Faculty & Student Webex Essentials

We aim to provide rich and varied experiences in an environment where students make lifelong friendships and most importantly, become ready for what...

Faculty and student Webex essentials

What's in it for you?

We are proud to connect our vibrant and diverse university community

We aim to provide rich and varied experiences in an environment where students make lifelong friendships and most importantly, become ready for what their futures hold. That’s why we’ve invested in tools that help them get there.

Webex makes it easy for students to have access to classroom information and faculty in real-time, ensuring the latest information is always accessible. Joining and hosting lectures from anywhere and on any device is a game-changer for our students and faculty, giving them true flexibility on how they want to learn.

Webex also connects our students to clubs and organizations, campus events, and student life. With Webex, we'll always feel connected and safe.

See some ways that Webex is working across institutions today:

Webex for faculty

Inspire your learners.

Faculty Use Cases

We've gathered nine ways that faculty members have been using Webex to make their classes more connected and to be more efficient. Check it out!

Download all of the faculty use cases or download them individually.

Download this use case

Download

Teacher: Comparison table

How do you teach? Use this table to find suggestions for how Webex can make your classroom experience more collaborative, depending on your style.

Download the comparison pdf here

Everyone on the same page

Use Webex to increase the accessibility of class materials to students

Webex can help make your classes more accessible to students who have hearing, visual, or attention disabilities. Webex is flexible, functional, and can fit your students’ needs, so no one gets left behind.

Here are some suggested best practices

Hearing-impaired

Record classes or meetings, so a full transcription is available in the replay.
Learn more
Or use a partner solution, Voicea, for live transcription of classes on screen.
Learn more

Visually impaired

Allow students to zoom in on material being shared in class, on their own device. They can pinch and zoom things that are too small.
Learn more
Use a live Webex meeting to include a sign language translator on-screen during a live class session.

Attention deficit disorders

Record classes for students to rewatch in their own focussed environment.
Post the highlight of class material in a classroom chat Space, so everyone can get the key points.

For more information on ADA compliance at Cisco see below:
Is Webex ADA Section 508 Compliant?
Accessibility at Cisco
Frequently asked questions

Webex for students

Content just for you.

Student Use Cases

Webex is our campus tool for connecting students to their classes, to campus activities, and to each other.

Check out ways that Webex can make communication easy for you on campus!

Click here to download all of the use cases.

Download this use case.

Learning tips for different styles

How do you learn best? We've got tips for how Webex can help you get the most out of all your classes, no matter how you learn. Check out these tips!

Download and share the interactive pdf.

Keeping you safe

Question about communicating securely. Check out our tips for managing your own security.

Download and share the interactive pdf.

Getting started with Webex

Let's learn how to Webex

Click to get started with Webex Classroom Collaboration

Customize your class with Webex

Getting started with Webex Teams

Getting started with Webex video devices

From classroom to dorm room, Webex has you covered

Webex is integrated with your LMS, however, if students and teachers download the app to their own laptops, tablets or mobile phones, they will see slight differences and have some extra features to what they see in your LMS.

We’ve highlighted some of the key differences here.

The LMS version of Webex Teams is simplified to keep the focus on the topic or class. With this version, you will only see the people in the space instead of seeing all of the spaces they are a member of.

The Webex Teams app is great for collaborating on the fly or outside of class. You can see all of the Spaces you are a part of and you can also create a whiteboard and schedule meetings if it is enabled

You will also notice, you have a few more options when sending a message, such as taking a screen grab, emoji’s and sending gifs.

There’s no right or wrong way of using either the LMS or the Webex Teams app, it’s all down to your student and teachers, collaboration preferences.

Set up Webex in your Learning Management System

Customize your courses with Webex.

Getting started with Webex in your
Learning Management System

Webex brings video and messaging collaboration right to faculty and students inside your LMS.

There are three key features of Webex built just for higher education:

Classroom Collaboration

Organize students into project groups in seconds.
Work together on any device, anywhere, on or off-campus.
Everyone can chat, meet and share files securely.

Virtual Meetings

Schedule one-off or recurring virtual classrooms or meetings with students and colleagues.
Give access to full or partial recordings of class sessions.
Synchronize meetings with your LMS calendar.

Office Hours

Set up time slots for 15, 30, 45 and 60-minute.
Apply an appointment buffer to allow for meeting over-runs.
Notifications for scheduled meetings are pushed directly to you via email.

Set up: Step 1 - Customizing your class

Now Webex is integrated into our Learning Management System, we'll show you the steps to add the features to your classes.

