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[[!meta title="BigBlueButton tips for speakers"]]
[[!meta copyright="Copyright © 2023 Sacha Chua"]]
# BigBlueButton tips for speakers
We'll be using BigBlueButton for EmacsConf 2023 live presentations and
web conference Q&A sessions. It should act mostly like other web
conferencing systems people have used before, but just in case, it's a
good idea to test it with your setup before the conference begins.
We've set up one room for each speaker or group of speakers. We'll
e-mail you with your personal URL, and you can also find it
[backstage](https://media.emacsconf.org/2023/backstage) as the "Open
backstage BigBlueButton" link for your talk. Before the conference, we'll set it so
that anyone can start a meeting and all users are moderators. That
way, when you connect to the meeting room to test your setup, you'll
be able to share your screen and/or your webcam.
## Audio
- When you connect to the meeting, it will say "How would you like to
join the audio?" After you choose "Microphone", it will display
"Connecting to echo test..." and then "This is a private echo test.
Speak a few words. Did you hear audio?" When you talk, you should
hear your words echoed back to you after a short delay. If you
don't, please try different audio settings, check your web browser's
audio permissions, or try a different web browser.
- [How to manage your camera and microphone permissions with Mozilla Firefox](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-manage-your-camera-and-microphone-permissions)
- [How to manage your camera and microphone permissions with Google Chrome](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2693767?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop)
You can repeat the echo test by leaving and rejoining the audio
using the telephone handset icon at the bottom.
- Using headphones or earphones can help reduce noise and avoid audio
feedback loops. If you happen to have an external microphone, using
it may also help reduce noise.
- You will start off muted. You can unmute yourself by using the
microphone icon near the bottom. Then you can doublecheck your audio
by seeing if your name shows up with a microphone icon near the top
when you're speaking, or by joining from another device.
- If you plan to share sounds from your computer (not just your
microphone), please test if this works and if the audio can be heard
via the web conference. It should be echoed back to you during the
echo test. If it isn't echoed back to you,
- BigBlueButton sometimes makes interesting choices about audio
levels. If you can familiarize yourself with the microphone volume
control setting for your system, that will make it easier to adjust
audio during the conference.
## Sharing
- You can share your screen using the monitor icon on the bottom
toolbar. (This might not be available on phones.) Sharing a single
window might be better than sharing the whole screen, because then
you'll be able to easily resize the window in order to improve
readability.
- Sharing screens can be a little tricky with multi-monitor setups. If
you use more than one monitor, please check if sharing works the way
you expect it to. If it doesn't, you may need to consider using one
monitor during your Q&A session.
- Uploading a presentation (PDF or other document types) doesn't work
on our instance, so if you would like to share something, you will
need to share your screen.
## What to expect during the conference
I'll change the room settings on Dec 1 so that anyone can start the
web conference but people won't be moderators when they join. Please
check your setup before then.
You can check in during the conference by introducing yourself in the
[#emacsconf-org channel](https://chat.emacsconf.org/?join=emacsconf-org)
with something like "Hi, this is *name* checking in". Please check in
ideally 30 minutes or more before your live talk or Q&A session so
that we don't start panicking. The check-in volunteer will join you in
your BigBlueButton room, make you a moderator, and go through the
pre-flight checklist with you.
Here is the checklist we'll do:
- Can you speak and be heard? Is there echo?
- Can you hear the check-in volunteer?
- Can you share your screen? Will the screen be readable at 1280x720?
- If you plan to show your keystrokes, is that display visible?
- If you want to share your webcam (optional), can you enable it? Is it visible? Will there likely be distractions in the background?
- Can you view the Etherpad where we'll collect questions? (The Etherpad link is in the backstage area under your talk.) Will you be comfortable reviewing questions on your own (perhaps by keeping it open beside your shared window), or do you want a volunteer to read questions to you?
- If you plan to play sounds during your Q&A session, are they audible?
After the check-in volunteer gets you settled in, you can keep the
browser tab open with the BigBlueButton room, stretch, get a glass of
water, etc. A few minutes before your Q&A session starts, we'll pop
back in to give you a heads-up. We'll remind you to close any other
tab where you might be watching EmacsConf so that you don't end up
hearing yourself with a delay (that can be quite confusing), and we'll
start the recording. We'll start the recording when the host and
streamer join you.
You can answer whatever questions you like in whatever order you like.
We would greatly appreciate it if you read the question out loud first
before you answer it. That makes it much easier to capture the notes
and to add an index so that people can jump to specific questions.
When you and the host are comfortable with how things are going, we
can open it up for people to join you so they can chat with you
directly. You can stay in the web conference room and chat with them
for as long as you like. When you're ready to wrap up, you can click
on the three-dot menu in the top right and choose **End meeting**.
If you accidentally share something or say something that you want to
be removed from the recording (it happens!), type something into the
text chat like "oops!" with possibly some details of what you'd like
us to do. We can get the timestamp from that and look into editing the
recording.
## After the conference
We'll download the recordings, process them, copy questions and
answers to the wiki page, and see if we can add a chapter index so
people can jump to specific parts of the discussion. We'll keep you up
to date as things move through the process.
Thank you so much for being part of EmacsConf!
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