{"id":17839,"date":"2024-08-28T15:29:11","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T15:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/?page_id=17839"},"modified":"2026-05-26T15:28:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T15:28:05","slug":"ms_teams","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/ms_teams\/","title":{"rendered":"MS Teams &#8211; Online Video Conferencing Platform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft Teams is a real-time video and audio conferencing tool that lets you add files, share applications, and use a virtual whiteboard to interact.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We recommend <a href=\"https:\/\/aka.ms\/newTeamsapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">downloading the Teams application<\/a> for the best experience when joining meetings. Please note that Microsoft offers a personal version of Teams called Teams Home. <strong>Avoid<\/strong> using this version, as it lacks many key features.<\/p>\n<p>Alternatively, you can join via your browser using either Chrome or Edge to ensure full functionality. <strong>Do not use Safari or Firefox, <\/strong>as you may encounter issues joining the meeting or experience problems with certain features, such as breakout rooms, polls, and the whiteboard.<\/p>\n<p>This guide below is <strong>only for Instructors<\/strong>. If you are a <strong>student<\/strong>, please visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/microsoft-teams-students\/#joinmt\">Teams guide for students<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There are two Microsoft Teams and Blackboard integration options:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Option 1:<\/strong> Use the existing &#8216;Basic Microsoft Teams integration with Blackboard&#8217; to create online Lecture\/Seminar session links, which can be embedded directly into your course content. Students&#8217; attendance<b> will be recorded<\/b> if you use this option.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Option 2:<\/strong> Use the &#8216;Teams Classes integration with Blackboard&#8217; for enhanced student collaboration work. Students&#8217; attendance will<strong> not be recorded<\/strong> if you use this option for online Lecture\/Seminar sessions.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<strong>Note:<\/strong> Following the feedback from our academic colleagues and the university&#8217;s process for capturing students&#8217; attendance (which currently works only with option 1), we ask you to follow the following important procedure.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<b>Online Lecture\/Seminar session links<\/b> &#8211; All session links should be created <strong>only using option 1<\/strong>. Please follow the steps in this guide &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/microsoft-teams-basic\/\"><u>How to create online Lecture\/Seminar session links<\/u><\/a>. In previous years, our colleagues, successfully used this process to arrange lecture sessions.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Option 1 &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/basic-teams-integration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Basic Teams integration with Blackboard<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Option 2 &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/ms-teams-classes-integration\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MS Teams Classes integration with Blackboard<\/a>. This should <b>not<\/b> be used to create online Lecture\/Seminar session links. Students&#8217; attendance will <strong>NOT BE<\/strong> recorded if you use this option.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft Teams is a real-time video and audio conferencing tool that lets you add files, share applications, and use a virtual whiteboard to interact.\u00a0 We recommend downloading the Teams application for the best experience when joining meetings. Please note that&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17839","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17839"}],"version-history":[{"count":80,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22048,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17839\/revisions\/22048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/blackboardhelp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}