Recording A Virtual Conference Presentation with Riverside.fm

AANP Conference speakers that require recording assistance from AANP staff will be invited to record their presentation with a browser-based platform called Riverside.fm. This easy-to-use platform does not require users to download or install any platform specific software. The only requirement is that users will need to use the Google Chrome browser to access their recording link and have a working web camera/microphone.

Booking Your Recording Day/Time

Once you have confirmed and been approved to deliver your conference presentation in virtual format, you will receive a confirmation email from AANP. This email will contain a statement letting you know that you can choose to record your presentation on your own through any recording platform you have access to OR you can set up a time to meet with an AANP staff member and have your presentation recorded with AANP assistance. If you would like AANP assistance getting your presentation recorded, you will need to use the booking link provided in that same confirmation email to book a time to meet and record. If you have more than one session to record, please schedule an appointment for each session.

NOTE: If you have a co-speaker in your session, please make sure both of you are available for recording on that same appointment. One of the Co-speakers can schedule the appointment and forward the link and reminder to the others.

Please Note - Booking times are scheduled in two hour time blocks. Presentation time is expected to be a minimum of 60 minutes long and the additional hour that is built in is to account for preparing to record (checking environment, checking audio and video feed, checking internet connection speeds, slides, etc.) and giving additional time if you need to stop during the presentation to take small breaks, restart on a slide or a section, etc. It is likely that you will not need to meet for the full two hours, but we ask that the time be set aside just in case so that we can help you make the best recording possible.

Day Before Your Recording

You will receive an auto-generated email from AANP one day prior to their recording date to remind you that you have a recording appointment set up with an AANP staff member. In this email, you will be provided with the link that you will use to join your session studio in Riverside. Make sure you look out for this email!

Note: In order to make sure that you receive the reminder email, it would be a good idea to add conferencespeakerprerecording@aanp.org to your approved sender / sender whitelist.

Day of Recording

On the day you are scheduled to record, please check the following:

Make sure that you have the Google Chrome browser installed on the device that you will be presenting from. If you do not already have it installed, it is free and you can access the download site here: Download Google Chrome. Chrome is required for best results when using the browser-based recording platform Riverside.
Make sure that you have a working microphone. You can use any kind of microphone that you are most comfortable with and will provide the best audio sound (headset, free-standing microphone, lapel microphone, earbuds with microphone, etc). In general, it is recommended that a headset be used to help reduce the amount of background noise/echo from audio. But this is not a requirement. If you have a microphone that works and you know sounds good when you use it, that is all that matters!
Make sure you have a working web camera. We prefer for all of our virtual presentations to contain speaker video while presenting - learners prefer this because it makes presentations more interesting and engaging. If you absolutely do not want your speaker-video to be included as part of the final video presentation, please let your AANP staff member know and we can exclude it from the final edit version of your recording.
Make sure you have an environment behind you that is free of clutter and is professional looking. Riverside does not currently have the ability for speakers to blur their background or to have a background image added in behind them. So the background that gets captured in the recording is whatever is behind you.
Make sure you have a strong connection to the internet. We would prefer that you are wired directly into a modem or router for the strongest and most stable connection. However, if that is not possible, try to be in a spot where your wi-fi signal is the strongest and has the least likely chance of fluctuation.
Make sure that you're able to record in a quiet environment. Be in an area where you can record with little-to-no background noise (preferably no opening/closing doors behind you, no road traffic noise, no pets making noise, etc.). Silence any devices that you may have in the room that could make distracting noises (cellphones, any programs on the computer that might give notification noises for incoming messages or emails, etc.).

Accessing Riverside.fm as a Speaker

When you access your Riverside speaker link, make sure that it opens up in the Google Chrome browser. If it does not do this by default, you may need to copy the URL from the reminder email and paste it into Google Chrome directly.

