BigBlueButton Integration With Moodle

The BigBlueButtonBN plugin for Moodle is developed and supported by Blindside Networks.  It is compatible with 3.0 (and later) and is currently running on over 5,000 Moodle sites.
 
You can install the BigBlueButtonBN (the “BN” is for Blindside Networks) plugin with just a few steps.
 

Installation Steps

The easiest way to install the plugin is to create an account on moodle.org, then click login to your Moodle site, navigate to Dashboard / Site administration / Plugins / Install plugins and click “Install plugins from the Moodle plugins directory”.

When you install the BigBlueButtonBN plugin it comes pre-configured to use your “test-install” server.  You are free to use it for testing as long as you like.

If you have your own BigBlueButton server, to connect BigBlueButtonBN to your Moodle server, first login to your BigBlueButton server and get the API credentials using the following command.

bbb-conf --secret

You can then enter the credentials in the BigBlueButtonBN settings panel

Of course, you can also contact us for hosting options as well.  

The BigBlueButtonBN plugin provides your instructors and students full access to BigBlueButton’s capabilities from within your Moodle interface. It enables you to:

  • Create activity links in a course for online classes (no need for students to login twice)
  • Limit students from entering an online class before a teacher joins
  • Create custom welcome messages
  • Schedule classes in the Moodle calendar
  • Launch BigBlueButton in its own window
  • View (and manage) recordings

The screen shot below shows a class ready for joining (the student can click the ‘Join Session’ button) and a past recording ready for viewing.

The iMoot team have been using BigBlueButton since 2013 to help facilitate a biannual online learning event focusing on Moodle - the iMoot. The event runs runs across timezones and has a global audience of hundreds. Without this awesome open source web lecturing and web conferencing system, we would not be able to run our event. Fred and the team at Blindside Networks are so responsive to communication, and have gone out of their way to help and support us. I thoroughly recommend BigBlueButton to anyone looking for a reliable and scalable web conferencing system designed for online learning.
Vinny Stocker
iMoot Team

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