Body
Audio conferencing infrastructure is supported directly by the Division of Technology Services, however individual events are not. If you need event support, please coordinate with Reservations for assistance in hosting your event.
Participating in an Event
Most one-way "webinars" or events are now using voice over IP technology where the visual content and the audio content are streamed over your computer. There is often a player that needs to be installed on your device to receive that stream. Every service uses different software and the service is determined by the host of the event. If you need assistance with installation of this software, please contact the DoTS service center for assistance. Many of the services have a test feature in their support centers which allows you to test in advance to ensure that your device is able to receive the streaming feed when the time comes for your event.
Bi-directional "conferences" or meetings also use software that needs to be installed if there is a visual element. Otherwise voice-only calls will likely give you a dial-in phone number and some sort of code to access to the resource. Refer to the information from your host provider. Refer to our dialing pattern article for how to dial. Dialing on a Cisco conference phone is the same as any other Cisco phone at UWRF.
Hosting an Event
We do not have any contracts with or have any particular campus-owned resources to facilitate a hosted event. There are phones pre-positioned across the campus.
For up to six people, you can use the "conference" feature of your phone to dial out to five additional people. (You are the sixth person.) There is no number to call into and the university bears all the cost of your long distance calls.
If you are wishing to host a 1 to 1 or a 1 to many conference, you can also do so by using Webex on your own; you just need to register for an account in advance. With Webex you can use the audio feature or the audio and video together.
Webex Audio-Only Event Steps
- Create a Webex account, if needed.
- Create a meeting in the Webex Meeting Center. Send yourself an email invite.
- In the invite you are given the phone number and the meeting code for the call. Share that info with your group.
- At the time of the call, select the link in the email to open the Webex meeting console*
- The other callers will then be able to call into the meeting. You can mute callers, eject callers, end the meeting etc.
* If you don't want to manage the meeting while it is in progress, make sure to check the "allow anyone to host the meeting" option when you create the meeting.
Ad Hoc Conferencing
You can create an ad-hoc conference using your Cisco 8841 business class phone. You can have up to 8 participants (yourself and 7 others) on the call. You will initiate the call as the organizer and as long as one other person remains on the call from the UW-River Falls Unified Communications system the call remain active. There is no way to schedule the call or to have a call-in number; the organizer places the call to each participant and adds them to the conference call.