Getting setup is quick and easy. For each course you can decide what tools you want to use: Classroom Collaboration (Webex Teams), Virtual Meetings (Webex Meetings) and Office Hours (Meetings Scheduler).

To begin, head to your course in the LMS and look for the Cisco Webex option in your menu. You’ll then be taken to Setup:

By default, all three options are disabled per course. You can update your choices at any point, so give them all a try.
You’ll see a tab appear for each option that you enable after clicking Apply.

For tips on how these features can work best for you, check out our Teacher Comparison Table.

Set up: Step 2 and 3

Webex Meetings Attendance Grading

If students receive grades for attending your class sessions, you can automatically assign those points by enabling attendance grading. Determine the number of points available, and, if necessary, the category to which those points should be applied.

Note: You cannot undo this feature once it is enabled so please consider carefully if it is appropriate for your class needs.

Reminder Bot

Students have a lot going on, and it can be helpful to send a reminder of upcoming classes. The Reminder Bot posts a message into your Class Collaboration Space, and in the Webex Teams Space before class or a meeting is about to start. Select Turn On and select when you would like reminders sent.

Step 4a

Enabling Classroom Collaboration

Cisco Webex Classroom Collaboration is an easy way to message a student, chat with a group, and share files with everyone.
There are two options for getting started, Create a Team or Create a Space:

Create a team that lets you organize multiple Spaces under a common theme (the course). You’ll have a general Space for course discussion, to begin with, and you can create more Spaces as you need them. Students can also create their own Spaces for study groups. Everyone can see all of the created Spaces within a team and choose the ones they want to join.

Create a Space that will create one general Space that you can invite your students into. There isn’t an option to create other Spaces, everything will take place in one general space.

Unless you are certain one general space is all that is required, it’s recommended to create a team and then have multiple spaces for different conversations that will take place around the course.

Once you have your spaces going, it is easy to open up the menu of options where you can call a student, send a message, add people to a Space or search all the files that have been shared in the Space.

Tip: If you ever need to send a direct message to a student, simply click the Members tab and select the student you are looking for. You are now able to have a 1:1 conversation with that student.

Step 4b

Virtual Meetings

With Virtual Meetings, you can create and manage all of your virtual meetings, for the classroom inside the LMS. You can choose three types of meetings:

Webex Meetings
Webex Events
Webex Training

For instance, if the class meets on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, choose weekly from the reoccurrence menu and tick the box for those dates.

Students and teachers can see all of the scheduled meetings for the course in the Upcoming tab and the Reminder Bot sends a reminder to all attendees before lectures are due to take place. Recorded your lecture? The recording will be automatically be posted under Past Meetings.

Step 4c

Office Hours

Office Hours is a simple way to provide a calendar of availability to your students outside of scheduled lectures. You simply provide open timeslots that students can book to meet with you.

When a student clicks a slot, they can add details on what they want to talk about and once a slot has been booked, it will show as booked to anyone else.

The meeting will appear in your Upcoming Meetings tab, and you’ll also get a handy email with the meeting link and joining information.

Analytics

The Analytics tab gives you an overview of utilization. It provides you with information on:

The number of Spaces have been created inside the course.
The number of meetings scheduled for faculty and students.
The amount of Open Office hours that have been booked.

Getting started with Classroom Collaboration

Overview of the Classroom Collaboration interface

How to find Webex in your learning portal

Learning how to navigate a new platform can be tricky, so here are some short, quick-start-guides which show, and tell you how to navigate and use Webex within your learning platform.

Finding Classroom Collaboration:

1. Log in to your LMS.
2. Click on a course.
3. Click Cisco Webex.
4. Send a message to the class to start collaborating.

Calling in Classroom Collaboration

There will be times where a quick video call with your classmates might be needed. You might want to run an idea by some of the class, maybe brainstorm a little or even just check-in to see how everyone is getting on?

Calling your classmates is easy, just send a message and ask if anyone is free for a quick call, then hit the Activity Menu, and press call.

Once you’re done, simply click the End button to end the call.

How to share files with your class

Sharing files is a key part of working together and collaborating with each other.

Your classmates can download any of the files you share and they'll get stored in the Space too. So you'll always have them in one place.

To share a file:

Click the attachment button to open your file browser.
Select the file or files you want to share.
Type a message to your class, letting them know what the files contain or how they might help.
Hit the Enter key on your keyboard to share.

How to find your class files

All files shared in the class space will always stay in the class Space, so you'll always have a back up if you need it.

