Manage and Record Rooms

Contents of this article:

• Accessing Rooms
• Roles
• Presenter Controls
• Recording
• Breakout Rooms
• Shared Notes
• Presentations
• Screensharing
• Playback

Accessing Rooms

Rooms can be accessed via the IRIS Connect Platform app or through your browser on either a mobile device or a computer.

Your mobile device needs to be on  iOS version 12.2+ / Android version 6.0+.

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).

Session Information

If you are a Room owner and there is a live session in progress you can see the following information:

Roles

There are two types of users in Rooms: Viewer and Moderator.

• A Viewer (typically the learner) can chat, send/receive audio and video, respond to polls, display an emoji (such as their raised hand), and participate in breakout sessions. They can not affect other viewers in the room.

• A Moderator (typically the educator) can do everything a viewer can, plus more. A moderator can mute/unmute other viewers, lockdown 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. Any moderator can make any user (including themselves) the current presenter.

Presenter Controls

Click the blue Start Room button to begin the session.

You will land on the initial screen like the image below.

• On the left-hand side of the screen you will find the Messages section for Public Chat, the Notes section for shared notes, and the list of Users in the Room.
• At the bottom-center are your personal functions for the main conference. Audio, Webcam, and Share Share functions are here.  

Recording

• You can record and pause the recording with the Record button at the top-center of the screen. After the meeting has ended, the recording will be saved automatically to your Reflections. Depending on the duration of the recording, it may take several minutes to appear in your Reflection Library. The reflection will also show underneath the configuration panel.
• Moderators have the ability to change certain conditions within the Room, such as muting users or toggling user webcams on and off. You can click on a user's name in the left margin and promote them to moderator from here or hand over the screen presentation to them.
• The recording will record both the webcams of the users and the presentation.

Breakout Rooms

Moderators can create Breakout Rooms. Breakout rooms offer the same functionality as the Main Room but in a more private setting. Instructors and participants can be invited to join a breakout room.

A breakout room will open in a new tab and users can switch between tabs to interact with each Room that they are participating in. You can freely switch your webcam or screen-share to whichever Room you are currently in by using the buttons at the bottom of the screen. You may only share one of these hardware resources to one Room at a time.

Shared Notes 

Shared notes can be found under the left-hand panel. These are notes that any user can add.

Presentations

To upload presentations you will need to be the presenter. Click the blue + button then select Manage presentations. You will then be able to upload a presentation to the Room.

Screensharing

To share your screen with the other users of the Room, you will need to be the presenter. 

1. Click the screen share button.

2. Select Entire screen, Window or Tab.

3. Select which screen/window/tab you want to share.

4. If you want to share system audio make sure to tick this box.

5. Then click share.

The button will turn blue and you will see what you are sharing via the Room screen.

Playback

This is how the video player will look when a Rooms recording is playing.

The presentation area will appear on the left-hand side and the cameras of all the participants will appear on the right-hand side.

The presentation area will include everything the presenter is focussing on at that time. For example, if the presenter is using the whiteboard to explain something, then switches to sharing their screen to show them how to do something, this will all be reflected in the video recording.