June 2, 2024

Automatic migration from Webex Education Connector to Webex LTI Legacy

On June 2, 2024, every Webex Education Connector registration was automatically migrated to Webex LTI Legacy.

Webex LTI Legacy looks different, but all the courses, meetings, and settings from Webex Education Connector are available to you and your users immediately.

While you don't need to take any action as part of this migration, please be aware that to use certain features that require Webex user authorization, such as scheduling new meetings, you must sign in with Webex inside Webex LTI Legacy in your LMS.

Like Webex Education Connector, Webex LTI Legacy is built using Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) version 1.1. The conversion of Webex Education Connector registrations to Webex LTI Legacy is in preparation for Webex LTI, a new integration built on LTI version 1.3. Webex LTI will be available to you in the coming months.

Please see Webex LTI, Webex LTI Legacy, and Webex Education Connector feature comparison for details on the feature similarities and differences between Webex LTI, Webex LTI Legacy, and Webex Education Connector.

Please see Webex LTI for teachers to learn more about the features available in both Webex LTI Legacy and the upcoming new integration Webex LTI.

Enhanced recording syncing

We've refined and optimized the recording sync process to ensure that your recordings sync back to your LMS faster than ever. In addition to these improvements, we've added a new feature for your convenience—a manual sync option. The manual sync gives you the flexibility to update your courses with the latest meeting recordings on command.

Import recordings from Webex

You can import Webex recordings that aren't part of a specific class meeting into your LMS using the new other recordings feature. When imported, you can to publish these recordings in any class you teach to make them available for your students.

Two-way syncing between Webex and your LMS

Webex LTI Legacy syncs changes made to your recordings in User Hub back to the LMS.

Additional meeting scheduling options

When scheduling a Webex meeting, you have more scheduling options for the meeting:

• Join rules—Choose what happens for people who aren't on the invite or who aren't signed in:

  • They can join the meeting.
  • They wait in the lobby until they're admitted.
  • They can't join the meeting.

• Auto lock—To lock your meeting after it starts, check this check box and choose how many minutes pass before the meeting locks.

• Entry and exit tone—Choose the sound that people hear when someone joins or leaves the meeting.

• Mute attendees—Select any of the following options:

  • Allow attendees to unmute themselves in the meeting—If you choose to mute attendees when they join, select this option so they can unmute themselves.
    Don't select this option if you want only the host or cohost to be able to unmute attendees.
  • Always mute attendees when they join the meeting—Automatically mute attendees when they join the meeting. Allow attendees to raise their hands so that you can unmute them.

• Automatic recording—Automatically start recording when the meeting starts.

New classroom collaboration experience

The classroom collaboration experience inside the LMS has changed. Click the classroom collaboration tab to open your class's team in the Webex App for web. Messaging content and space creation are no longer be available directly within the LMS integration itself.

End of support announcement

With the release of Webex LTI Legacy, we are announcing the end of support for the following features:

• Admin console—Site-wide administration, including the ability to enable or disable specific features, is moving out of the LMS. The new admin console will be available in an upcoming release, and we will provide more details on this new experience in future updates.

• Analytics—Analytics are not available within the Webex LTI Legacy integration. You can find Webex usage data and analytics in Control Hub.

• Grading—Meeting attendance only displays the attendance information from User Hub, and instructors can no longer manually mark attendance. With the removal of manual attendance marking in meetings, the grading feature is no longer supported.

• LMS calendar integration—Meetings that are scheduled with Webex LTI Legacy must be started and joined from within the Webex LTI Legacy integration or from User Hub.

• ReminderBot—With the enhancements to Webex's upcoming meeting notifications, the ReminderBot feature has been removed.

December 27, 2021

Improved office hours experience

In this release, we have redesigned the Office Hours experience for both instructors and students.

Instructor experience

Instructors now have a clearer view of their office hours settings and availability. In the Weekly Hours tab, instructors configure their weekly availability by setting their preferred meeting duration, meeting buffer, date range, time zone, days of availability, and hours of availability.

A Date range selector has been added that allows instructors to define a consecutive period of time for students to book office hours. Only dates within the date range that is indicated will be shown to students when scheduling. This provides the flexibility to restrict future bookings to a term, semester, or other time-defined period.

The time zone selector allows instructors to set their preferred time zone for office hours meetings. This provides clarity and consistency for students when scheduling meetings.

Student experience

We have updated the student view so that a student must first select their instructor before available time slots are displayed, so it is clear which instructor a student is scheduling time with.

Date override in office hours

Instructors are able to modify their availability for a specific date without needing to update their general office hours availability. Instructors can reduce their availability on a date, increase their availability on a date, or mark themselves unavailable for an entire date.

Update time zone in office hours

The default time zone for office hours is based on the time zone in the course where an instructor first enables office hours. If instructors are located in a different time zone than this course, they can update the time zone for all their office hours. This will provide clarity and consistency when students are scheduling time to meet.

August 31, 2021

Advanced Scheduling Options

When scheduling a Webex meeting in Virtual Meetings, instructors now can specify the following advanced scheduling options for the meeting:

• Unlocked Meetings—Instructors can control whether or not users outside of the school’s Webex organization can join unlocked meetings. Choose whether guests can join the meeting directly, whether they must wait in the lobby and be admitted by the host, or can't join the meeting.

  An admin must turn off the Require Account to Join setting in the Admin Panel to allow instructors to set the unlocked meetings behavior. Enabling Require Account to Join prevents anyone without an account on the school's Webex site from joining meetings.

