – This setting is used to enable or disable automatic camera brightness adjustments. This option improves the visibility of content captured by the camera.
    • Video capture (Windows only) – This setting allows for the selection of the Microsoft Framework to be used for camera capture.
  • Easy to find Mute All and Unmute All Buttons. The Mute all and Unmute all buttons are easier to find, right at the bottom of the Participants panel.
  • Allow Participants to Unmute Themselves. In this update, hosts and cohosts can now choose whether or not participants are allowed to unmute themselves. When this setting is unchecked, participants’ “Unmute” buttons will be disabled.
  • Mute All with Mute on Entry. When you click “Mute all,” it will also turn on “Mute on Entry” by default to make sure that anyone joining the meeting late will also be muted from that point forward. You can still choose to turn on or off “Mute on Entry” independently.
  • Unmute and Audio Privacy. Now, when a host or cohost unmutes a participant, that participant will be given a prompt to unmute, instead of being unmuted directly. This helps to prevent meeting distractions or catching others by surprise if they weren’t expecting to be unmuted.
  • Additional Mute Controls in Meetings Scheduler.
Additional Mute Controls in Meetings Scheduler.
  • 25 Video Systems Displayed in Meetings Desktop Grid View. In this update, users will be able to see the video from all 25 video system users in the 5×5 Grid view layout.
  • iOS and Android Grid View Support for up to 5×5 (landscape) and 3×7 (portrait). Meetings mobile app users will now be able to experience 5×5 grid view (landscape mode) and 3×7 grid view (portrait mode) on their tablets, including iPads and Chromebooks!
  • Official Support for Apple Pencil iOS 14. iOS users can now officially use their Apple Pencil to annotate on content directly from the iOS device, while in a Webex Meeting.
  • Support for Mirror Self-Video. Mobile app users can now mirror their self-video, including their virtual backgrounds, similar to desktop app users.
  • Android Dual camera support. Android users will now be able to use Dual Camera support to view the area in front of them using the back camera, while they remain on self-video using their front camera.

If you have any questions or concerns about this update, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Tracking Attendance with Webex Meetings in Canvas

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Using the Cisco Webex Canvas Integration, it is now possible to easily track attendance for your scheduled Webex Meetings.

Cisco Webex Meetings must be scheduled using the Canvas Webex integration. Webex Meetings must also be joined by using the integration inside of Canvas for the attendance tracking to work correctly. If students are joining using a link from uww.webex.com the attendance will not be automatically captured.

See the step by step guide at: Tracking Attendance with Webex Meetings in Canvas

Webex Attendance Tracking in Canvas

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Increased Security for Webex Recurring Meetings

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Effective immediately, Webex Meetings, Events and Trainings will have a unique Host Key* generated for each occurrence of a recurring series. This means that if you previously made note of the Meeting Number and Host key for your recurring series, you will now need to check prior to each session for the new Host Key.

Why has this change been implemented? To prevent unauthorized use of the Host Key (or PIN), making your classes, meetings, and events even more secure.

What does this mean for you? It may not affect you at all, as most people do not need the Host Key to start and run Webex sessions. If you need to find your Host Key for a meeting, go to your account at uww.webex.com or to Host Information in the Outlook appointment.

Who will be impacted? Anyone who uses a Cisco Webex Control Panel to start Webex sessions in HyFlex Video-enabled classrooms or Video-enabled conference rooms will need to note the new Host Key for every recurrence. Anyone who uses or shares the Host Key for Meetings, Events, or Trainings will want to make note of this change.

When does this take effect? Immediately. It applies to previously scheduled sessions, so any Webex session moving forward will have a new Host Key after the scheduled time ends.

Does this only affect recurring meetings? No, the Host Key for any Webex session will renew when a session ends after its scheduled time.

*A Host Key (PIN) is a six-digit code generated when a Webex session is scheduled. The Host Key may be used to reclaim the host role within a live session, or it can be used to start a meeting from a video system.

Enter your Webex Host Key (PIN) when starting a meeting from a Cisco Touch Panel in our HyFlex Video-Enabled classrooms and conference rooms.

UDOIT Course Accessibility Checker Available!

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We are excited to announce the immediate availability of the UDOIT tool inside of your Canvas courses! UDOIT (Universal Design Online content Inspection Tool) is a cloud based tool designed to identify accessibility concerns and provide improvement suggestions for your Canvas courses.

The tool can be accessed by clicking UDOIT Cloud on the course navigation menu inside of your Canvas course.

Additional details on how to utilize the tool are located at: Canvas (Accessibility) – Using the UDOIT Cloud Accessibility Tool.

We will also be offering 30 minute training courses which will demonstrate how to use the tool in your Canvas courses. Workshop information is listed below.