To find all of the files in your Space:

Click on the Activity menu button, in the top right of the Space.
Click the Files icon.
Scroll through to find the file you want to look at.

You can click on the file to see a preview or click the arrow at the bottom of the file to download it.

Getting started with the Webex Teams app

Get started, download and sign in

Also available from here:

Step 1

Go to the download page.

Step 2

Download Webex Teams for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Android.

Step 3

Type your work email address.

Step 4

Click or tap Next.

Step 5

Open your email program.

Step 6

Click on Get started now in the email called Activate Your Cisco Webex Teams Account.

Get to know Webex Teams

Click the activity menu to access
the Space features

Message
Send a message to just one person or
to many people in a Space.

Meet / Call
Place a quick call to everyone in the Space.
You'll see Call if you're making a direct call to a person.

Whiteboard
Create and share content on the whiteboard.

Schedule
Schedule a meeting or check Space meeting information.

People
See who's in the Space or Webex Teams meeting.

Files
Find your shared files, photos, and whiteboard content.

Customize the app

Add a profile picture

A clear picture of you makes it easier for others to reach out to you.

Step 1

Click on your initials on the top left corner.

Step 2

Click on your initials in the window that opens.

Step 3

Select a picture.

Step 4

Change the email address to your name, just under the profile picture.

Tip

Add the Eurl bot to your Space to make it public, so people can join and find the Space by themselves. Get a simple, short URL or a QR code, share it on social media, over email or print a poster. With one click or scan, people will join your space and connect in an instant.

How to add Eurl:

Go into the Space where you want to add Eurl.
Click on the activity icon, in the top right of the Space.
Click the People icon.
Click Add people.
Type Eurl to find the bot.
Click Eurl.
Click Add.

Eurl will now display a list of commands you can ask the bot to do, by typing @Eurl and then the command.
Type @Eurl url to get your shareable short URL and share away.

Messaging and search

Powerful messaging

Send someone a message

You can easily contact internal or external people using the chat panel for 1:1 interactions or group communications in Spaces.

Step 1

Type the name of the person or Space in the Search field.

Step 2

Click the person or Space name.

Step 3

Type your message and press the enter key.

Customize your message

You can customize your message by formatting the text, inserting emojis and gifs, or adding attachments and screen capture.

@Mention

To grab someone’s attention @Mention their name. They will see @ against the Space, showing that their name has been tagged.

Answer a specific message in a thread

Slide your mouse above the message and use the arrow option.

Sort messages

To help zoom in on priority items and avoid information overload, simply click the Search field and select:

Notifications: shows a list of all Spaces where you have notifications.

Unread: shows all unread messages.

People: shows a list of all people you’ve collaborated with in order of the last contact.

Favorites: shows a list of all Spaces you marked as favorites by clicking the star on the top left corner of a Space.

@Mentions to me: shows a list of all messages you have personally been @Mentioned in.

@Mentions to all: shows a list of all messages where everyone was @mentioned in Spaces you are a member of.

Flag: shows a list of all messages you’ve flagged. Every message can be flagged for action later by clicking its flag icon.

Search messages, files, and people

Thanks to the advanced search feature, you can easily rediscover people, Spaces, messages, and files.

Step 1

Start typing the person, document name, or remembered words from a chat into the Search.

Step 2

If you are looking for a person or Space, results will appear below. If you are looking for a chat message or file, select the Messages or Files tab.

Step 3

If needed, refine your search by first typing one of the following:

In: Enter the name of the Space and choose a Space from the list.
From: Enter the person's name and select the person from the list.
With: Enter the person's name and select the person from the list. The results include Spaces you are in with this person.

Call and schedule

Starting and answering calls

In Webex Teams, you can start video calls with individuals or whole teams in Spaces. Audio-only calls are possible too.

Start a call

There are different ways to call in Webex Teams.
One easy way is to:

Step 1

Click the Search field.

Step 2

Start typing the name of the person or Space you want to call.

Step 3

Click the name of the person or Space in the results list.

Step 4

Click the Call icon at the top right of the Space.

Step 5

Click Start with video.

Answer a Call

When you receive a call, you’ll see a notification allowing you to:

Answer: to take the call.
Decline: if you can’t answer now.
Message: if you want to answer with a chat message instead.

Step 4

Click New whiteboard. Alternatively, you could re-open a whiteboard already shared in that Space.

Step 5

Use the annotation tools to draw on the whiteboard.

Step 6

Click the Share icon.

