Hybrid Meetings
A hybrid meeting is where some participants are remote, and others will be physically located in the same meeting space. It is like online meetings using your PC or laptop but with multiple people in one location. This page includes advice for hybrid meetings on campus including, room, software, audio, and video considerations.
Hybrid Meetings UCC
UCC has hundreds of hybrid spaces ranging from rooms with no technologies, to teaching spaces with significant infrastructure.
Dedicated technologies to support specialised hybrid meetings are currently being piloted in UCC, and we plan to deploy these in some key meeting spaces. Existing spaces can be used successfully by following some basic steps.
Room Types in UCC
Departmental Rooms
Suitable rooms will have a large flat screen usually with a meeting room table. Many of these rooms have a permanent, PC and webcam/mic with internet connected to the display.
Teaching Rooms
Most central teaching rooms are equipped for support of hybrid learning and teaching (Teams & Panopto) but these rooms are designed for lecture delivery rather than roundtable meetings. Some larger spaces have roaming mics which can facilitate larger hybrid events.
Central Meeting Rooms piloting specialised Hybrid Mics and Cameras
- WGB 2.31
- WGB 2.26
- North Wing Conference Room
What are the different room capabilities
Where there is already a Display and fixed PC with Webcam & Mic
- Log onto Teams on the in-situ PC with your UCC credentials. Unless essential, don't use your laptop as the host device for the in-room particpants, as the dedicated camera and microphone in most cases will be already attached to the in-situ PC.
- Joining additional devices in the room to the meeting to share content is possible, but, ensure additional laptop microphone and audio are both muted to avoid feedback.
BYOD - Using laptop where a there is a Display with camera/mic but no fixed PC
- The webcam or conference camera will plug into your laptop, which in turn will be connected to the room display via HDMI.
- Ensure laptop has Wi-Fi access and MS Teams installed.
Please note: in both these cases the Camera will be mounted near or on the TV, end of table or on a stand. Audio from the PC will be heard through TV speakers, increase TV volume if required. Some larger lecture rooms have cameras at the back of the room.
Using laptop in a room with fixed to desk TV Camera/Microphones - usually classrooms.
- All UCC teaching spaces, and some meeting rooms have cameras/microphones fixed to the desk to prevent theft. Note that it is not possible to connect your personal laptop to these fixed cameras & microphones as these are hard wired to the in-room PC, so you will need to use a camera/microphone directly attached to your laptop.
- It is typically possible to connect your laptop to in room speakers via HDMI. In such cases however, feedback/echo may occur, so we recommend testing in advance.
Recommended Devices
If camera and microphone cababilites are inadequte in your departmental room, standard webcams for small meeting rooms and other devices which can be purchased from approved suppliers on Agresso:
Tips for successful Hybrid Meetings
Before the meeting
- Ensure invite includes physical room location & Teams meeting invite or link. Teams invites rather than links allow users to view chat without joining the meeting.
- Ensure the online meeting has the appropriate permissions (for internal UCC staff, the default settings work well) adjust attendee permissions in the Meeting Options
- Ideally, nominate a second person to assist with the running of the meeting (e.g. monitoring meeting chat, taking minutes).
- If hosting a hybrid meeting from a remote location – have a nominee to coordinate the onsite participants and technology. (Meeting co-organiser functionality will come to Teams by end of February. This is a useful way to delegate this role)
- If you are in an unfamiliar room, consider visiting beforehand and conduct a test.
- If you are using your own laptop, consider Wi-Fi and power availability, connections to in-room TVs/Projectors, camera positioning, USB microphones/speakers and adapters.
- If using in-room technologies, determine if fixed camera/microphones can capture room participants.
- To avoid messages from non-meeting users, switch your Teams status to ‘do not disturb’, switch notification preview to ‘off’ in the settings and navigate away from chat.
- Provide any materials (presentations, documents etc) in advance.
- Be aware of audio feedback from Microphones and speakers
During the meeting
- Ensure inclusivity using features such as transcriptions and captions. Consider recording the meeting.
- Ensure good etiquette, remote and on-site participants should have equal opportunities to contribute
- Advise use of the ‘raise hands’ features in Teams
- Microphones are muted when not speaking
- Establish guidance for use of the chat. Excessive chat messages can distract but disabling chat can affect the inclusivity for remote participants
- When sharing content, ensure that both in-person and remote participants can view the content.
- While sharing, ensure there is no sensitive data shared on your desktop.
- Repeat any questions that arise for remote participants, if in room participants are some distance from microphones.
- Audio is essential, so if connectivity issues arise, consider disabling video to improve bandwidth.
After the meeting
- Ensure you log off from the PC to protect your account
- Retrieve any of your portable equipment.
- If meeting was recorded, validate that it was successfully shared to participants.
Support for hybrid meetings
IT Services has a considerable number of online support resources for how to use MS teams as well as our teaching/meeting room technologies.
Hybrid Events
If you wish to run a hybrid event, please view the resources at https://www.ucc.ie/en/mandc/services/events/