Zoom - Meeting and Recording Settings for instructors

This document explains important recording settings for instructors using Zoom for their courses.

Before scheduling course meetings, please review the settings in your account via the Zoom Web Portal. If you have created future meetings using a set of settings, but change some of them before the meeting takes place, when the meeting actually happens, it will use the current settings in your account. This is important to keep in mind if you're setting up an ongoing "course room" type Zoom meetingfor your students to use. 

Below is a list of settings we recommend that instructors pay special attention to. r. Some of them will have significant implications for your students' learning, so please consider the benefits and impacts of each setting before scheduling a class meeting Log into the UW Zoom Web Portal to access these settings.

For detailed descriptions of each Zoom meeting setting, please see this full list in a Zoom KB doc.

Meeting Settings

(See list of UW’s default Meetings settings)

Security

Waiting Room Options

  • Enabling this setting will allow you to have control over who actually enters your Zoom meetings. See Waiting Room KB from Zoom, but it also adds an extra step for you having to admit participants from the waiting room, and students who arrive a bit late might be forgotten in the waiting room.

Only authenticated users can join meetings

  • Enable to require that your students authenticate using their UW NetID. 
    • This might be enough security for your class meetings so you would not have to use a waiting room.

Schedule Meeting

Host and Participant videos

  • When this is disabled, hosts or participants can join the meeting with their video turned off. (They can turn on video when ready)

Mute all participants’ audio

  • Enable this to avoid participants accidentally sharing background noises when joining a meeting. 

In Meeting (Basic)

Chat 

  • Enable to allow participants to send messages visible to everyone. 
    • Let your students know if you plan to save meeting chats or not (see Recording Settings), and whether you plan to review them after a meeting or not. 
    • If you are not actively monitoring the chat window for questions, let your students know how you'd like them to raise questions during a Zoom meeting. 

Private Chat 

  • Enabling this will allow participants to send private 1:1 messages. These are NOT visible by the meeting host.

Auto saving chats

  •  Enable to have all meeting chats automatically saved if you wish to save them.

Sound notification when someone joins or leaves 

  • If enabling, choose for "Host and co-hosts only" so participants won't have to hear the constant notifications.

File Transfer 

  • Enabling this will allow file-sharing through the in-meeting chat window.

Polling 

  • Enable and create polls to make your class meetings more interactive and engaging.

Screen sharing

  • Enable to allow screen sharing by all participants. This can later be turned off and back on during a meeting.

Annotation

  • Enable to promote collaboration work during meetings. 
    • Whiteboard with annotations can be saved to document group work.

Whiteboard and Allow saving of whiteboard content

  • Enable to allow saving of whiteboard content that can be shared later. (User needs to upgrade their app to version 5.0.4 or later)

Non-verbal feedback and Meeting Reactions

  • Enabling this will allow people in the meeting to communicate with emojis without interrupting the presentation. This can help make the meeting more fun and lively.

Allow removed participants to rejoin

  • Enable to allow students to come back in if for some reason they are removed.

Allow participants to rename themselves 

  • Enable this so students can choose to be anonymous if a meeting is being recorded. Students can also choose to display their pronouns this way. 
    • To change one’s pronouns in Canvas, please see this guide for instructors, and this guide for students. However, pronouns added in the Canvas account will not automatically transfer to users' Zoom account.

Hide participant profile pictures

  • Enable to increase participants anonymity, especially if meetings are being recorded. 

In Meeting (Advanced)

Breakout room
  • Enable to allow pre-assigning breakout rooms when scheduling a meeting. This function is not available if you schedule a meeting using the Zoom tool in Canvas. Follow these instructions for a work-around to pre-populate breakout rooms.
Closed captioning and Enable live transcription service
  • this will allow participants to view closed-captions during a meeting. 

Email Notification

When cloud recording is available
  • Enable to receive email notifications. Cloud recordings generally take 2x the meeting duration to process. During high volume traffic time, they can take up to 24-72 hours. Change this setting to best suit your own needs.
When recording is available or about to be permanently deleted 
  • Change this setting to best suit your own needs. 
    • Note: Currently all recordings will be saved in your UW Zoom accounts up to 150 days. If you wish to save them for future use, you'll need to download the MP4s and store or upload to another platform, such as Kaltura Media Space

Recording Settings

(see list of UW’s default recording settings ) 

Cloud Recording 

Record an audio only file

  •  Enable this if you plan to distribute MP3 files separately.

Save chat messages

  • Enable this to automatically save meeting chat with every recording. Only the messages sent to everyone will be saved.

Advanced Cloud Recording

  • Display participants' names in the recording
    • Disable this to allow anonymity.
  • Audio transcript- 
    • Enable this to have the cloud recording automatically transcribed.
  • Save panelist chat to the recording- 
    • Enable this to save messages sent to other panelists and all participants. 
  • Save poll results shared during the meeting- 
    • Enable this setting to save poll results. This might be helpful if you use polling to do quick knowledge checks during a class meeting.

Allow cloud recording sharing

  • Enable this so recordings can be shared via a link. 
  • Note: If you enable this feature, it means students can also share those recordings via a link

Automatic recording

  • Disable this to prevent automatic recording when a meeting starts. 
  • If you worry you might forget to hit the "Record" button, use this "Checklist and Cheat Sheet" to help you stay on track during a meeting.

Require users to authenticate before viewing cloud recordings

  • This setting is currently always enabled, and locked by admin. 
  • If you have students with Manifest IDs or Non-UW guest speakers who you’d like to share meeting recordings with, you will need to download the recording and upload it to another platform that your learners can access.

Require passcode to access cloud recordings

  • Disable this to save everyone an extra step when they try to access recordings. 

Auto delete

  • Enabling this will allow Zoom to delete your meeting recordings after a range of days that you specify. Currently UW’s Zoom accounts will allow storage up to 150 days (an entire semester). If you need to save your recordings for future use and sharing, you will need to download anything you want saved before then. 

Recording disclaimer

  • This setting is currently always enabled, and locked by Admin. By default, whenever you hit the "Record" button during a meeting, every participant will be asked to consent or leave the meeting. 

Telephone

Show international dial-in numbers
  • Enable if you have students joining meetings from abroad. 
Mask phone numbers in the participant list
  • Enable to increase participant anonymity.