Team for Research in
Ubiquitous Secure Technology

How do I webcast a seminar?

Each Trust University can webcast a seminar in any manner they see fit. Below are some suggested guidelines.

Webcasts can include audio, application sharing and video. The most critical feature is audio, then application sharing and then video. Avoid the mistake of focussing on providing video over the other features - video is not as useful as you might think.

The best way to provide audio is to use a telephone conference call. Some webcasting services include the ability to include telephone conference calls. The reason to use a telephone conference call is because the telephone is very robust (when was the last time you rebooted your (non-cell) phone?). Also, a telephone line makes it easier to debug the other webcasting features.

Making the slides available in advance is the second most important feature. We recommend making the slides available on the Trust website in advance of the presentation by Adding them as a publication. Adding the slides to the website on the day of the presentation is usually sufficient.

Application sharing is the next most important feature
We recommend using services like WebEx MeetMeNow or Microsoft Office Live Meeting

WebEx MeetMeNow

In April, 2006, WebEx MeetMeNow had a special of $49/month for unlimited meetings with up to 10 participants.

It looks like WebEx includes a conference calling option - be sure to use the telephone conference call over integrated audio.

Microsoft Office Live Meeting

Microsoft bought Placeware and renamed it Microsoft's Office Live Meeting Live Meeting provides the ability to share applications including Powerpoint through a firewall. The GSRC is using Live Meeting for their monthly seminars. Live Meeting does cost money though. It is paid for by the seat (April, 2006 pricing)
5 seats $375/month
10 seats $750/month
pay per use: $0.35/month/seat
So, if we had 5 seats for 60 minutes, we would pay $105/month

At an additional cost, Live Meeting has the ability to save presentations on their website. We could save the audio portion for a certain number of months and then delete it. The Powerpoint deck would always be available on the Trust web server. If there was a real need to preserve the audio, we could have it transcribed to text, though honestly, this is not really worth it.