Hybrid Lectures

More useful feedback re zoom when recording lectures. We've been advised to ask speakers to remove all slide transitions and special effects like dissolves and fades from their slides. This simple act makes for a much more pleasant and smoother Zoom experience!

That interesting - sounds as though the screen in the venue is transmitting the presenter's screen. The Zoom participants should only be viewing the slides not the presenter's view which includes the presenter's notes. Maybe you should be screening the slides in the venue from a computer which is signed into the Zoom meeting as a participant rather than directly from the presenter's computer.

Greatly appreciated.

An issue which has arisen with in-venue hybrid lectures: please ensure the lecturer's MS Powerpoint presentation is not set to 'Presenter's View' as this results in that view (the sequence of the slides) being shown to the audience.

Hi Denis Borrow - I tuned into your Hybrid lecture last night and I was very impressed with the slides and the audio. I realised you had a problem with not turning on the Audio for the Host Computer at the beginning but after that was fixed and the partipating members all turned off their audios, it seemed to work very well with excellent sound quality. Can you advise if you had to do anything particularly complicated with the Microphone to get such good audio quality? And did you have any issues with the Wifi? We are hoping to host a Hybrid lecture in October using a Webinar (to avoid the problem of participants tuning in with audio and video). How did you manage to get the video of the lecturer in front of the screen? Did that come from the laptop Host Participant's Zoom camera being focussed on him. And how do you get the Zoom to pick up the audio from the Presenter's microphone? Kind regards Ronnie Munday TAS Romsey

Howard I have just set out our First Hybrid Lecture Set-Up for our Arts Society Sherborne Lecture on 1st September. Our Town Council have agreed to throw open our Digby Hall to all comers from the 1st with no number restrictions in fact no restrictions at all. They are putting these issues at the discretion of the Hall Users.

We have decided to set out chairs with a chair’s width gap between each and letting members decide if they wish to move their personal chairs closer to their partners/friends. Masks will be encouraged and there will be Sanitising Stations made available.

Teas and Coffees will also be made available as per the past.

Of course we‘re putting out the message early to members that we’re back in the Hall for lectures but it’s impossible to know how many will turn up. That’ll be a voyage of discovery! Many missed out on our lectures at home for various reasons, so we just hope that this return to in-hall will persuade them to come back to us.

For the time-being, and we’ll monitor this situation, we’ll be putting out Hybrid Lectures for the foreseeable, well at least until we have a majority of the membership telling us they no longer need them.

Kind regards,

Denis Borrow

TASS Sherborne

Muriel, Talking to some societies it seems a Village Hall type venue, etc can be a problem as it has to be deep cleaned before and after an event whether it be Zumba classes or an Arts Society meeting. One of the way to get started with live lectures seems to be by transferring to a hotel venue as they have much more facilities and incentive to get back to "normal" as quickly as possible - I have a feeling that a significant percentage of members would not be happy to return to live meetings this Autumn as "freedom" is quite messy so a socially distance hotel suite would be ideal and mostly they have a projector etc!

Waiting to receive confirmation when we can use our venue, and then we will have to check the technicalities of how to run the show.

Is anyone planning to do their lectures by streaming the lecture 'live' to the venue (for members wanting the social occasion) at the same time to members at home. All members could see the lecturer as he/she delivers the lecture from his/her home (there would be the thumbnail image of the lecturer on the screen). There shouldn't be copyright issues as the lecture is only being seen by members of the society (no recording) and also no new equipment needed to be purchased.

Food for thought!

Thanks Howard. Quite a lot to take on board but all very interesting and certainly food for thought, as when we can return to live lectures (and our members clearly much prefer them to Zoom lectures, partly for the ability of meeting up with friends for the chat and refreshments) is an unknown factor at the moment.

The venues sadly can not use any technology to "broadcast" a live lecture as it will infringe copyrights and intellectual property. This is the problem, copyrights are a minefield. You will be aware of the copyright problems a Society can encounter with publicity images. The lecturers are responsible for the copyrights they use in their talks and the necessary approvals.

One Society I know got together with their venue and looked at having a camera at the back of the Hall filming the lecture and streaming it so that people not present could "attend" the lecture - ouch! (as most permissions are granted for a live lecture at a live venue for a one hour period, which is how I get permission for all my images) - this breaks every rule in the book. The technicalities and costs of equipment are substantial and add to the fact that 20% of venues I attend can't pick up the sound from my film clips which has lead me to carrying my own PA system.

What I outlined was a way that I use that does not involve either the Venue or the Society to reach their members who were reluctant to attend a live event at the current time. I must repeat that I make the Youtube lecture available for one week after the main talk (or online delivery date) only to registered members of that Society by invitation (Mailchimp) The member receives a link like this one (which is for my Showreel) - https://youtu.be/9Qe7lBuEaQ8 All the member has to do is click on it and it works - no massive tech knowledge. I make this available at the standard fee for any booked lecture in my Directory listing - it doesn't involve a society with additional costs. Yes I do agree with you on hoping we can start live lectures again as the reason I haven't taken to Zoom is that I can't read the audience and change it midstream to make it a better experience. Oh to see those smiling faces!

Stay safe.