Step 7

Click Post snapshot for your whiteboard to appear in the chat thread.

Share screen

In Webex Teams you can share your screen with others, including streaming videos.

Step 1

Click the Share screen icon.

Step 2

If you are planning to share a video, check Share computer audio and Optimise audio on top of the screen.

Step 3

Select the screen you want to show.

Step 4

Click Stop in the orange bar to stop sharing.

Tips and tricks

Spaces tips and tricks

Add an external participant to a Space

With Webex Teams you are not limited to communicating with your colleagues, you can also invite external people like vendors or customers to collaborate with you in Spaces. And on the lower right corner of the Space, an icon will appear if external participants are included.

Add a Space to your favorites list

You can be more engaged in Spaces that in others. To keep a closer eye on those Spaces that truly matter, you can add them to your favorites list by clicking the star in front of the Space name.

Add integrations to your Space

You can see directly in the Webex Teams Space if someone added something new in your CRM, or updated specific documents in dropbox? To get all the information you need in one place, jump to the Cisco Webex App Hub to check the available integrations.

Can’t find what you need?

Jump to developer.webex.com to build your own.

Check people status

Knowing if people are available is important when you need to communicate with them. With Webex Teams, just use the Search field to find someone and hover over their picture to get more information.

Turn on announcement mode

What if you need to dispatch information to an audience without a long thread of reactions? Switch on Announcement mode.

Step 1

Click information in front of the Space name.

Step 2

Click Moderate Space.

Step 3

Click Yes.

Step 4

Click information in front of the Space name.

Step 5

Click Turn on Announcement mode.

Step 6

Click OK.

In-meeting tips and tricks

Separate the Teams app and the meeting window

When attending a meeting in Webex Teams, the meeting window appears integrated within the chat window. If you prefer to have 2 distinct windows and pop up the meeting window separately, just click the Undock video icon in the top right.

Lock your meeting

Anyone with the meeting link can enter your meeting unless you lock your meeting. Uninvited people will be placed in a lobby where you can decide whether you want to let them in or not. To lock the meeting:

Step 1

Click the ... icon.

Step 2

Select Lock meeting.

Get on-demand help from the Help Bot

Learning how to use a new tool isn’t always easy, especially when you have a ton of other things to do! Try messaging the Help Bot in Webex Teams for help to get you up, running, and ready to go in no time.

Contact the Help Bot:

Go to the Home button.
Click the plus icon.
Select Contact a person.
Type in the Help Bots display name, which is Help Bot.
Choose the bot from the results list to start your Space.

Pro tip: In your new Space with Help Bot, simply say ‘help’. The bot will send you a greeting and some options to help you out in specific areas. Pick one or ask your own question. Get a virtual helping hand whenever you need it.

Connect with people like you

Why not create a Space and invite like-minded people to join up. Take away the hassle of trying to find people who share the same interests, let them come to you!

Add Eurl to your space:

Go into the Space where you want to add Eurl.
Click on the activity icon, in the top right of the Space.
Click the People icon.
Click Add people.
Type Eurl to find the bot.
Click Eurl.
Click Add.

Eurl will now display a list of commands you can ask the bot to do, by typing @Eurl and then the command.

Type @Eurl url to get your shareable short URL and share away.

Webex with video devices

Webex Teams with video devices

Webex Teams allows attendees to join from Cisco video devices. If your device is connected to Webex Cloud, it will automatically detect your Webex Teams app so you can join your calls on the device.

Joining a meeting using a Cisco video device

Step 1

Join the meeting from your computer.

Step 2

Click More options.

Step 3

Select the Webex device you want to use.

Step 4

Click Join with video button.

Switch from mobile to Webex device

It’s easy to start a meeting on your mobile and switch anytime to a Cisco Webex device.

Step 1

Tap the ... icon.

Step 2

Tap Move call.

Step 3

Tap the Cisco Webex device you want to use (only cloud-connected devices will be detected).

Step 4

Tap Move.

For more on using Webex Boards, check out the Webex Boards Essentials

Share content on a Webex device wirelessly

What if you could use Webex Teams as a wireless projector when you want everybody in the room to see what you are sharing, directly on the connected Webex device?

Step 1

Search or click the device in the lower-left corner.

Step 2

Click the Share.

Getting more out of Webex Teams

Resources to learn more about Webex Teams

To learn about more options
and gain expertise:

1. Access step by step tutorials.

2. Attend free training sessions.

3. Join the Webex Community.

4. Check the latest improvements.