EVENT NAMEDATE/TIMELOCATIONREGISTER
Creating Accessible Canvas Courses with UDOITThursday, October 15th
1:00pm – 1:30pm		WebexRegistration
Creating Accessible Canvas Courses with UDOITFriday, October 16th
11:00am – 11:30am		WebexRegistration
Creating Accessible Canvas Courses with UDOITMonday, October 19th
10:00am – 10:30am		WebexRegistration
Creating Accessible Canvas Courses with UDOITTuesday, October 20th
3:00pm – 3:30pm		WebexRegistration

If you have any questions about these sessions, please reach out to the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Poll Everywhere Scheduled Maintenance: October 10th-11th

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From Saturday, October 10 at 11:00 pm to Sunday, October 11 at 3:00 am, Poll Everywhere will undergo scheduled maintenance. During this time, you may experience service interruptions when accessing Poll Everywhere on the web or through their apps. In addition, you will also see a friendly reminder when using Poll Everywhere on the web as we get closer to the scheduled maintenance.

Logos | Poll Everywhere

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. You can see status updates at status.polleverywhere.com, including a final update when service is fully restored.

Thank you for using Poll Everywhere.

Webex Update (9/15/2020) – Breakout Sessions!

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On Tuesday, September 15, Cisco will deploy additional updates to Webex Meetings. The highlights of these additional features are below. Full release notes are also available. 

Video Breakout Sessions in Webex Meetings
Breakout sessions allow you to place your meeting participants into smaller groups to collaborate and share ideas. Inside of the breakout session is like being in a smaller meeting, complete with audio and video where participants can collaborate and share content, or even ask the host for help from the main session. For more details, you can explore these capabilities in depth. UWW users may have up to 100 breakout sessions per meeting with a maximum of 1,000 meeting participants.

To sign up for a training session on Breakouts please see our calendar.

Be sure anyone participating in a Webex Meeting on a mobile phone or mobile device updates the app on their device. While they will be able to join the meeting, they will not be able to go into a breakout session until they update the app. UWW owned devices will automatically update, but student apps and devices may not.

View of Breakout session tool within Webex Meetings

In-Meeting Cohost Role
As a meeting host, you can now assign other meeting participants as cohosts. Cohosts share your host-level privileges like muting and unmuting other participants, moving participants to or admitting participants from the lobby, and more!

You can assign cohosts on the fly, directly in-meeting, by right-clicking the participant and changing their role to Cohost. You may have as many cohosts in a meeting as you wish.

The following features aren’t currently supported in a breakout session and will be addressed in a future release:

  • Raise hand, People Insights profile, and the notes taker role
  • Closed captioning
  • Recording breakout sessions
  • “Optimize for motion and video” content sharing
  • Sharing web browser or multimedia
  • Annotation and Whiteboard
  • Live streaming
  • Polling
  • Saving chat
  • Users who join from the Webex Meeting web app can’t share content

Grid Layout for Cloud Recordings
With the grid layout becoming the default experience in Webex Meetings, meeting recordings will default to the grid layout in this update for new and existing Webex hosts. This applies to both Webex Meetings and Webex Events. To return to previous settings or make changes to your recording preferences, sign in at uww.webex.com, navigate to Preferences and then select the Recordings tab. Be sure to hit SAVE!

Recording settings in your preferences

Participant Content Sharing
Hosts can now allow the participants to share their screen during scheduled meetings or Personal Rooms meetings.

Additional attendee settings

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Webex Update (9/8/2020)

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On Tuesday, September 8, Cisco deployed the Webex Meetings 40.9 update. The highlights of this release are listed below. Full release notes are also available. Please note, some of the updates outlined in the full release notes are not yet available. We expect these to launch next Tuesday, September 15.

Optimized Audio and Video Preview
The larger, optimized Audio/Video Preview window makes it easier to look your best and find the settings you need before joining a meeting.

Webex preview window

Updated Controls in Meetings and Events
The look of the controls in Meetings and Events has changed to make them more intuitive and easier to use. Meeting controls are now clearly labeled and located at the bottom of your meeting window, which means you’ll always have them in sight, but without them covering up shared content or video.

Clear and easy-to-find meeting controls

Contextual Option Menus
Audio settings and camera settings can now be conveniently accessed in the menus at the right of their respective mute and camera buttons.

An easier way to adjust your setting

Consolidated Panel Controls
Panel controls (like Participants, Chat, and Q&A) can be found towards the right, where the panel opens.

Panel controls

Additional Virtual Background Improvements and Support
Cisco has added more virtual background images to choose from in your Meetings and Events. The virtual background feature is now supported on Macs with dual-core processors.

Virtual background preset images

Other Updates to Note:
-Users of Amazon Echo Show or Google Home Hub Smart Display devices will now be able to use Webex Meetings on these devices. Amazon Echo Show devices will be able to display meeting and recording lists, as well as play back recordings. Google Nest Hub devices will be able to display meeting and recording lists, play back recordings, and schedule meetings.
–Facebook Portal users will now be able to leverage their Webex Meetings app directly from all Facebook Portal devices! The experience will match what currently exists in the Android app.
–Cisco is officially retiring Support for Internet Explorer 10 and Windows 7. While users on these platforms won’t be prevented from joining or starting meetings, Cisco will no longer provide bug fixes or updates for this operating system and browser going forward.

If you have any questions or concerns about this update, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.