Scheduling and running a Large-Scale session
This guide provides information on Blackboard Collaborate Ultra and how to enable it to run with 250 + students inside of a session. Running a ‘large scale’ session can limit functionality.
Scheduling a large scale session
To schedule a large scale session, please follow the steps below:
- Navigate to Collaborate Ultra on your module site.
- Click ‘Create Session’ and schedule an event by inputting a session name, dates and times, etc.
- Click on the cog icon (Session settings) to access additional settings. Within these settings, select the tick-box under ‘Large scale session (250+) called ‘Allow 250+ attendees to join. This function will automatically disable participants from sharing audio, video and chat. Click ‘Save when complete.
Running a large group session (re-enabling chat and upgrading participants)
As mentioned above, by scheduling a large scale session the default features of participants is to disable sharing audio, video and chat. However, if you would like participants to share information this can be done by changing individuals privileges inside of the sessions.
- Join your Collaborate session from Blackboard. Welcome students as they join and highlight the ‘Raise hand’ feature to students.
- Open the right-hand menu by clicking on the purple arrows and click on the cog icon (My Settings). Under ‘Session settings’ you can now enable the function to allow participants to post chat messages.
- You can upgrade a student to a presenter to allow them to share audio and video, ask students to raise their hands if they would like to speak.
- Access the Attendees tab in the right-hand menu. Click the ellipses (three dots) next to a student’s name to access the attendee controls and select ‘Make presenter’. This student can now enable their microphone and camera.
- When appropriate, you can downgrade a student by clicking the ellipses next to their name and selecting ‘Make participant’.
- Encourage and remind students to lower their hand when necessary.
- You can also make use of Collaborate’s polling tool to ask students to engage with questions.