Big blue button android

Big blue button android

BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system for online learning. This means

Open source — you have full access to BigBlueButton’s source code under an open source license. With the source code, you can install, customize, develop, scale, and integrate it into your products and services with help from the community. Cool.

Web conferencing system — BigBluebutton provides you all the core features you would expect from a commercial web conferencing system (but under an open source license) including real-time sharing of audio, video, presentation, and screen – along with collaboration tools such as chat (public and private), whiteboard, shared notes, polling, and breakout rooms. BigBlueButton can record your sessions for later playback.

Online learning — BigBlueButton extends these core features for online learning. For example, a tutor can enable multi-user whiteboard to directly work with a student on solving a math problem. BigBlueButton has deep integrations with all the major learning management systems (LMS). It also supports Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) 1.0 for integration with other LMS systems.

Want to try out BigBlueButton? Visit our demo server at https://demo.bigbluebutton.org and setup a free account. The demo server also runs Greenlight, an easy-to-use front-end for creating rooms, starting meetings, inviting others, and managing recordings. Greenlight is open source as well.

Want to setup your own BigBlueButton server? If you have a server that meets the minimum requirements and have a domain name pointing to its public IP address, then you can use bbb-install.sh to install the latest version of BigBlueButton, configure the server with SSL (thanks to Let’s Encrypt), setup Greenlight, and have all ready in under 15 minutes. Very cool.

Want to learn more about BigBlueButton? Read on. The documentation covers all details on how to install, configure, and customize BigBlueButton to your needs. We’ll start below with brief overview of how BigBlueButton works. If you find any issues with these docs, please let us know.

BigBlueButton overview

BigBlueButton is an HTML5-based web application. Unlike many commercial web conferencing systems that require you to install software, BigBlueButton runs within your web browser. To join a BigBlueButton session, you click a link (such as in Greenlight) that opens a valid join URL in your browser. The BigBlueButton server receives the URL, validates it, and loads the BigBlueButton client. After loading, it immediately prompts you to join the audio bridge and start collaborating. There is no plugins to download, no software to install. BigBlueButton provides high-quality audio, video, and screen sharing using the browser’s built-in support for web real-time communication (WebRTC) libraries.

WebRTC is a standard supported by all major browsers, including Chrome, FireFox, Safari, and Safari Mobile. For best results on desktop and laptops, we recommend Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Firefox. For Chromebooks, we recommend the built-in Chrome browser.

Here is a screen shot of the BigBlueButton client running in Google Chrome.

From left to right, you can see the list of Users in the session, the Chat area, the Presentation area (where the current presenter can update), one webcam, and whiteboad tools.

Mobile support

BigBlueButton has a “mobile first” design: we designed the user interface (UI) to first run on a mobile device. Like the desktop, there is no mobile app to download or install. BigBlueButton runs within your mobile browser.

BigBlueButton runs on iOS version 12.2+ and Android version 6.0+. To join a session, you click a link within the browser or a mobile app (such as Moodle Mobile), and BigBlueButton will run within Safari Mobile (iOS) or Google Chrome (Android).

Here’s a screen shot of BigBlueButton running on an iOS phone in landscape mode.

The only limitation on mobile clients is that the mobile browsers do not support sharing of the mobile screen (though you can view another user’s screen share).

It’s worth emphasizing that the same HTML5 client runs across desktop, laptop, chromebook, iOS, and Android devices. This enables a single code base to enhance, localize, and innovate without the multiple code bases.

Designed for online learning

We stated above that BigBlueButton extends many of its core features to focus on enabling the instructor to engage students. There are four main use cases for engagement:

1. Tutoring/virtual office hours
2. Flipped classroom
3. Group collaboration
4. Full online classes

If you are an instructor, BigBlueButton helps you engage students with:

• Multi-user whiteboard
• Breakout rooms (group and individual)
• Chat (public and private)
• Polling
• Shared notes
• Randomly selecting a student
• Emojis

We think of engagement in terms of activities designed to help students learn, such as following the Bloom’s Taxonomy framework. Examples include an activity that causes the user to recall (such as answering a poll), demonstrate (such as using multi-user whiteboard), apply (such as in breakout rooms), or ask questions (such as using public chat) about the material the instructor is trying to teach. The more students are engaged, the more they are thinking and learning.

