Basic Guide to Teleconferences Semester 1 - 2010
Thursday, 11 March 2010 23:56 | 
Written by Geoff Tothill | 
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This is a basic guide to accessing the Oceanbrowser audio conference server and other services.
Connect to the audio conference server via the Oceanbrowser Webphone
The audio side of the conference is provided by a teleconference server hosted by Oceanbrowser (for the technical its an Asterisk server).
There are various ways of connecting to the audio conference room - but perhaps the easiest way is to use the Webphone application that is hosted on the Oceanbrowser website.
To get started go to their website at www.oceanbrowser.com and log on. For most of you your username and password will be the same one that you use to access the MedicineatOtago (MAO) site. Before you access the Webphone on the site make sure that you have plugged your USB headset into your computer and it is working.
Navigate to the Web Phone Page
When you first log into the Oceanbrowser site you will be taken to their forum system. On the left hand side of the forum is the menu shown above. Click the link to the Web Phone.
This is the main Web Phone page
On the left side of the page you will see the Web Phone and on the right side the text chat module. For teleconferences not using other text or webchat technology (for example DimDim) then logging into this module will give you access to a text chat system that will allow you to discuss the ongoing teleconference. Please check prior to your teleconference which chat module your course is using or you might find yourself in the wrong one and on your own!
Connect to the conference with the Webphone
1) Click the 'Conference' button to connect to the conference room.
2) While you are in the conference you can click the 'Mute' button to temporarily mute your microphone (the image above shows that the webphone has been muted).
3) To disconnect from the conference simply click the 'Hang Up' button.
How to connect to a DimDim meeting
Some courses will run parallel DimDim meetings during teleconferences or run live lectures. On the whole we will not provide audio through DimDim (our experience is that the audio quality is much better through the Oceanbrowser system). Because of this you should always log into the Oceanbrowser conference room as above even if we are running a DimDim Conference.
DimDim allows us to display web pages or lecture material as the conference progresses. Your course tutors should let you know in advance if you should use DImDim. The process for accessing DimDim is very simple - you simply need to open the url that you are sent by your tutor (or which is posted on the Moodle site). You will be taken to the screen above. We will be publishing a further guide to DimDim in due course.