Live Streaming from teaching spaces and Digital Education Systems - Staff Guide

Around 90 teaching rooms are being equipped with live streaming capability across campus for September 2021. This will allow teaching delivery to both in-room and remote online students synchronously and primarily allows one-way delivery of teaching content. Online students will watch a live feed of teaching shared through a virtual classroom (Microsoft Teams, Collaborate or Zoom).

This guidance outlines the process for requesting a room with live streaming functionality and a number of standard set-up scenarios, highlighting digital education systems that could contribute positively to the live streaming modality.

1. 1. Some of your students will not be in Leeds when teaching starts and you want them to be able to watch your teaching live, in real-time alongside in person (on-campus) students;
   2. You want to give your students a choice of attending on-campus or online and want your online students to be able to watch live;
   3. Some of your students are in industry / on placements and cannot join on-campus;
   4. Your teaching group size exceeds the maximum room size available so some students will watch online; this may involve you splitting your class into smaller groups to give each group equal online/on-campus teaching experiences. An example of this could be week one, group A on-campus, group B online, then alternated for the following week.

You should let your school timetabler know you want a room suitable for live streaming and which of the above scenarios you are accommodating so they can request a suitably sized room, and set your teaching timetable up in the appropriate way. Your timetabler should also be able to provide guidance on how group allocations can work for your module if you want alternate or specific weeks on-campus.

Your online students will only see and hear what is shared with them in the Virtual Classroom. The two easiest ways to share content are:

• Selecting the camera and microphone feed from the room so that it is shared with your online students - this will allow them to see what the camera is positioned to capture (usually the lectern and the presentation screen at the front of the room, wide angle and fixed position), and hear the audio that is also recorded from the room.
• Sharing your desktop PC with your online students at the start of the session and run the whole class with your desktop content being shared with your online and in-room students - this requires the least interaction but does mean you will need to be careful that no personal data is visible as you move around your Virtual Classroom/desktop.

In rooms where there is a physical whiteboard and presentation screen, if you use the whiteboard, the camera is positioned to capture both the screen and the whiteboard. For guidance on digital whiteboards please see the Livestreaming FAQ's.

You will need to choose a Virtual Classroom to host your online students (Teams, Zoom or Collaborate).

• If you have staff or students based in China who need to access your live stream you should avoid Collaborate as this currently inaccessible to users from China.
• Both Microsoft Class Teams and Collaborate inherit their student membership from the Banner enrolment record for your module. They also offer the option to start an online session without the need to setup meeting invites, this is looked at in more detail in the next section, (Scheduling your online session). Zoom is not currently integrated with Banner and requires you to create and send meeting invites for all online sessions.

Deciding your online settings

You will need to decide what settings to apply to your online session, do you want your students to be able to chat, un-mute themselves, turn on video?

Once you have decided what settings you want to use for your online sessions, either:

In advance: schedule online meetings in the Virtual Classroom of your choice (to match the time(s) and date(s) provided to your timetabler) and invite the students you want to be able to join online. You may find the scheduling tip below helpful.
OR
On the day: If you have a Microsoft Team your students are members of, use Meet Now, or use the Collaborate Course Room and start an online session using the lectern PC in the room so that students can join the live stream. This will avoid the need for scheduling online meetings but does mean any of the students enrolled on your module can join online (as no invite is required).

Scheduling tip

If you are going to give your students a choice of attending in-person or online, please think about how you will manage in-room attendees so that room capacity is not exceeded. For example, if you are allocated a teaching space that is suitable for 40 but your module size is 80, you will need to ensure the capacity of the room is not exceeded. Creating sign-up lists using Minerva Self-Enrol Groups, Microsoft Group Bookings, or an Excel spreadsheet saved in a Microsoft Class Team can be helpful in managing capacities as they can be used to set-up activities with capped attendance. You would use a sign up list to allow students to book their seat for the in-room on-campus activity rather than the online activity which would be uncapped.

N.B. Accommodating Students with Note Takers / Support Workers
When setting up any type of sign-up list for in-room on-campus participation, please do remember to prompt students to let you know if they have a note taker or support worker so that you can ensure you do not inadvertently exceed the room capacity of the room.

If the teaching space you have been allocated can accommodate all your students, should they wish to participate in-person on-campus, then there would be no need for any type of sign up lists, however it should be noted that room sizes for semester 1 are currently capped at 90.

Whilst building interactivity into a live streaming session is possible, it requires much more effort on your part. Be mindful that introducing more online activities whilst teaching to in-room students and online students can be challenging and may place unnecessary demands and distractions on you. If you need interactivity for your teaching session you may find it is more suited to multi-mode teaching delivery (see, Getting Started: Multi-mode teaching delivery).

This guidance outlines a number of standard set-up scenarios for live streaming, highlighting digital education systems that can contribute positively to live streamed teaching, however, it is acknowledged that some colleagues may wish to introduce alternative/additional aspects to their live streaming sessions.

New for 2021: To log into a PC in a central teaching space you should have you own device (mobile phone, tablet, iPad/laptop) with the Duo Mobile App installed so that you can complete the two factor authentication. Visit Duo two factor authentication - FAQs.

Students should not be mandated to use their video in online environments. Remember that if online students choose to display their video and you are sharing this to the projected screen, this may be lecture captured. Prior consent is needed to record students. See Audio Visual Recording Policy: Guidance for Staff

You are encouraged to adapt your teaching delivery to the livestreaming format, e.g. no breakout rooms, clear lines of communications (Padlet, chat), time at the beginning for a mic and screen share check, time at the end to look at questions.

For pedagogical advice on Student Centered Active Learning and to consider synchronous and asynchronous approaches to teaching visit the SCALA guide on the Digital Practice website.

If you intend for the session to be recorded for review/catch-up, the room's lecture capture system should be used to record the session as this provides the highest quality audio and video. What is captured by the lecture capture system is based on the category of the room.

Lecture Capture Room Categories

You should let your timetabler know if you want lecture capture for your teaching, (you can always do this closer to the start of term or use Record Now if you decide to record it on the day). See the IT knowledge base for general lecture capture guidance: What is scheduled lecture capture.

Make sure your students are clear on how live streaming will work for your teaching, is participating on-campus or via live stream optional, or are they expected to attend on-campus in certain weeks? What interaction will be available to them? Should they join a course room or channel meeting at the time shown on their timetable or will they receive a meeting invitation? You decide but make sure you communicate this to them clearly and in good time.

Please take a look at the 10 Key Things for Staff which provides guidance for staff using teaching spaces with live streaming functionality. 

If you recorded your teaching activity through the lecture capture system, make it available to your students in the usual way.

• Scheduled recordings are automatically published to your linked Minerva module area 72 hours (3 working days), from the recording being processed unless you have removed the auto-publish action for the recording.
• Recordings made by pressing Record Now will need to be published manually.