Collaborate Security
Suggestions on how to keep Collaborate sessions secure.
Session Security Tips
As you continue remote teaching or begin to consider moving your course online, you may choose to incorporate Collaborate, the University’s Virtual Classroom, for your online seminars and tutorials. When using Collaborate, we would advise that all staff take reasonable steps to ensure that their sessions are secure. If you need to use the Guest Access feature, please be mindful of how the guest link is shared.
You can find helpful resources for effectively hosting a Collaborate session on our Virtual Classroom webpages and on Blackboard Help.
Please review these tips to help keep your sessions from being interrupted by uninvited guests.
Dos
- Create a tool link to Collaborate sessions in the course content area of your course. If your session is in your course, everyone in the course has secure access to the session that cannot be shared.
- Emails and announcements to students about Collaborate sessions you have created should direct them to the content area within the course where they can find the Collaborate tool or session links.
- Maintain control of the session by being selective with participant permissions. Where the session requires guest access to be enabled, consider stricter lockdown of participant permissions.
- Avoid reusing the same session link for new sessions.
- If hosting an open event consider a mechanism for sharing the link securely and advise against re-sharing. For example, you could use a booking system to only reveal the guest link to people who register to your event.
Don'ts
- Do not enable guest access in session settings unless it is necessary. Disabling guest access will mean attendees will be authenticated on entry and their full names will be logged in the session rather than people using short names/nicknames.
- Do not share guest links with students outside the course for example via emails.
- Do not share links on public webpages or social media platforms. Guest links are public links. Anybody with the link can join your session and take part.