Library Skills: synchronous (live and face to face) training guide

Once session dates and times are confirmed, trainers are responsible for:

• For online sessions - creating the event in the platform of delivery (MS Teams or Zoom): The lead trainer for each session should set up the meeting in the platform agreed by all presenters. Note: From 2024/5 the preferred platform for sessions in our scheduled programme is MS Teams, as this is UCL's preferred platform and Zoom licences may need to be requested by presenters.
• For face to face sessions - booking a room: The lead trainer should book a room. This may be through UCL room bookings (note: schedule for Term 1 usually opens in September. Dates and times for face to face sessions should be confirmed once a room is booked and do not need to meet the July deadline for the Research Development Programme, although a 6 week lead in time is requested for advertising) or in library spaces (e.g. room 417 in the Science library bookable through Outlook; the small cluster in the Cruciform Hub bookable by contacting Julia Garthwaite or Fiona Robertson; or spaces bookable locally in other site libraries).
• For all sessions - LibCal: An event for the session should be created in LibCal by one of the trainers for that session or an appropriate LibCal admin person. See Managing events in LibCal guide for library skills trainers in the Library Skills Team, General Channel, Files area > Scheduled Skills Programme > LibCal guidance.

A deadline for these will be given ahead of each term so that a whole term's events can be advertised by the start of term and made available in Inkpath for the Researcher Development Programme.

Trainers can monitor bookings in LibCal, print off sign-in sheets and record attendance as required. If you require a login for LibCal, please contact Sabrina Squires or Angela Young.

Once a session is confirmed as being added to LibCal in the scheduling spreadsheet, details will be sent to the DSDP / Researcher Development Programme to be added to the Inkpath system, so details of the session should not be changed. If details must be changed for some reason, please inform Angela or Sabrina.so we can request the details be changed in Inkpath.

See below for how to create an event for an online session as part of our scheduled programme of sessions, including settings which should be selected, in the standard platforms we are using.

Note: Our preferred platform from 2024/5 is MS Teams. If using Zoom, you must ensure all presenters have current Zoom accounts. Zoom accounts are no longer given automatically at UCL and presenters may need to request them.

Setting up a Teams meeting

When setting up a training session in Teams, you do not need to invite attendees by email. Instead you can invite attendees to join via a link. This is necessary for any sessions as part of our scheduled programme, or for any drop-in sessions.

• Set up a calendar appointment in your Outlook calendar at the appropriate time for your planned meeting. Invite yourself and any other presenters to the meeting.
• Add a Teams link to the calendar appointment by clicking the Teams meeting icon at the top of your calendar appointment.
• Click on Meeting options to adjust meeting settings:
  • Under 'Choose co-organizers' select the name(s) of other presenters.
  • Under 'Who can present' select Only organizers and co-organizers. This will stop any attendees from taking control of the screen. Note: if using polls or breakout rooms, see our instructions for utilising interactivity in Teams.
  • For sessions being recorded, you may wish to check the box for Record and transcribe automatically.
  • Click on Save and close the options window.
• Right click on the link to the Teams meeting in the body of your appointment and select copy hyperlink.
• You now have the URL for the meeting – this can be shared on a web page / blog post / in email etc.

Note: You can also change the 'Meeting options' after a meeting has been set up.

Attendance figures

The meeting organiser can download an attendance report from the chat for the meeting after the event.

• Check your settings
• Scheduling a Zoom meeting
• Polls
• Email alerts
• Reports and attendance figures
• Getting help and finding out more

Check your Zoom account settings

Ahead of the event, you should always check the settings in your Zoom account to ensure that you will have access to all the zoom features you need for your session. Your Zoom account settings will apply to all Zoom meetings you create. See guidance in the Platforms page for Zoom.

Ensure that your settings allow autocaptioning, for accessibility best practice.

Scheduling a Zoom meeting

Zoom sessions should be set up through the Zoom website and not through Moodle in order to have the settings so that attendees can join by clicking on a link and do not need a passcode.

• ISD recommend you set up a UCL Zoom account and download the Zoom app. See ISD instructions.
• Log in to Zoom with your UCL credentials.
• Click on Meetings in the left hand menu and then click on Schedule a Meeting.
• Enter details as follows:
  • Topic: Title of session, e.g. Introduction to EndNote: demonstration.
  • Description (optional): You can leave this blank as we are not promoting sessions through Zoom, the descriptions are in LibCal.
  • When: Enter date. Make sure you select the correct option from AM or PM.
  • Duration: Enter length of session.
  • TimeZone: Leave as London.
  • Recurring meeting: Leave unchecked.
  • Registration: Leave unchecked.
  • Meeting ID: Leave as 'generate automatically'.
  • Security: Uncheck passcode and waiting room, and uncheck 'Require authentication to join'. Note that all UCL users are automatically admitted without being put in the waiting room so if you enable the waiting room it would mean any NHS or other authentic users would receive a different experience to UCL users.
  • Video: leave host and participant as 'off'.
  • Audio: leave as 'both'.
  • Options.
    • Uncheck 'Allow participants to join anytime', 'Breakout room pre-assign' and 'Approve or block entry to users from specific regions'. Check 'Mute participants upon entry'. 
    • Alternative hosts: Enter email addresses of anyone else who is helping deliver the session with you, separated by a comma.
  • Interpretation: Leave unchecked.
• Click on Save 

From the page that appears, copy the 'Invite Link' to be added to the registration confirmation email in LibCal.

Polls

Zoom Meetings has an integrated poll feature which is very easy to use. Polls are a great way to introduce interaction into a session 

Poll tips

• You can add up to 10 questions to a single poll which will all be displayed at the same time. This can be useful, for example, if you do a poll at the start of your session to find out about your audience. You could ask them their year of study, the faculty they are from, if they are studying onsite or remotely, etc.
• If you want to ask questions at different points in your session, you should set them up as separate polls. You can have up to 25 polls in a single meeting.
• Polls will be listed in the order in which you enter them and you cannot change that order. If you are using lots of polls, therefore, you might want to try to enter them in the order in which you will use them so as not to get confused.
• You can download a report with the responses to the polls after your meeting. (See 'Reports and attendance figures' below').
• FInd out more: Zoom polling for meetings

Email alerts

When the first attendee attempts to join your meeting you will receive an email that says they have joined the meeting. This is a bit misleading because actually they will be faced with a screen that says 'Please wait for the host to start this meeting.'

If you receive an email alert and it is not time for your scheduled meeting, ignore it. The most likely scenario is that someone has clicked on the link in their confirmation email accidentally.

Reports and attendance figures

After your event you can download reports, including a list of participants and results from any polls. Reports can be retrieved for the last 12 months with a search range of up to one month at a time.

Getting a list / number of participants:

This is useful for recording attendance figures for training statistics purposes.

• Log in to your Zoom account.
• From the menu on the left, click on Reports.
• Click on Usage.
• Search for the date of your session.
• Click on the number of participants in the 'Participants' column.
• Check the Show unique users box. This is important in case people dropped in and out of the session and therefore appear more than once.
• Click on Export to export the data as a .csv file.

Saving results of a poll:

• Log in to your Zoom account.
• From the menu on the left, click on Reports.
• Click on Meeting.
• Select the Poll report radio button.
• Search for the date of your session.
• Click on Generate.
• Your report will appear in the Report Queue tab, from where you can click on Download to download it as a .csv file.