Virtual Meetings, Chat, Phone: Microsoft Teams

Description

A powerful team-based collaboration tool that provides group chat, channeled conversations, instant messaging, live document collaboration, audio or video calls, and meetings (from one-on-ones to fully-featured audio/video conferences). Persistent histories make it easy to review past conversations and shared documents.

Access

Desktop and mobile

For the best experience, we recommend using the Teams app:

• Download the Teams app for Windows or Mac.

• Mobile apps are available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 10 from their respective app stores 

On the web

• teams.ohio.edu (Use your full OHIO email address as your username)

• Teams also can be reached by logging into OneDrive or Catmail on the web and using the "waffle" app launcher icon.

Who can access

• To join a remote meeting via Teams or telephone:

  • Anyone

• To be owner or co-owner of a Team:

  • Faculty, staff, and emeriti

• To be a Team member or to use Teams for individual or small-group private chats:

  • Term active students, current faculty/staff, emeriti, or be a guest (invited by a Team owner).

• To create a meeting that includes an audio conferencing telephone number: 

  • Current students; full-time faculty, administrative, classified non-bargaining and OUPD staff.

How to request access

Instructors: Requesting a Team for OHIO courses

• If you are using a Blackboard Ultra course, you can create your Team using the tools located within your Blackboard course.

• If you are not using a Blackboard Ultra Course or need a unique combination of sections/courses combined into one Team, submit the Team Auto Creation form, which will:

  1. Automatically create a Team for an OHIO course or a Team that includes students from up to five (5) courses

  2. Add and maintain student membership based on official enrollment records

• Please note that the instructor will need to add any co-instructors or teaching assistants manually.

Instructors, Staff, and Emeriti: Request a Team for non-course purposes

Contact the IT Service Desk and ask for a Microsoft Group with Teams access. Please be prepared to provide the following information:

• Division or College 

• Department:  For an organization, this should be the sponsoring department.

• Preferred Display Name:  A short, descriptive name of your Group.  The Group's shared email address will be based on this name.

• Purpose of Group/Team: 

• Will the Team be used for an OHIO course? Note that Teams for Classroom works well to promote collaboration and interaction among students, but it is not a Learning Management System. The best way to use Teams is as a supplement to Blackboard Learn.

• Will the Group be used to store sensitive data (HIPAA, FERPA, PHI, etc.)? 

• Group Owner(s):  The Name and Ohio email address of at least one person who will be responsible for managing Group membership.

*Group Addresses are hidden from the Global Address List

Features

• Chat – Have private one-on-one or group conversations via text, audio, or video.

• Meetings and Live Events – Schedule and invite OHIO and non-OHIO participants to audio/video conference-based meetings or live-streamed events. Teams meeting invitations synchronize automatically with Outlook calendar.

  • Together Mode: Put all the participants in a virtual lecture hall

  • Large Gallery Mode: Up to 49 participants on the screen at once

  • Focus Mode: Turn off camera feeds and audio and concentrate on your presentation

  • Meetings will now open in a separate window for better access and sharing capabilities

  • Want to know more about whether a Meeting or Live Event is right for you? Navigate to the webpage on using Microsoft Teams for your meetings and live events

• Webinars – Schedule and invite OHIO and non-OHIO participants to a more controlled online meeting. Participants have clear roles: One or several experts (the presenters) share their ideas or provide training to an audience (the attendees).

• Activity Feed – View recent activities in Teams and search for specific conversations, files, people, and more.

• Channels – Focus your Team's discussions by creating topic- or project-specific channels to hold conversations, have meetings, and collaborate on files.

• Files – View, edit, and collaborate on OneDrive files inside of Teams.

• Tabs – Add content or features to a chat or channel. Tabs can include websites, Office 365 applications, and select non-Microsoft content.

  • Planner tab – Collaborate on and organize shared lists of tasks within your Team.

  • Lists tab – Track information and organize work within your Group or Team.