Certainly a complex issue. Our Church Hall will not have the advanced technology to enable this to be done, and I do not feel that incurring the expense ourselves to do this is a cost which I am reluctant to incur. What will happen depends much upon Government rules for groups meeting, plus also what regulations our Church Hall will impose upon us before we can decide what the future is and when we can restart live lectures again.

A definite complex issue for some, but you seemed to have mastered the technology. Waiting to find out whether the venue of our lectures has the right technology to make those at home reluctant to going out of the comfort of their homes. That is the problem!

Howard, very interesting thank you.

For your information I am a lecturer and have posted the following on the Lecturers form, which you might find interesting

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FYI - I have been giving hybrid lectures quite often recently. I am an ex Graphic Designer commercially (but a living one with the Arts Society) and found that the smaller screen, Zoom or Youtube, just didn't work and members of Societies were having difficulty is looking at illustrations. With Zoom this was compounded by lecturers including an image of themselves over the Powerpoint lecture (one eight or more of the screen being "lost"). It was pretty obvious that Societies would stream the image into people's homes so I decided to recreate my lectures in Youtube and seek the necessary copyright permissions to do so. This took over six months to achieve before I could get started and more recently I have been on a fixed day bookings with a Zoom introduction/Youtube streamed presentation/Zoom Q&As and wrap up along with making the Youtube presentation available from my unlisted account for a period so that members who couldn't make the fixed meeting can watch at their leisure or re-watch, which has proved to be very popular. I control the on/off switch and supply Google Analytics.

I am making this addon of a Youtube lecture available to all lectures for the foreseeable future as I suspect some Society Members will be reticent to return to live lecture venues for a while. The other interesting aspect is some societies have overseas members who obviously can't attend lectures and this is a way of reaching them - expats who don't want to lose touch (a area I know well as with the Pandemic I lost all my overseas lectures to expat Societies - holidays ruined as well!!!)

Just a quick point on Youtube lectures and copyrights - all my contacts had no problems with a Youtube presentation from my Unlisted account, as the audience didn't exceed the usual 200 people. (to go public was a very different matter and not worth even trying). I have been putting discreet watermarks on images that the copyright holders were initially reluctant to agree to. This I think highlights the problems we as lecturers have with Zoom recordings which are more easily made than with Youtube, which certainly can be cracked but takes some technical knowledge to do so.

Hope the above is of interest - its been a very difficult period and fingers crossed.

Stay safe.

I have been approached regarding giving a hybrid lecture. It certainly seems a very useful way of bridging the gap between partial return to a live lecture and full attendance, although obviously dependent on the technical facilities of the venue. Many thanks for explaining the various ways in which this could be achieved.

Today's Town Hall meeting was so helpful hearing all the different ideas coming from other Societies, it is so complex taking into account different government regulations, but nevertheless gave us the opportunity of being positive, going forward like the astronauts out in space, not really knowing what to expect. What a wonderful team we all make.

For what it’s worth our experience in New Milton has shown that there are at least two forms of ‘hybrid’ viz:

a. The simplest hybrid: Here the speaker delivers his/her talk on Zoom. Reception is, as usual, in the “attendees’” homes but, in December, we were able to cater for a small, socially-distanced group in a hall by providing a laptop, projector and screen for the reception and projection of the talk. This worked well and is certainly something we will repeat when small gatherings are allowed but large ‘normal’ gatherings are still forbidden. It is an excellent way of including non-internet members who, apart from Newsletters, have been cut off from our lecture and Visual Tour provision in recent months.

b. The more complicated hybrid: This is where the speaker is present in front of a ‘normal’ gathering with his/her talk being relayed to those who cannot attend for some reason in their homes. We would like to try this but foresee some difficulties viz:

1. We want the speaker to speak to his/her physical audience and not be constrained to staring into a laptop or other camera.

2. Showing slides should not be a problem since a simple ‘screen share’ will allow projection onto a screen in the auditorium (via the usual projector arrangement) whilst also allowing transmission down line to distant watchers

3. How to cope with a lecturer who ‘bobs about’? Do we need a separate camera to follow the lecturer? If so, how do we prevent the camera person from being an obstruction/distraction? Also, what sort of camera would transmit live to the same audience which is watching the slides down line?

4. How many laptops do we need to ensure: lecture delivery, projection on to the screen (for the ‘live’ audience) and control of both media by the Host?

c. One thing we think we are clear on is the that ‘live’ audience should take precedence. It there is a loss of signal or difficulties with following a ‘bobbing’ lecturer, then, sadly, the down line audience should just have to accept the lesser quality of service.

We have worked out the ‘simplest hybrid’ and, as soon as we are allowed, we will use this again. We are still working on the best way of making the ‘more complicated hybrid’ work satisfactorily. Any views/comments/advice that you might have would be very much appreciated.

We at Diss have also considered the idea of streaming the lecturer into the hall and to members at home. Our Programme Secretary has contacted our first four lecturers from September and received three replies. It appears they would not be happy to stream their lectures from the hall citing copyright issues.

We - Solent - have also had the idea of streaming the lecturer into the hall and to members at home. Maybe at first to give priority in the hall to those without or who do not use IT and so have been missing out on our zoom lectures. This would give them the social interaction that they have been missing as well. On the other hand some people actually prefer the lectures online ! The only technical problem might be the internet provision in the hall. We would not start this untill there is freedom to meet and from PPE etc.