Guidance for linked teaching rooms delivery with Panopto

This guide provides advice on using Panopto to deliver teaching across multiple locations (for example hybrid, or across linked teaching rooms). Panopto should be used as a one-to-many delivery of a lecture with no interactivity expected from participants.

If you wish for interaction with other locations, then MS Teams is a more suitable tool. Please refer to our Guidance for linked teaching rooms delivery with Teams.

We strongly advise that a colleague is scheduled to support the linked teaching rooms. If this is not achievable, there are security concerns with logging into the second PC, health and safety concerns with a group of students using a teaching space with no one responsible for them, and the student experience will be impacted.

Reasons to use Panopto

• It provides a high-quality quality consistent one-to-many stream.
• It provides a quicker startup.
• Content is uploaded to the Panopto cloud for playback.
• Remote students would have the option to join in the livestream; there is a link on the Blackboard courses’ Panopto area.

Limitations of using Panopto

• A member of staff is required in each of the linked teaching rooms.
• There can be a delay of up to 60 seconds on the livestream.
• Does not allow for easy direct interaction between rooms.
• Does not allow guest presenters to join in remotely.
• There are no live captions on the stream.
• Depending on the room equipment and size of your writing, whiteboard capture might not be perfectly viewable on the video stream.

What to do in advance of the session

• Make sure you have Panopto set up on your Blackboard course.
• Make sure whoever is in the linked teaching room is either on the same Blackboard course or is contactable by a messaging service.

What to do in the teaching session

Aim to allow for 10-15 minutes to be set aside for setup and testing, to ensure the best possible student experience. Even if you have used a room before, someone else may have changed the setup to suit their session.

1. Log in to the lecture theatre lectern PC.
2. Load the Panopto recorder and make sure to select the ‘Webcast’ button in the top right of the recorder. These steps are also covered in our Panopto live stream guide.
3. Make sure that you select the correct destination folder for the Panopto recording as normal with Panopto use and check sound levels.
4. Select the appropriate camera as the video source for Panopto.
5. Utilise “CLS Camera Control” (icon on the desktop) to make camera view adjustments from the options available.
6. Physical Whiteboards captured via a camera can be compromised. It is best to use digital whiteboards/visualisers, wherever possible.
7. Ask your colleague to log into the lectern PC in the linked classroom and load a web browser.
8. Press the red record button on the Panopto recorder, you will then see the link to the livestream appear at the bottom. You can either copy and paste the link and send it to your colleague in the linked classroom, or your colleague can go to the Blackboard courses Panopto area and select the livestream indicated by a red dot from the list.
9. You will both need to check the sound is turned up on the room audio-visual control panel.
10. Deliver the session.
11. When the session ends, stop recording on the Panopto recorder as normal.

Help guides

Creating a Panopto live stream

Creating a Panopto recording with a whiteboard capture camera

Rooms equipped for linked teaching. [link to new page]

Further Information 

1. Remind students that they are on a livestream that is also recorded.
2. Communicate with students in advance to let them know which room they will be in. All students should have some opportunities to be in the main linked classroom.
3. There needs to be an agreed mode of communication between the person in the linked classroom and the lecturer. Using MS Teams private chat or sharing mobile phone numbers might be helpful.
4. It is useful for the person staffing the linked classroom to have knowledge of the content so they can interact with their audience and field any questions.
5. Give yourself time beforehand to test the portable mics before using them. In the unlikely event they do not work, remain at the podium throughout the teaching session and log a ticket with ServiceLine afterwards.  
6. If you wish to share more than PowerPoint, make sure screen capture is selected.
7. If you need to play a video in the main room, you must ensure that you select the checkbox on the Panopto recorder for ‘Capture Computer Audio’.
8. Vevox can be used to receive questions from those in the main and the linked classrooms. Remember there is at least a 60 second delay on the Panopto livestream, so allow for this with live polls.
9. If students ask anything in the main room, those in the linked classroom are unlikely to hear. The main speaker should therefore repeat or paraphrase the question before answering.
   • If there is a portable mic or a blue catchbox in the room, the main speaker can take this to students as they ask questions.