• Automatic Lock—Automatically lock meetings after the meeting starts.

• Automatic Recording—Automatically start recording when the meeting starts.

Branding Updates

We updated references and branding from Webex Teams to Webex in Classrooms Collaboration, Setup, and Admin Panel. For more information about the Webex Suite branding, see New Webex Suite and Branding.

February 15, 2021

Token Expiration

Prior to this release, you received a prompt to sign in to Webex from within Virtual Meetings when scheduling or modifying a meeting. With this release, you're prompted to sign in to Webex whenever you use Virtual Meetings with an expired Webex access token. Ensuring that your token is active improves the syncing of recordings.

February 2, 2021

Modifications to Recordings for Virtual Meetings

Previously, only recordings for meetings hosted from within the Webex Education Connector appeared in the Recordings section of Virtual Meetings. Now, any meetings scheduled through Virtual Meetings appear in the Virtual Meetings Recordings, regardless of whether they were hosted from Webex Education Connector.

January 22, 2021

Canvas Role Support in Classroom Collaboration

Prior to this release, if Classroom Collaboration was turned on for a course, everyone enrolled was added to the team for that course.

Canvas Admins can now indicate which roles have access to Classroom Collaboration. In the Admin Panel, admins can uncheck any roles that they don’t want to have access to Classroom Collaboration for the courses in which the feature is enabled.

When an admin unchecks a role, the Webex Education Connector removes anyone in the team who doesn't have an approved role during the next membership sync. New people who enroll aren't added to the team if they don't have an approved role.

September 30, 2020

Recording Library

Available for Canvas, D2L, Moodle, Sakai, and Schoology. Instructors may have recordings of their Webex meetings that they can reuse for future semesters or in other class offerings. The recording library allows instructors to create recordings and publish it for students in other classes. Administrators can control the availability of the recording library from the Admin Console.

The recording library includes the following options:

• Instructors can view and delete their own recordings.

• Instructors can host a meeting within a course and make a recording of it without making the meeting visible to students.

• Instructors can make a private recording of a meeting and share it with students in a one class or multiple classes.

• Students can view recorded meetings that the instructor shared with them.

Attendance

Instructors may want to see who joined their Webex meetings and when they joined through their LMS. They can take attendance in each meeting, indicate excused absences, and assign a grade for students based on their attendance. Attendance is taken only for students who join through the LMS.

The attendance features include the following options:

• Instructors can view attendance for each meeting.

• Instructors can indicate excused absences from meetings, which count as the student being present in the grade calculation.

• Instructors can choose whether to grade a meeting or not.

• Instructors can export an attendance report for their meetings as a CSV file.

Edit Recurring Meetings

Now, instructors can make edits to their recurring meetings.

July 14, 2020

Removal of Required Authorization Step in Meetings—Canvas, Moodle, D2L

Prior to this release, instructors or administrators needed to authorize the application in the Setup tab before using Virtual Meetings or Office Hours. In this release, we’ve made authorization optional for using Virtual Meetings and Office Hours.

When an instructor attempts to create a Virtual Meeting for the first time and the application isn’t authorized with the LMS, they’re prompted to authorize the application. They can choose to authorize or opt out.

If the instructor authorizes the application, meetings created via Virtual Meetings sync to the LMS calendar and they can activate the grading features. Office Hours are available.

If the instructor chooses not to authorize the application, meetings created via Virtual Meetings don’t sync with the LMS calendar, and the grading feature is disabled. An instructor can authorize the application later and have historical and future Virtual Meetings sync with the LMS calendar. Office Hours are available when the instructor opts out of authorizing.

There’s no change to authorization for Classroom Collaboration. Authorization via the Setup tab is required for using Classroom Collaboration.

Removal of Required Authorization Step in Meetings—Blackboard Learn, Blackboard Ultra, Sakai

Prior to this release, instructors and administrators needed to authorize the application in the Setup tab prior to using Webex Education Connector functionality. In this release, we’ve removed the requirement to authorize the application to use Virtual Meetings and Office Hours. Authorization via the Setup tab is required for Classroom Collaboration in Blackboard and Sakai and use of the Grading Feature in Blackboard.

Time Zone Modifications

With this release, instructors or administrators don’t need to sync the time zone first from the Setup tab. They can directly create meetings without clicking Sync for Time Zone and Authorize. Instructors can view and change their time zone from the Setup tab and have that time zone apply to the course. If the time zone changes in the course, it only affects future meetings in that course. Prior meetings aren’t changed.

July 1, 2020

New Recordings Tab in Virtual Meetings

We’ve moved recordings to a new Recordings Tab within Virtual Meetings. The Recordings Tab lists all recordings for meetings initiated from within the Webex Education Connector. The new Recordings Tab also resolves previous issues with Recordings syncing to the Webex Education Connector.

May 19, 2020

Additional Functionality on the LMS Integration Admin Panel

We've added the following options in the Admin Panel so that LMS administrators can define LMS site-wide settings:

• Office Hours: Admins can make office hours available or unavailable to instructors.

• Non-instructor roles creating meetings: Admins can disable the ability for non-instructor roles to create meetings.

• Custom Support URL: Admins can specify their own custom support URL in place of the standard Webex Education Connector support URL.

Modifications to Virtual Meetings

We've modified the format of the time zone when scheduling a meeting so that it's is more consistent with the formatting in Webex.