Best Video Conference Option for Small College with COVID-19 strain on Systems

[pbarksdale]

My Culinary College has used Canvas casually for several years, but we are now in a steep learning curve.  We have the Basic subscription.  I've used Big Blue button to record classes for quite some time, but am concerned about a stream quality warning that I saw when i logged on yesterday.  Unfortunately, I'm the only member of our staff that has utilized this function.  We have a significant proportion of low income students without Wifi and /or hardware beyond cell phone.  I'm struggling to identify the best way for us to video conference, as our whole team is learning and we need some basic direction quickly.

1. Can someone help me understand the warning re: 10 or more simultaneous conferences?  Is this referring to users?  Number of live stream conferences? Number of recorded conferences?  

2. What is the fee to upgrade to Premium?  What is the pricing for "as needed"?  How does that option work?

3. Ive had issues in the past with recorded conferences.  Some students can view the conference on their cell phone and others cannot.  Any suggestions on resources to troubleshoot this issue?

Please forgive my elementary questions.  I appreciate any help the community can offer.

[awilliams]

Hi  @pbarksdale . Since there isn't a single correct answer to the questions you posed, I've converted this to a discussion. Now, let's see what I can find to help answer your questions and hopefully, others will contribute their own information too.

1. This means "Number of live stream conferences" in the terminology you used.

2. The best information on pricing and process will come from your school's CSM so I would bring this up with your local Canvas administrator(s).

3. We have put together a very helpful resource on Conferencing and the FAQ section takes you to BigBlueButton's website where there is much more information. Web Conferencing Resources