Client enhancements to support Webinar style events

Webinars are mostly one-way presentation style events where participants are not able to see other participants. Participants also do not have the ability to broadcast audio or video. They can interact in the session only using the chat feature.

This update improves the overall participant experience and performance of Webinar style events in Cornerstone Classroom App and Express clients by introducing the following changes:
  • Participants can view only leaders, presenters, and themselves in the People panel. Only leaders and presenters can view all participants. For example, the following figure displays People panels of a participant and a leader. Peter, who is a participant can only see himself and the leader in the panel, whereas Admin, who is a leader can see herself along with the participants Peter and Clarke.

    People panels for Participants and Leaders

  • The People icon in the sidebar displays the total number of participants in a Webinar to leaders and presenters only. It does not display the number to participants though.

    People icon for leaders and participants

  • The Breakout room feature is removed from leader and presenter views because it is not typically used in Webinar style events.
  • The context menu for leader and presenters is changed to remove menu options that are not allowed or not applicable in a Webinar event, like Give microphone control, Ask to share, Give AppShare Control, Control audio, Promote to presenter, and so on.

    Limited context menu options for leaders

  • The hand raise gesture is removed for all users. All other gestures are enabled and displayed to leaders, presenters, and participants in their own People panels.

    Webinar users do not have the hand raise gesture

  • The video camera option is removed for participants. Participants can only view leader or presenter video. It is available to leader and presenters though.
  • The microphone option is removed for participants. Instead, participants now see a speaker icon in the sidebar. Whereas, leaders and presenters see the speaker icon for participants in the People panel.

    Webinar participants see a Speaker icon

  • The markup toolbar is removed for participants.
  • The chat send options for participants are restricted to 'All' and 'All Presenters'. The default option is 'All'.

    Webinar participant chat options