Of course, all these features are still useful in a business meeting, video chat, or audio conference – but they are really useful when teaching users online.

To support users with accessibility needs, BigBlueButton is WCAG 2.0 AA certified (with some exceptions).

A brief overview of BigBlueButton

There are two types of users in BigBlueButton: viewer and moderator.

A viewer (typically the student) can chat, send/receive audio and video, respond to polls, display an emoji (such as their raised hand), and participate in a breakout sessions. They can not affect other students in the class.

A moderator (typically the instructor) can do everything a viewer can, plus more. A moderator can mute/unmute other viewers, lock down viewers (such as restrict them from using private chat), make any user (including themselves) the current presenter, and start breakout rooms. There can be multiple moderators in a session.

The presenter is an extra layer of privileges that gives any user the ability to

• Upload slides
• Use the whiteboard to annotate any side
• Enable/disable multi-user whiteboard
• Start a poll
• Share a YouTube, vimeo, peertube, or Canvas Studio video
• Share their screen

There can be only one presenter at a time. Again, any moderator can make any user (including themselves) the current presenter.

We created two overview videos – one for the viewer and the other for the moderator – to show you how the above features work.

Next steps

Interesting in getting started with BigBlueButton?

If you are an administrator interested in setting up your own BigBlueButton server, we recommend you:

1. Watch the overview videos to better understand the capabilities of viewer, moderator, and presenter.
2. Set up a free account to use BigBlueButton on our demo server.
3. Join the BigBlueButton community for help and, as you become an expert, help others.
4. Setup your own BigBlueButton server using bbb-install.sh.
5. Follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

If you are a developer, we recommend you:

1. Follow the above guidelines for administrator
2. Explore the options to customize BigBlueButton
3. Checkout the BigBlueButton API
4. Setup a development environment to modify and extend BigBlueButton itself.

If your interested in using BigBlueButton in a production environment, there are a number of companies that offer commercial support hosting and customizing BigBlueButton.

Latest release

The latest version of BigBlueButton is BigBlueButton 2.3. See install BigBlueButton.

Overview for Viewers (click image below to watch YouTube video):

Overview for Moderators/Presenters (click image below to watch YouTube video):

For information on the latest versions check out the release notes.

Share your experience with others

The BigBlueButton project is managed by a core group of committers who care about good design and a streamlined user experience.

An easy way to help the project is to tell your peers about it.

• Sending out a tweet at @bigbluebutton
• Uploading a video on YouTube demonstrating how you are using BigBlueButton
• Writing a blog post on your blog about BigBlueButton

We are passionate about making the world’s best open source web conferencing system for online learning. We enjoy reading about how others are benefiting from and building upon BigBlueButton.

BigBlueButton welcomes contributions from others on the project. See contributing to Bigbluebutton.

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Overview

This document gives you an overview of BigBlueButton 2.4, the upcoming release of BigBlueButton.

Timeline

We aim to have a much shorter release cycle for BigBlueButton 2.4 (compared to our previous releases).

May-June 2021 — development

July, August 2021 — beta versions

September/October 2021 — release candidates

November 2021 — official release (2.4.0) and afterwards minor releases (2.4.1, etc.) with security updates + bug fixes

What’s new

BigBlueButton 2.4 offers users improved usability, increased engagement, and more performance.

