BigBlueButtonBN

The BigBlueButtonBN activity module is a contributed plugin written by Blindside Networks that allows the creation of activities into a course providing an easy way for the teacher to create and manage a virtual meeting room / classroom on the BigBlueButton server, and for the student to log into the rooms.

BigBlueButtonBN is part of the Moodle BigBlueButton set and complements RecordingsBN to provide with all the features required in order to take advantage of the new capabilities offered by a BigBlueButton server version 0.80 (and later).

Features

BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system for distance education. The goal of the project is to enable universities, colleges, and K12 to delivery a high-quality learning experience to remote students.

BigBlueButton supports real-time sharing of slides (PDF and any document readable by OpenOffice), webcams, whiteboard, chat, voice over IP (using FreeSWITCH), and presenter's desktop. It can record and playback sessions (slides, audio, and chat), runs on Mac, Unix, and PC clients, and is supported by a community of developers that care about good design and a streamlined user experience. (see release notes).

With this plugin you can

• Create links in any class to a BigBlueButton session
• Specify join open/close dates that will appear in the Moodle calendar
• Create a custom welcome messages that appears in the chat window when users join the session
• Launch BigBlueButton in its own window
• Restrict students from entering the session until a teacher joins
• Monitor the active sessions for the course and end any session (eject all users)
• Record and playback your lectures (requires BigBlueButton 0.80)
• Access and manage recorded lectures (requires recordingsbn plugin to be installed)

Requirements

You need:

• A server running Moodle 1.9+. There are three stable releases. Look for the one that corresponds to your version of Moodle. (for Moodle 1.9, for moodle 2.0 to 2.5, for moodle 2.6 to 3.0)
• A BigBlueButton 0.80 (or later) server running on a separate server (not on the same server as your Moodle site)
• The latest version of BigBlueButtonBN Activity Module

Blindside Networks provides you a test BigBlueButton server for testing this plugin. To use this test server, just accept the default settings when configuring the activity module. The default settings are:

url: http://test-install.blindsidenetworks.com/bigbluebutton/
salt: 8cd8ef52e8e101574e400365b55e11a6

For information on how to setup your own BigBlueButton server see http://bigbluebutton.org/

Installation

These instructions assume your Moodle server is installed at /var/www/moodle.

• Copy zip file you downloaded to /var/www/moodle/mod

cp bigbluebuttonbn.zip /var/www/moodle/mod

• Enter the following commands

cd /var/www/moodle/mod 
sudo unzip bigbluebuttonbn.zip

This will create the directory

./bigbluebuttonbn

• Login to your moodle site as administrator

Moodle will detect the new module and prompt you to Upgrade.

• Click the 'Upgrade' button.

The activity module will install mod_bigbluebuttonbn.

• Click the 'Continue' button.

You'll be prompted to configure the activity module.

• Enter the URL and salt (security key) to your BigBlueButton server (or use the default values for testing).

• Click the 'Save Changes' button.

At this point, you can enter any course, turn editing on, and add a BigBlueButtonBN activity link to the class.

Note: You will want to install the RecordingsBN activity module to access recordings as well.

You can find a video overview of installing and using this plugin, at http://www.blindsidenetworks.com/integrations/moodle/

Development status

Changelog

2.0.3

• Added validation: Make sure the php-curl extension is installed. For pre-uploading slides, the use of the php-curl extension is required. If it is not installed or enabled the feature won't be available.
• Fixed Bug: Toggle form for tagging sessions was flicking for a second when the activity page was shown.
• Fixed Bug: When creating a new and pre-uploading presentation is turned off an error messages comes up.
• Fixed Bug: When for security reasons either the webserver or the proxy ahead of the webserver(s) adds the header x-content-type-options: nosniff to force the MIME Type verification, the javascript in the client doesn't work.

2.0.2

• Fixed Bug: When using localization in a language different than English, the recording table produced for RecordingsBN showed an 'Invalid date' message.

2.0.1

• Fixed bug: Adding a presentation file while creating a new BigBlueButtonBN activity failed. Only after editing the activity and adding a presentation file again would let the feature work.
• Fixed bug: A warning message was shown in the logs when joining a session

Latest stable releases

2.0.2 (2015080609) - for Moodle 2.6/2.7/2.8/2.9/3.0 (Source code)

1.1.1 (2015062101) - for Moodle 2.0/2.1/2.2/2.3/2.4/2.5 (Source code)

1.0.9 (2013071000) - for Moodle 1.9 (Source code)

Latest development releases

2.0.3 (2015080610) - for Moodle 2.6/2.7/2.8/2.9/3.0 (Source code)

For reporting bugs and issues or asking for new features use the Moodle tracking system Module: BigBlueButtonBN

FAQ

What should I do when I get this message?

Unable to join the meeting. Please check the url of the BigBlueButton server AND check to see if the BigBlueButton server is running.

On Moodle 2.6 and later, use the link that is right below (also provided here) and try all what is suggested there.

More information about this error