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Web Meeting

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Advice by ict service center:

Make sure that you never share confidential information via online meeting means.
Discuss confidential information by telephone with your colleagues (possibly with a conference call). Share your documents via a workgroup folder or Surfdrive and not via an online meeting tool. Especially now online meeting tools are very interesting for hackers.

Web Meeting Software

The ICT Helpdesk offers support with

  • 'Surfvideo calling' : pilot, meetings with max 6 persons.
  • 'WebEx' : meetings with max 250 persons with current license. also for sensitive topics
  • 'Zoom' : meetings with max 300 persons with current license. only for non-sensitive topics

For teaching purposes (with helpdesk support) you can use

  • 'Brightspace virtual classroom': with max 150 persons, drawing board, and the possibility to add guests.
    Arjen de Vries wrote-up some experiences with Brightspace Virtual Classroom when using it for a MSc defense. See https://arjenp.dev/docs/BVC/ .

For non-sensitive topics you can use

  • Skype : Suitable for up to 5 people. Advantage over alternatives: you can dial somebody directly.
  • Zoom : Suitable for up to 99(Free)/300(edu license) people. With the free version, a session with 3 or more participants can last up to 40 minutes. With the edu license a meeting with 1-300 persons can last 24 hours.

Skype is not supported by the ICT Helpdesk.

The ICT Helpdesk advices to use WebEx for sensitive topics because their servers are located in the EU and can be password protected. The servers of skype and zoom are probably not in the EU.

Look here for more info from the ICT Helpdesk about online meetings

Below I will discuss how to use WebEx because that is the adviced web meeting software by the ICT Helpdesk.

Preliminary test results

We did some preliminary tests. Our findings are:

  • 'Surfvideo calling' : not so enthousiastic about it. Big delay between audio and video, and no drawing board.
  • 'WebEx' : Fine.
  • 'Zoom' : Fine. Drawing board is nicer than the one of WebEx.

For all three we found out that Video/audio quality will sometimes be problematic if you have bad internet connection (vdsl with only 2,5 Mbs upload). It can help to disable video and use only audio. (only for attendees with bad internet).

The main advantages for WebEx above Zoom are:

  • WebEx is more secure by EU servers
  • Zoom seems to have privacy problems...according to the news

Zoom according this source seems to have better video quality and a more User-Friendly Design. On a forum like reddit zoom seems also to be preferred.

General principles

Global overview and terminology

Most meeting software works with the following principles:

  • you don't need an account to join a meeting, only an invitation
  • you need an account to schedule and host a meeting
  • a meeting
    • has a unique meeting id
    • and can be protected by a password
    • a meeting URL
  • a meeting can be joined
    • by supplying the meeting id and password in the meeting app; either the web or desktop app
    • with the meeting URL in the browser, which is often more convenient!
  • there are two major types of meeting locations:
    • a unique meeting room with unique id and URL which is only used at one point in time
    • a personal meeting room of an account; this meeting room has a fixed id and URL where you meet that person.
      Like a physical room you can lock the room for other people entering. New people trying to enter have to wait in a virtual lobby. In this way you can arrange several small groups of people to enter your room in sequel. That is let the first group enter the room and then lock the room. When the meeting with the first group is done, they leave, you unlock the room, and another group can enter. In this way you can ask several groups of people to meet you at different times after each other. They all can use your personal room URL. You can just send to all groups your personal room URL and a table with a time schedule specifying the time for each group. The personal room makes many sequential groups scheduling much easier!!

Send web meeting invitation with your calendar (eg. outlook)

When you send an invitation for a meeting using outlook or any calendar application then compose the invite as follows:

  • subject: topic of web meeting
  • location: URL of web meeting
  • time : time of web meeting (can be recurring with same meeting id and URL)
  • attendees : attendees you want to invite
  • content: agenda of web meeting with additionally the meeting id, password and meeting URL.

Use the web meeting app first to generate the meeting to get the meeting id and URL, before you can send an invitation with your calender (eg. outlook)
However, when you use within outlook a web meeting plugin, then this plugin can generate the meeting id and URL on the fly for you from within outlook, making scheduling a webmeeting very easy.

Recurring meetings have fixed URL and settings

For weekly meetings, monthly check-ins, and other regularly-scheduled calls, the web meeting application, eg. Zoom or WebEx, lets you create a recurring meeting. There are two benefits to using this setting.

  • First, it lets you lock in all the call settings you want once and have them be in place every time you meet.
  • Second, recurring calls use the same join URL each time, so you never have to send a fresh one to attendees.

