Scheduling a web conference

Using the Elluminate SAS

Scheduling a web conference in the Elluminate SAS

It's easy to run your own web conferences in the Virtual Conference Centre for online lessons, meetings, professional learning or connecting your students with experts and the wider community. The Elluminate Session Administration System (or SAS) allows you to login and schedule your own web conference sessions anytime.

Register and login

1. Register as a user of the Virtual Conference Centre at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/moderator-registration 2. Once you have completed the moderator registration form, you will receive a confirmation email on the next business day. This email contains your account details to access the Elluminate Session Administration System (or SAS).This confirmation email may go to your junk mailbox. If you do not receive this email, contact innovation@edumail.vic.gov.au 3. Access the Elluminate SAS at http://sas.elluminate.com. When you reach the login page, enter the username and password that you received in your confirmation email. 4. Once you are logged in, the first thing you should do is personalise your password for security reasons. Click on the Profile tab at the top. Then click Edit. You can enter any username and password. Once you have done this, simply press Save and Close.

Schedule a session
1. Return to the My Elluminate tab and click on the Schedule a meeting button in the Resources menu.

2. Enter a session title, start time and end time, and reserve your required number of seats.

3. Click on the Show Default Fields button on the left, in the Additional Settings menu. 4. Select the Elluminate version you wish to use. 5. Next, select the Session type which best matches the purpose of your session. The Innovation and Next Practice Division uses these categories to analyse the usage of the Virtual Conference Centre. If you don't select the 'Session Type', you may be contacted by email and asked to provide the session type, to ensure our usage data is accurate.

6. Optional: You may also choose to customise your session with the following settings: Check Notify Invitees to automatically notify all invitees, who are invited through the SAS, about the session. Check Must Be Supervised if you want the Moderator to view private messages sent between participants. Check Permissions On if you want participants to enter the session with privileges such as audio, video, chat and whiteboard. If you wish to record the session, check Enable Recording to give the Moderator the ability to start and pause the recording during the session. To automatically email the recording link to invited participants, check Email Recording Link. Note that only participants who are invited through the SAS will receive the email from the server. The moderator will have the option to email the link to all other participants. Enable Recording Viewer Details requires viewers to enter their name and /or email address before they can access the recording. This will enable you to monitor the download logs for your session recordings. To invite someone to your session from within the session, check Allow In-Session Invitations. The In-Session Invitation button will appear in the moderator toolbar in Elluminate. Hide Attendee Names hides the names of all attendees in the recording. Attendees will appear as Participant #1, Participant #2 etc. If using live video and recording the session, select the quality desired in the Video Quality field. The Boundary Time determines how early participants can enter the session. Enter the number of minutes before the session start time that participants may enter. Determine the maximum number of simultaneous talkers for your session in the Max Talkers field. Enter a number between 1 and 6. Moderators can also adjust this number during the Elluminate session. Determine the maximum number of simultaneous video transmissions for your session in the Max Cameras field. Enter a number between 1 and 6. Moderators can also adjust this number during the Elluminate session. The Virtual Conference Centre does not have a teleconferencing facility so please ignore the following settings: Moderator Phone Moderator Phone PIN Participant Phone Participant Phone PIN Session SIP or Phone Session SIP/Phone PIN. 7. If these settings are likely to be your preferences for future sessions, you can press the button to Save Current Settings As Defaults 8. Click on the Hide Default Fields button in the Additional Settings menu. 9. Press the 'Create the Session' button in the top right corner. You will see a confirmation page showing the session details and the guest link to send out to your participants. You will also receive an email notification with your moderator link, participant link and recording link.

Optional: Pre-load content

You can select to have whiteboard or multimedia files preloaded when you enter the room. 1. Click on the Show Content Preloads button in the Additional Settings menu. 2. Click on File Upload to select the files on your computer that you wish to preload. Note that only the following file types can be preloaded: Elluminate whiteboard and Elluminate Plan files: '.wbd', '.wbp', '.elp' or '.elpx'. MPEG files: '.mpeg', '.mpg', '.mpe', '.m4v', '.mp4' QuickTime files: '.mov', '.qt' Windows Media files: '.wmv' Flash files: '.swf' Audio files: '.mp3' If you have a PowerPoint file, you can first load it into any Elluminate room, then save it as a .wbd file to allow preloading. Elluminate preload filenames must be less than 64 characters (including any file extensions). 3. Once you have uploaded your content, refresh the screen and you will be able to select your files from the drop down boxes in the Whiteboard/Plan Preload and Multimedia Preload fields.

4. Click on the Hide Content Preloads button in the Additional settings menu.

Optional: Add invitees to your session

It is not essential to add invitees to your session as you will be given a generic participant link for any session that you create. Adding invitees will simply send them a personalised session link, eliminating the need for them to enter their display name into the login page. 1. Click on the Show Invitees button in the Additional Settings menu. 2. Click on the arrows (shown below) to add people from your contacts list on the left to your invitees list on the right. If the contact will be co-moderating the session with you, you can invite them as a chair with moderator privileges. Otherwise, you can invite them as a regular participant.

3. To create a new contact, simply enter their details into the mandatory Email Address and Display Name fields. Then, press the Create the Invitee button.

4. Again, use the arrow buttons to add the new contact to the invitee list on the right, either as a chair (moderator) or non-chair (regular participant) Keep in mind that as the owner of the session, you are required to personally attend and moderate all sessions that you create, even if another moderator is in the room.

Managing your sessions

1. Return to the My Elluminate tab and click on the Display Schedule button. You will see all sessions that you have access to on the current day. Click Back and change the start date and end date if you wish to see past or future sessions. 2. Once the schedule is displayed, you will see options to Edit or Delete any session that you have created. You can edit the start time, end time, reserved seats and any other settings up until the session start time.

3. If it is within the boundary time for your session, which is usually 60 minutes before the start time, you will also see a Join link. Click the Join link and you will be logged in to the session without needing to enter your display name. You may need to click on the information bar in your browser to allow the session to load. If you are the owner of the session, you will automatically enter the web conference with moderator privileges.

To access resources and discussions on using the Elluminate SAS and running your own web conferences, visit the Virtual Conference Centre online community at: http://guidetoinnovation.ning.com/group/virtualconferencecentre