• Usability — making common functions (such as raise hand) easier
• Engagement — giving the instructor more ways to engage students
• Performance — increasing overall performance and scalability

Here’s a breakdown of what’s new in 2.4

Usability

• Ability to extend the duration of ongoing breakout rooms
• Ability to set the name of the breakout rooms as you create them
• Reduced mirror effect when sharing screen
• Improved view of external video sharing for viewers
• Recording includes polling result
• Moderator messages in the public chat are easier to distinguish
• Webcam background blur

Engagement

• Improved Layout Manager with focus on presentation vs focus on webcams
• Presenter can set viewers’ layout
• Hide voter’s name from moderators
• Indicate who is sharing webcam

Performance

This release, by design, does not introduce any large-scale UI changes. We designed it to be very familiar to users of BigBlueButton 2.3.

Under the hood, BigBlueButton 2.4 installs on Ubuntu 18.04 64-bit, and the following key components have been updated

• Node 14.x (LTS release of Node)
• Meteor 2.5

For full details on what is new in BigBlueButton 2.4, see the release notes. Recent releases:

Features

The following sections give details of the new features.

Usability

Ability to extend the duration of ongoing breakout rooms

As a moderator you can see the Extend button at the bottom of the Breakouts panel:

Selecting it will display the controls to extend the breakouts time by five or minutes or longer.

The time is added to all running breakout rooms.

Ability to set the name of the breakout rooms as you create them

When creating breakout rooms you can edit the name of each room

Reduced mirror effect when sharing screen

Up to and including BigBlueButton 2.3.x the HTML5 client would show mirror effect to the presenter when the presenter was sharing their entire window. This caused confusion and was often interpreted as a bug.

In BigBlueButton 2.4 we have introduced a simplified screen which informs the presenter of which window is shared, without creating mirror effect.

Improved view of external video sharing for viewers

Viewers no longer see the progress bar of videos. There are custom volume control and custom refresh video buttons.

Recording’s public chat includes polling result

Meetings which included polling have improved poll results summary in the recording.

Recording’s public chat includes links to external videos shared in the meeting

Meetings which included external video sharing (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) have links to the video resource in the recording’s public chat.

Moderator messages in the public chat are easier to distinguish

Chat messages sent by moderators stand out in the public chat, allowing to be distinguished easily. The emphasis is optional (settings.yml chat parameter moderatorChatEmphasized )

Webcam background blur

In the webcam preview window prior to sharing webcam you can select between several backgrounds (or no background blur)

No blur (default)

Replacing the background

Blurring the background

Engagement

Improved Layout Manager

Under Settings there is a new section of controls related to layout. A dropdown allows for the selection of one of: Smart Layout, Focus on presentation or Focus on webcams.

Focus on presentation — webcams are visible but more compact, allowing for the majority of the area to be reserved for the presentation. Focus on video has the reverse effect — the presentation is visible but on small area under the chat.

Presenter can set viewers’ layout

The presenter has an extra set of controls in the Settings modal. Aside from being able to set their own layout, there is an extra option to “push” that layout to the rest of the participants in the meeting.

Learning Dashboard

Moderators (teachers) are now able to view student participation and engagement throughout the session. The Learning Dashboard gives moderators a live view (updated every 10 seconds) of user metrics that include

• When they joined the session
• How long there have been in the session
• Time talking
• Time sharing their webcam
• How many messages, emojis, and raise hand events they have done
• current status (online/offline)
• Response to all polls

Teachers can use this dashboard to track engagement and learning (based on respose to polls) during the session to questions such as

• Which students are participating in the session (and which are not)?
• Based on the poll results, which students are learning (and which are not)?

Teachers are automatically logged in as moderators when joining from their LMS. They can launch the Learning Dashboard by selecting “Learning Dashboard” under the gear icon.

The screen shot below shows three (3) participants, two (2) polls, one raise hand, and overall activity score (calculated based on who is most active in talking, chatting, responding polls, using emojis, and raising hands).

This screen shot shows each user’s response to polls. Note: Anonymous is for any poll that the instructors indicated would be anonymous and not track user’s responses.