• Teams Apps – Add functionality to Microsoft Teams.

  • Shifts – Create, manage, and update schedules for your Team.

  • Forms – Create an instant, real-time poll in seconds to gather feedback from your Team Channels and meeting, event, and webinar participants.

    • Meeting polls can be created by meeting organizers and presenters in advance and launched before, during, or after the meeting.

    • Real-time poll results can be viewed in the chat pane, on the Forms website, or exported from the Teams meeting.

    • Polls created in Forms cannot be launched from Teams. To use an existing poll, share the URL to the Form in the Teams chat.

  • Whiteboard - The collaborative digital canvas in Microsoft 365 for effective meetings and engaging learning. The Teams Whiteboard works exceptionally well to convey information that requires visual representation, such as mathematical equations. 

    • OIT has tested Teams Whiteboard on Wacom Tablets, Surface Pros, and iPads, and can provide support accordingly.

  • Walkie Talkie - Use your Teams mobile app for simple, secure instant voice communication.

    • The Walkie Talkie can connect to any Teams channel. You can listen to others and push-to-talk. 

    • Note: Walkie Talkie only works on the Teams mobile app. It will not appear on your Teams desktop app.

  • Approvals - Streamline your requests and processes by creating new approvals, viewing approvals submitted to you, and viewing all past approval notifications.

Classroom-Specific Features

Teams includes additional features for interacting with students in a classroom setting.

• Quick Start Guide for Teams for Education (PDF download) (automatically downloads a .pdf, not a website)

• Assignments – A feature for distributing and assessing student assignments. NOTE: Currently this feature is very lightweight. We recommend using Blackboard Learn for assignments.

• Class Notebook – A feature for instructors to share class information and resources. If students post work to the class notebook, it is only visible to themselves and the instructor.

• Adding students to a Teams class

  • Create a link or a code for joining a team - Directions for allowing students to join a Team automatically

  • Add a student to a class team - Directions for manually adding students to a Team

• Insights – View analytics for your course, including student progress, participation, trends across activities and assignments, and areas where students may need additional help.

Microsoft continuously releases new features for Teams. Visit What's new in Microsoft Teams or type "/whatsnew" into the Teams search bar to view the latest updates.

Connect with other applications

• Teams works in conjunction with other Microsoft applications such as OneDrive, OneNote, and Office 365 via Microsoft Groups.

Additional resources

Join the Collaboration Tools Advisory Community

• The Collaboration Tools Advisory Community is open to OHIO students, faculty, and staff who have an interest in collaboration tools including chat, remote meetings, intranets, and storage solutions.

Service support

• Service Level Agreement: Collaboration and Storage

• IT Services Roadmaps

• Pinned Article Help & Resources: Microsoft Teams

• Using Microsoft Teams with Sensitive Data

Get help

• Visit the Technology Help Center (help.ohio.edu) to get live support, view outages, and browse trainings.

Accessibility

Microsoft Teams has many features that support accessibility.

Ohio University strives to make its digital resources and services accessible to all visitors, including those with disabilities who may also be using assistive technology. If special steps are necessary in order to improve the accessibility of experiences for end-users, those steps must be taken. 
 
If you experience a barrier that affects your ability to access OHIO websites, videos, online forums, documents, or other information technology, please let us know. 
For further information about OHIO's digital accessibility resources, see:

• Digital Accessibility

• Office for University Accessibility

• Student Accessibility Services

• Ohio University's IT Accessibility Policy

Security

The Ohio University Information Security Office strives to educate and empower the University community to appropriately manage risks and protect OHIO’s information and systems. This effort is facilitated through policies, standards, and information security risk management program, as well as other tools and guidance that are provided to the University community. This modern approach creates a safe computing environment in which the University community can teach, learn, and conduct research. 

For additional information about OHIO’s security resources, see:

• Resources for students 

• Resources for faculty and staff 

• Resources for researchers