Zoom Tips

Most of our recent interactions with colleagues and students have been through our computer screen. The news and our social media feeds are full of warnings about “Zoom-bombing”, referring to Zoom meetings. Unwanted guests can crash any event if we don’t follow these guidelines.

• Set meeting passwords
• Avoid sharing meeting or class details over social media or with people outside of your invitation list
• During the meeting, review participant list and remove unwelcome visitors
• 7 tips for Zoom etiquette

General Resources

• Getting started with Zoom -  - A Zoom.us tutorial
• Zoom - Recommendations, Best Practices
• Meeting and Webinar Best Practices & Resources  - A Zoom.us tutorial
• Zoom Video Tutorials
• Screen Sharing (a short Zoom video)
• Google Calendar Add-On (Useful for those that schedule meetings for other users)
• Zoom Cloud Recording
• Uploading videos created with Zoom to YouTube

Preventing Zoombombing & Managing Attendees

• Avoid "Zoombombing" by limiting who can present in large meetings
• Zoom has provided a very good article on how to prevent zoombombing or other similar harassment from occurring during your zoom calls
• Manage your participants
• Zoom Meeting reports (attendance)

Faculty Resources

• Office Hours in Zoom
• Zoom Meetings for Educators - A Zoom video tutorial (44 minutes) 
• Zoom in Canvas.pdf
• Article: Dear Professors: Don't Let Student Webcams Trick You

Zoom Features

• Managing Break-out Rooms (a short Zoom video)  
• Pre-assigning participants to breakouts rooms
• Polling (quizzing) for Meetings (a short Zoom video) - Please note, polls can be added only after the meeting is initially scheduled
• Using Annotation tools

Accessibility Best Practices

All publicized events must include the phrase: “If you require accommodations for equal access to this event, please contact the Office of Accessibility Services via email at access@geneseo.edu, or call 585-245-5112 one week prior to this event.”

Create a Personal Meeting Link

A Custom Personal Link provides a clean and consistent Zoom meeting URL for all your meetings and classes. For example, you can create a personal link that is your first initial and last name. This is great for both meeting hosts and professors as it’s easy for employees and students to remember.

Turn off HD Video

Turning off HD Video will improve the user experience for everyone attending, especially if they have bandwidth limitations, restricted data usage on mobile, or unreliable internet access. 

From within the Zoom Client:

1. Select the "Home" tab.
2. Select the Settings “Gear” icon. A settings pop-up window will open.
3. Select the View More Settings link under General settings. The Zoom website will open. Login if you are prompted with the login screen. The Meeting Settings page will open.
4. Navigate to the In Meeting (Advanced) section of the Meeting Settings page.
5. Disable the Group HD video setting, if available.

Closed Captions Feature

Though Zoom is equipped with a Closed Captions feature, there currently is no way to offer auto-captioning within Zoom at Geneseo. You may opt to assign a participant to type closed captions should a request arise. 

1. Enable “Always Show Meeting Controls”

By selecting the “Always Show Meeting Controls” checkbox, the controls at the bottom of the zoom screen will remain up. This improves the user experience for many participants as they don’t have to worry about the bar appearing and disappearing upon hover (especially if they are new to Zoom and don’t know how to make the bar at the bottom show up after it’s disappeared).

From within the Zoom Client:

1. Select the "Home" tab.
2. Select the Settings “Gear” icon. A settings pop-up window will open.
3. Select the View More Settings link under General settings. The Zoom website will open. Login if you are prompted with the login screen. The Meeting Settings page will open.
4. Navigate to the In Meeting (Basics) section of the Meeting Settings page.
5. Enable the “Always Show Meeting Controls” setting.

Enable the “Mute Participants Upon Entry” Feature

In your meeting settings, select the “Mute participants upon entry” checkbox (located under Meeting Options when scheduling a session). Participants will have to unmute their mics to participate. This feature will ensure fewer disruptions at the start of a meeting or class.

Communicate Keyboard Shortcuts

Send out the Zoom Keyboard Shortcuts ahead of time. These instructions are valuable for anyone using keyboard only navigation or assistive technology. In addition, it could be helpful to anyone who may have had their mouse stop working unexpectedly.