Hide voter’s name from moderators

BigBlueButton 2.4 supports pseudo-anonymous polls — meaning polls for which the presenter/moderator is not informed about the voting option of the viewers. Server administrators (anyone with access to the BigBlueButton server) can still find information to connect the answer to the user. Big thanks to @tibroc and @schrd who sent pull requests for this feature!

Set the poll to be “anonymous” when creating it:

Voters will see that it is anonymous:

The presenter will not know who voted what:

Indicate who is sharing webcam

BigBlueButton 2.4 introduces an indicator for users who are sharing their webcam. This is particularly helpful when webcam pagination is enabled there is no way of knowing whose webcam you would see on the other “pages”.

Performance

mediasoup

This release also contains initial support for using mediasoup instead of Kurento for handling WebRTC video streams (webcams and screenshare) and listen only. See these steps for enabling mediasoup on your setup of 2.4-rc-2 (or later).

Faster audio activation using fullaudio bridge (experimental)

With BigBlueButton 2.4-rc-4 (or later) you can switch the way full audio (microphone) is handled on the backend. By default we use SipJS but we are working on connecting to Kurento (and later mediasoup) and then to FreeSWITCH rather than directly to FreeSWITCH. The result is a faster audio connection (because media server supports trickle ICE) and fewer audio errors (because we don’t need to track SIP state in client anymore). This audio setup currently does not support echo test, so it needs to be disabled when using.

If you want to try this (keep in mind it is still experimental), you need to add the following block in the bbb-webrtc-sfu’s configuration to enable fullaudio via SFU:

The recommended way to add this would be to use the override file /etc/bigbluebutton/bbb-webrtc-sfu/production.yml (note that array configurations are merged by replacement, so we need to pass the full array)

Once fullaudio is defined in bbb-webrtc-sfu, there are two ways of opting in. A) Using API parameters you can have specific meetings use fullaudio by passing: CREATE parameter meta_fullaudio-bridge=fullaudio to override the default sipjs value and JOIN parameter userdata-bbb_skip_check_audio=true to disable echo test for that user.

B) You can change the defaults in the settings for bbb-html5 by overriding settings.yml Again, the recommended way is to use an override file /etc/bigbluebutton/bbb-html5.yml (you will likely want to merge it carefully with your existing file).

After a restart of BigBlueButton ( sudo bbb-conf —restart ) you can try out this audio join method. Reverting to the default options can be achieved by removing the override sections (and passed API parameters) and restart of BigBlueButton.

Installation

For server requirements, BigBlueButton 2.4 needs similar minimum server requirements as 2.3.

To install 2.4, use bbb-install.sh. For example, the following command installs BigBlueButton 2.4-dev using bbb.example.com as the hostname and notice@example.com as the email for Let’s Encrypt (you would substitute these values for your own hostname and email address). Notice the version is -v bionic-240 , which will install the latest officially published release (alpha/beta/etc) of BigBlueButton 2.4. If you instead use -v bionic-24-dev , you will be installing/updating to the very latest build tracking the source code from branch v2.4.x-release .

After installation finishes, you should see the following installed packages (your version numbers may be slightly different).

This installs the latest version of BigBlueButton 2.4-dev with Let’s encrypt certificate and the API demos. With the API demos installed, you can open https:// / in a browser (where is the hostname you specified in the `bbb-install.sh` command), enter your name, and click ‘Join’ to join ‘Demo Meeting’. For more information, see the [bbb-install.sh](https://github.com/bigbluebutton/bbb-install) documentation.

BigBlueButton 2.4-dev is under active development. While we don’t recommend setting it up in a production environment, we do encourage administrators to try out the build with others and give us feedback on our bigbluebutton-dev mailing list.

Development

Contribution

We welcome contributors to BigBlueButton 2.4! The best ways to contribute at the current time are:

• Help localize BigBlueButton 2.4 on Transifex project for BBB 2.4
• Try out installing BigBlueButton 2.4 and see if you spot any issues
• Help test a 2.4 pull request in your development environment

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