Setting Zoom up for seminars and lectures

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This article covers our recommendations for setting Zoom up for larger group video meetings, seminars, and online lecture delivery.

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Getting started

You should set up an account using your staff Trinity Laban email address at https://zoom.us. This will temporarily unlock the free unrestricted meeting duration agreement that Zoom have extended to us, which means you can run meetings which are longer than 40 minutes.

When asked if you “Are signing up on behalf of a school“, please select “No“, unless you are working solely with under 18 year olds.

We would encourage anyone wanting to use Zoom to download the desktop app for their system if possible, as more options are made available through the app rather than the browser version.

 

Limitations of Zoom

• Zoom meetings hosted by free accounts can have a maximum of 100 participants. If you would like to host larger events, please see the guidance on the How do I teach remotely article.
• We would strongly urge tutors to set Zoom up using the settings outlined below, this ensures maximum privacy, and should negate some of the issues that have been featured prominently on the news recently.
• Please note that the unlimited duration for Zoom accounts is available for staff email addresses only.

 

Recommended uses for Zoom

We have found that Zoom can be a useful and easy to use video and audio meeting tool for groups of people to be in a virtual space at the same time. This means it can be used for group discussion, seminars, and lectures.

 

Recommended settings

JANET Guidance

The following is advise from JANET for optimising the security of Zoom settings:

• Ensure that Meeting Passwords are required to join and that they are not published in an uncontrolled manner.
• Don’t use social media to share conference links as malicious groups can search social media for these meeting ID/links.
• Use the “Waiting “Room” feature to have participants wait until the host arrives and vet participants prior to entering the meeting.
• Limit screen-sharing ability to the host. Using the host controls at the bottom.
• Turn off file transfer: In-meeting file transfer allows people to share files through the in-meeting chat. Toggle this off to keep the chat from getting bombarded with unsolicited pics, GIFs, memes and other content.
• Disable private chat: Zoom has in-meeting chat for everyone or participants can message each other privately. Restrict participants’ ability to chat amongst one another.  This is really to prevent anyone from getting unwanted messages during the meeting
• Allow only signed-in/Registered users to join: If someone tries to join your meeting and isn’t logged into a Zoom account, they will receive the message ‘This meeting is for authorised attendees only’.
• Zoom meeting host logging does have IP logging that can record attendees and that IP data can be used to report abuse.

Recommended settings

We would strongly recommend that teaching staff who are using Zoom set up their account in the following way via the Settings page of the Zoom profile page.

Meeting tab’s options

• Require a password when scheduling new meetings = On
• Require a password for instant meetings = On
• Mute participants upon entry = On
• Chat = On
• Screen sharing = On
  • Who can share? = Host only. If you need to permit others the ability to share their screen
• Whiteboard = On
• Remote Control = Off
• Nonverbal feedback = On
• Breakout room = On
• Virtual background = Off

Recording tab’s option

• Local recording = On
  • Hosts can give participants the permission to record locally = Off
• Automatic recording = On
• Recording disclaimer = On
  • Ask participants for consent when a recording starts = On
  • Ask host to confirm before starting a recording = On

There may be times that each of these settings may want to be overridden, however, we feel that these options are a good default base, which enable sessions to be as private as possible, recorded with consent, and enable effective communication.

Other advice

Please only share the meeting ID and password to those within Trinity Laban. Do not post on public pages, or social media. Share these via calendar invites or emails to students, or on the class Moodle page.

Optimising screen share for shared video playback

Zoom offer a “Optimize for full screen video” option when sharing your screen. This should be checked IF you want to watch a video together from someone’s device, however, is much more bandwidth intensive, so we don’t recommend using it when not sharing videos.

For more information see the Zoom page: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202954249-Optimizing-a-shared-video-clip-in-full-screen

Disclaimer to use for recording

We would strongly encourage you to record every group session designed for a whole class of students, as it may be very useful for students who are unable to attend the session. If you have set up Zoom and are using the desktop app as described above, this process is very easy, and will prompt each student who logs in to express their consent to the recording of the session.

We would encourage you to be as transparent as possible about the recording, and include the following text whenever you invite students to the meeting (be it via Moodle or email):

This Zoom class sessions will be recorded. The recording will capture the presenter’s audio, video and computer screen. Student audio and video will be recorded if they share their computer audio and video during the recorded session. Recordings will not be shared with or accessible to the public, but will be made available on Trinity Laban’s eStream platform.

 

Uploading the recording

Once you have completed the meeting, you should see a prompt that the recording needs converting. Please allow it time to complete. Once it is completed, the folder containing the file will open.

We would encourage you to optimise the file before uploading the recording – either the MP4 for video and audio, or the .m4a file for audio only to eStream. For advise on how to do this, please see the step by step guide available on the Uploading to eStream article.

Using breakout rooms

Breakout rooms can be a great way to easily enable smaller discussions within a larger meeting. Details of how to use these are can be found in the Using Breakout Rooms in Zoom article.

Getting additional help

Zoom’s help pages are comprehensive, however, if you need additional support, please contact avsupport@trinitylaban.ac.uk.