Linking Conferences

[msowell1]

I have two different courses and want to conduct virtual office hours using Big Blue Button through the Conferences setting in Canvas. I want students from both courses to be able to attend during these hours. Is there a way to link the conferences?

[chofer]

Hello there,  @msowell1  Welcome to the Canvas Community.  Thank you for posting your question.  While I do not necessarily have an answer for you, I am going to tag  @ffdixon ‌ in on this response so that he might be able to shed some light on your question.  He may have some ideas for you since it sounds like you have two separate classes going at the same time.  Good luck!

[ffdixon · Accepted solution]

Hi  @msowell1 ,

While I work at Blindside Networks, the company providing hosting for BigBlueButton (Canvas Conferences), and as such I can't speak on behalf of Instructure, I can answer your question.

> I want students from both courses to be able to attend during these hours. Is there a way to link the conferences?

Not at the moment.  Canvas Conferences are a component of a course and, as such, a student must be enrolled in the course to access the conference.  Even if you created a link, students in other sections would not be able to access the conference because its in another course.

There is an option to upgrade your Canvas Conferences to "premium version" which, in addition to recordings being permanent (instead of expiring after 14 days), each session would have an invite URL to allow the instructor to invite in external users.  With this invite URL, you could share it with students from other sections and they could join the office hours.

To explore upgrading further, reach out to your Canvas rep.   They can help you directly.

Regards,... Fred Dixon

BigBlueButton Developer

(I also moonlight as the CEO of Blindside Networks).