Remember to describe images and other visual content that’s displayed

Describing visual content that is displayed will help anyone with a vision or cognitive disability, as well as someone that may have needed to call in due to a local internet outage.

Provide instructions on how participants can ask questions

There are a couple ways people can ask questions. First, participants can use non-verbal feedback, such as raising their hand and unmuting when called upon. In addition, they can post a question in the chat feature. The recommendation is to use both features, but to always repeat questions that are provided through chat. By repeating the questions, you will help anyone that can’t access the chat during the session (people using assistive technology will have too much screen reader interference if they enable chat) and you will improve the captioning quality of any recorded sessions.

Send any resource links you post in Chat via email as well

It’s okay to use the Chat feature. However, keep in mind that anyone using assistive technology may not be able to copy or activate the links. It’s recommended that you send any resource links you’ll be sharing either prior to or after the session. You can also speak out the URL when posting it in Chat. If your resource link is long, consider using a URL shortener, such as bit.ly or Tiny URL, to help with communicating the link verbally and so that the link is cleaner for anyone copying it from the chat box.

Confirm the best polling technology in advance

Please reach out to the CIT Help Desk to identify which polling product is the most accessible to all your participants. Currently, the Zoom polling tool has significant barriers for both presenters and participants with disabilities.

Describe what you are annotating if using the Whiteboard feature

Similar to using a white board in the classroom, you should always describe what you are writing on the board for anyone with a disability or anyone that is using their phone due to internet connection issues in your virtual room.

Recording Your Zoom Session

There are a few reasons to consider recording your zoom sessions locally to your computer for distribution after a meeting or class:

1. Occasionally, due to local outages, students or employees may not be able to access a live Zoom session.
2. Currently, there are several countries or regions where international students are unable to access live Zoom sessions for regulatory reasons.
3. In addition, other unexpected distractions may come up that cause your meeting or class participant to miss portions of your class.

Note: If you record your sessions to the Zoom cloud, you may experience a significant delay in accessing them. Currently, the best approach is to record them to your local device.

Using Zoom in your Canvas Course

The Zoom LTI in Canvas works best for simple, repeating meetings of one class. If you would like to share office hours among all classes or use advanced features like pre-arranged breakout rooms or polls, we recommend you use the main web interface for Zoom and share the link(s) with your classes.

Installing Zoom LTI Pro in Course Navigation

1. Login to Canvas and navigate to the course where you would like to add Zoom.
2. Click Settings.

3. Click Navigation.

4. Drag Zoom from the hidden items to the place where you would like it to appear in the Navigation.

5. Click Save.

Schedule a Meeting

Zoom Meetings can be scheduled from within a Canvas Course. Users access the Zoom for Canvas tool from the navigation area for the course. The landing page shows information on upcoming meetings and previous meetings. Any user with the correct permissions will see the Schedule a New Meeting button.

Click the Schedule a New Meeting button to display the Schedule a Meeting page. Fill out the fields in the meeting settings:

• Topic: the title of your meeting
• When: select a date and time for the meeting
• Duration: total amount of time the meeting will be run for (you can enter a meeting early)
• Select Recurring meeting if the meeting will occur more than once
• Host/Participant: select whether you'd like your/your participants' video to automatically be turn on or off

After the meeting is scheduled, click the Start button to launch a scheduled meeting.

FAQ

What happens if I paid for a subscription with my geneseo.edu account?

Once you sign in with your Geneseo.edu account you will have to join our domain and Zoom will refund the credit card the remaining balance of your zoom subscription. You may subscribe to Zoom with a non-Geneseo email address to purchase a pro plan. You can then change the email associated with your account to a personal email address. This will let you keep all your scheduled meetings. See this zoom article for more information.

What alternatives are there?

Google Hangouts Meet is great for department meetings and other multi-person meetings. You can easily add a Google Hangouts Meet to any meeting in google calendar with a few clicks. Google Hangouts supports participants up to 250, no meeting length limits, and provides dial-in numbers for all attendees.

How can I change my Zoom background?

Change your virtual background: Show your Geneseo pride with one of these backgrounds.

You can also get some additional backgrounds here.

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