On the Riverside studio landing page, you will be asked to do a few things before you can enter the recording studio. In the box provided on the left side of the screen, enter your name (can be full name, nick name, just first name - whatever your preference). Below that, select the option for "I am not using headphones" if you will be using a microphone that is a free-standing microphone or select "I am using headphones" if you are going to be wearing a headset with a microphone.

When you initially access the page, you may not see your camera and/or microphone options displaying on the right side. This means that your browser has not given Riverside.fm access to those devices yet. To initiate this request for permission, click on the purple button that says "Request camera permissions."

You will receive a pop-up in the upper-left corner that states that Riverside.fm would like to be able to use your camera and your microphone. Click the "Allow" button.

The page will refresh and the area on the right side of the screen will populate with a preview of your video and three selection drop-down menus to allow you to choose your video input, microphone input, and speaker output. Click on any of those drop-down lists to change these settings to your preference.

If you aren't sure which web camera, microphone or speaker setting to use - those can be changed at any time after you join in to the studio. Make sure to ask the AANP staff member that will be assisting you in the studio how your audio sounds and how your video looks. They can help you test out different options if you have multiple selections to choose from and will help you find the best one for the best quality recording.

Click the "Join Studio" button to enter the recording studio.

Recording Your Presentation

After you click the "Join Studio" button, a notification is sent to the AANP staff member in the studio room and they will approve the request to let you in. Once in the room, make sure to take time to ask any questions you might have regarding the recording process, check your microphone and web camera, check your slides, etc.

Note: The slides that you will be recording from are the finalized/approved slides from the AANP Speaker System. If you made any changes to your slide deck after your slides were approved in the Speaker System, those changes will need to be resubmitted to the Director of Accreditation and approved before they can be used in your recording. This needs to be done at least 24 hours in advance of your scheduled recording time.

When you are ready to start recording, your AANP staff member will share your approved slide deck slides inside of the studio room and will give you control to advance those slides. You will see a notice appear at the top of your browser window letting you know when presentation controls have been given to you. Use your right and left arrow keys to move through your slides as you present.

A few things to keep in mind while recording:

Speaker notes from PowerPoint will not be available when recording in Riverside. Because the presentation is uploaded directly to the platform, the only option currently for sharing is slide-image only. If you have speaker notes for your presentation, you may need to put them in a document or other format that you can put on the side of your screen to reference while you are recording.
If you start recording a section or a slide and decide that you just don't like the way that it sounds, verbally say something like, "I want to restart this slide" and pause for a few seconds of silence, and then just restart. This helps our team easily identify that specific area in the recording and we can cut it out while reviewing and editing.
Take breaks! Speaking for a continuous 60 minutes or more can be difficult and stressful. Feel free to take breaks in between groups of slides to take a breath, take a drink of water, etc. This is why we ask speakers to set aside two hours of time to record a one-hour presentation! These areas in the video can also easily be edited out by our team.
Slide mistakes happen, and we can help correct those. If you come to a slide where you notice something isn't right (maybe a wrong number on a chart, a misspelled word, etc.), keep presenting as though that information were correct and make a mental note of it. Let your staff member know either after the slide or during a break about what is wrong with the slide and what it should be changed to. This is an edit we can also make when the recording is being reviewed and edited.
Speech mistakes happen, and we can help correct those as well (generic drug names can be especially difficult!). If you have any major stumbles over a word or phrase, just correct yourself and continue on. We can edit out the stumbled word or phrase during the review and editing process.
Ask for help at any time. While you are recording, if you need to stop for any reason or need to ask a question, just let your AANP staff member know. They will be there with you the whole time. (These instances will be edited out of final recordings as well.)
If you accidentally get disconnected from the room or leave, you can join back into the studio with the same link that you used before. You will not need to restart your presentation - just pick back up right where you left off.

Once you have finished your presentation, all you need to do is close your browser window. A copy of your recording will be stored in the cloud area of the studio and AANP staff can retrieve it from there.