Roles
There are three major roles within Blackboard Collaborate, here is a breakdown of the roles and what they can do.
Moderator
This is typically a course instructor, which gives you full control over all content being shared in a session. They can make any attendee a presenter or a moderator. Moderators see hand raise notifications and can lower hands. They can remove anyone but other moderators from a session. Moderators can set the session settings, including what participants can and can’t do. Moderators get email with links to their session recordings.
Blackboard guide to being a Moderator
Presenter
The presenter role is designed to allow students to present without giving them full moderator privileges. This is the role can also be given for external/guest presenters to join in with a guest link. Presenters can upload, share, edit, and stop sharing content. They can also see hand raise notifications and can lower hands.
Blackboard guide to being a Presenter
Participant
Participants are basically the viewers of the session, they can raise their hand and participate based on the Moderators choices.
Blackboard guide to being a Participant
More information for roles: What can each role do?
Permissions
An important permission Moderators have is that they can mute individual participants or everyone in a session.
Muting individuals
From the ‘Attendee panel‘, select the ‘Attendee controls‘ of someone with their microphone on that you wish to turn off. Select ‘Mute‘ from the list of controls. This will turn off the attendee’s microphone, but it will not prevent the user from turning it back on. The attendee will be notified with a pop-up message, “The moderator muted your audio”.
Mute all
Select ‘More options‘ at the top of the ‘Attendee panel‘. Select ‘Mute All‘. Attendees will be notified that the moderator has muted their microphone; however this is not a permanent action. All attendees have the ability to turn their microphone back on. The only way to ultimately control attendees from using their audio is to remove the permission to use audio in the ‘Session Settings’.
More permission management guides: Managing attendees. How to promote participants to presenters. Remove attendees Private and moderator only chat.
External guests
Guest link
The Guest link is a public weblink that you can use and shared to anyone who has it. By default guest access is turned off. If you clear the ‘Guest access’ tick box it will then turn on guest access. Once done you can copy and paste the link to anyone else even outside of the University.
Important: Everyone who joins from the Guest link joins with the same guest role/permissions. It is important to consider if you need all guests to join as a Participant, Presenter, or Moderator.
More information for guests: Invite guests