WebEx

WebEx overview (Business license)

Get started information

First read the general principle above.

To attend a meeting you don't need an account.

However, to plan a meeting you do need an account. The person with an account which plans a meeting is called the 'host' of the meeting. Thus, a host can plan a meeting and invite a lot off people which do not need an account to join in for the meeting. This way not everybody needs an account.

The ICT Helpdesk has a licence for 750 'host' accounts for the whole University. So only request an account if you really need to organize meetings.

Attend meetings (no need for an account)

Joining a meeting

A good introduction video is at: 

 https://ebooks.cisco.com/story/webexessentials/page/2/1

To join a meeting you don't need an account. To join a meeting do:

  • open the URL which you got in the meeting invitation. (in browser)
  • WebEx will then be opened in your browser.
  • When you open WebEx for the first time in the web browser you are prompted to install the "webex desktop application". You can skip that and click "Join from browser", then you can join the meeting from within your webbrowser without to need to install anything. However for some reasons sometime this "Join from browser" does not appear, then you must install the WebEx desktop application, which will open from the browser you open the URL again after installing it.
  • Then you are prompted for some identification information:
    • name: supply your full name
    • email: use your ru-email and not your science email. Otherwise, the integration with outlook calendar will not work.
  • then the video meeting would show up and you are joined in the meeting.
  • Sometimes you are asked to sign up. DO NOT do that, but instead click on the use as "guest" button.

Notes:

  • Signing up is only for people with an account which need to plan meetings.
  • You can install the desktop application. In that case when you open the meeting invitation URL in the browser, the browser will open the desktop application. Then follow the same steps as for the web application above. The "WebEx desktop application" application may be easier to use if you have regular meetings.
  • You can also join a meeting by supplying the meeting id and password. However, clicking on the URL is more convenient.

Join meeting in person's "Personal Room" (attendees do not need an account)

Each person which has an account for WebEx gets also a so called "Personal Room". A "Personal Room" has a fixed url where the person as host can meet up with other people without organizing a meeting in the outlook calendar. However you have to communicate in some way to all persons that you want to meet there at some specific time.

Eg. a person with ru email address "John.Doe@ru.nl" has as "Personal Room" URL "https://ru.webex.com/meet/john.doe".

There are two ways to join a meeting in John Doe's personal room:

If you enter John Doe's personal room and he is not there, then there is a reminder button in the room you, where you can send him a message that your are in his room.

Organizing meetings (need an account)

Request an account

The initiator of a meeting needs an account. You can apply for an account at the ICT Helpdesk. Please give your @ru.nl mail address to icthelpdesk@ru.nl.

Types of meetings

If you plan a meeting then there are 3 types, shown at

  1. Standard Scheduled Meeting: to schedule a meeting where you can invite people with their email address (meeting will also put in outlook calendar!)
  2. Personal Room Meeting : each person has its personal url where to meet. See it has your personal office where everybody can walk in and out, but then virtual! Offcourse iff somebody is not in his personal office you can enter but you are alone. See can make appointments to meet at the office.
    Example: John Doe's personal office online is: https://ru.webex.com/meet/john.doe
  3. Personal Conference Meeting : not recommended, and audio only!

Normally you would only use option 1 for planned virtual meetings.

More details see: https://help.webex.com/en-us/k3jv9i/Compare-Cisco-Webex-Meeting-Types

Standard WebEx meeting versus Personal Room

Standard WebEx meeting

  • Each time a WebEx meeting is scheduled, it creates a unique URL link to join the meeting.
  • The meeting can be joined by anybody invited whether the host is present or not.
  • Once the scheduled WebEx meeting has finished, the link cannot be used again.
    Except for recurring meetings where the same link is reused.

Personal Room

  • A permanent meeting link, unique to you.
  • No need to schedule as you can simply send people the link.
  • Personal Room link never changes.
  • Personal Rooms must be started by the host or an alternative host they have allocated.

Does the host have to be present for a meeting?

No, for a Standard WebEx meeting

Yes, for a Personal Room meeting.

Planning a meeting

Planning meetings works great from the Outlook Desktop Application if you have the plugin for WebEx installed. Otherwise, use the scheduling online within the webbrowser.

Planning meetings works great online within the webbrowser. There you also have more options than in the desktop application.

  • open in the browser the URL https://ru.webex.com/
  • 'Sign in' with your account ('Meld u aan' in dutch)
  • click left on 'Meetings' menu
  • click on the right on the 'Schedule' button
  • in the shown form fill in:
    • the meeting topic
    • the date and time
    • and a list of attendees: use ru-email addresses
      To invite outlook groups see the workaround below.
  • Press the 'Schedule' button
  • The meeting is know scheduled. All attendees get an outlook invite email for a meeting. This means that the meeting is automatically added to their outlook calendars.

It is important that when you invite people for a meeting then use their ru-email addresses, because only then this meeting will automatically add to their outlook calendars.

You cannot invite a whole outlook group from WebEx. A workaround is after scheduling within WebEx, to use the outlook calendar to send separately the meeting invite to the group. Tip: make a meeting with WebEx where you do not invite anybody. Then open outlook calendar and copy "subject" "location(url)" and "content" to a new meeting you organize yourself where you invite the outlook group as attendee. The outlook groups are listed at https://wiki.icis-intra.cs.ru.nl/ExchangeCalendar#Distribution_Lists_for_iCIS .

Finally, completion of email addresses does only work in WebEx when the email is used before. So sometimes you have to figure the email addresses out yourself. On the radboudnet web page you can find a person's email address, however this is not always a ru-email address. For most people of iCIS their cs/science email address is listed there. To help people to find a ru-email address for a person I added this info to our intra wiki.
See the page: https://wiki.icis-intra.cs.ru.nl/People_RU#Search_for_the_ru-email_address_off_a_colleague

Outlook Desktop Application plugin for WebEx

There is a plugin for the Outlook Desktop Application which integrates WebEx into it. Basically it gives you a "WebEx" button which allows you to schedule a WebEx meeting from outlook. For more information see WebEx Productivity Tools installation and usage.

BUG: planning with WebEx desktop application on macos doesn't work

I installed the Desktop application of WebEx on my MacBook, and planning meetings with it was terrible. People got invited without any information about the meeting. Maybe on windows it works better... So I would use only use the Desktop application to join meetings, but do the planning in the web version. Even better use the WebEx plugin for Outlook Desktop to schedule your WebEx meetings directly from Outlook.

However planning meetings works great from the Outlook Desktop Application if you have the plugin for WebEx installed. Otherwise, use the scheduling online within the webbrowser.

Zoom

beware: some serious privacy and security issues

In other words: users, beware.

Tip: if you have to use it, use the iOS version (sandboxed) or run it in a private tab on your browser

Zoom overview

Free license

Education license

  • the university has bought the education license
  • you can request a host account by mailing to your "aanvraagbevoegde". Currently, this is only Harco Kuppens.
    IMPORTANT: for attending meetings you do not need a host account.
  • Suitable for up to 300 people.
  • a session with 1-300 participants can last up to 24 hours.

Getting started

The best experience with zoom you have with the desktop client, because the web client has limited features. (There's also a Zoom client for Ubuntu & that works fine.)

To get started follow the instruction in this Zoom Getting Started Manual (pdf, 672 kB)

Zoom works similar as WebEx, so look at the general principles and instructions for WebEx above. However, the following difference we must note for Zoom:

  • use the desktop application, this works great!
  • do the scheduling for meetings also with the desktop application. You can even copy an invitation to outlook or any other calendar. Or even better use zoom integration in outlook.
  • if you have an account you also have a personal room. This personal room is however only reachable by an integer id, and not with a convenient name id as with WebEx. However, when once entered somebody's personal meeting room the zoom app remembers the id with the name of the room, so you can easily revisit.

Does the host have to be present for a meeting?

No. You can choose the “Enable join before host” option when scheduling the meeting. This will allow any participant with the meeting ID to join at any time. There are two problems with selecting this option.

  • The first is that a meeting without a Host does not have someone who can do things like allow participants to record or mute participants who are producing unwanted sounds.
  • The second is that participants can join and start the meeting at any time, which may conflict with other meetings

Verify recording option is enabled (only for ru licensed account)

  • login with your account on the website https://zoom.us/
  • go to the "recording" side menu https://zoom.us/recording
  • If recording is enabled that page will show a list of all your recordings.
    Recording is disabled if that page says:
    Your IT admin has disabled the access to your recordings page, you can contact IT admin for more details.
  • If recording is disabled, then to activate it mail your "aanvraagbevoegde". Currently, this is only Harco Kuppens.

Tips

See https://zapier.com/blog/zoom-tips/

Outlook Desktop Application plugin for Zoom

There is a plugin for the Outlook Desktop Application which integrates Zoom into it. Basically it gives you a "Zoom" button which allows you to schedule a Zoom meeting from outlook. You can download it from https://zoom.us/download .

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