Managing Zoom Meetings

Columbia College Chicago has made Zoom Pro accounts available to all faculty, staff, and students.
Zoom is a video communications tool that allows you to host video conference calls with your students, fellow staff members, and classmates. Features such as screen sharing, white boards, polling, chat, and captioning make Zoom a robust choice for remote communication, collaboration, and online lecture delivery. It is important to maintain best practices when setting up your meeting to allow for a seamless video conferencing experience and to prevent unwanted guests from accessing your meeting, also known as Zoom bombing.  Academic Technology has created the following video on Zoom bombing prevention.

Report a Zoom bombing incident here

If you experience an incident of Zoom bombing, fill out this form in Team Dynamix to notify the college and receive assistance from Academic Technology.

It is strongly recommended to not share meeting links and invitations publicly or post them to any public site. This is to prevent uninvited users from accessing your Zoom meeting.

Automatic Live Transcription

A live transcription feature is now available for use on Columbia College’s Zoom account. This feature will allow a meeting host to generate automatic live captions during a Zoom meeting or webinar for participants to view. This feature may also be used to generate and save a copy of a live transcript created from your Zoom meeting.

A “Live Transcript” button will appear in your meeting controls when you host a meeting or attend one that is using this feature.

For instructions on how to use the live transcription feature, please refer to these instructions created by Academic Technology.

It is also recommended to make sure that your Zoom application is up to date to best support new features.

Accessing Cloud Recordings

As a reminder, for students to view cloud recordings of Zoom meetings, they must first be signed into a Columbia Issued Zoom account. Students may sign into their Columbia issued Zoom accounts at https://colum.zoom.us with their MyColumbiaID@colum.edu username and Office 365 password. These are the same credentials used to access their student email accounts through Office 365.

For instructions on how to get to a cloud recording from a Canvas course, students may refer to the following help guide:

https://about.colum.edu/information-technology/remote-instruction-support/zoom-guide---access-cloud-recordings.pdf.

For login support, they may also visit our student support site.

If you have any questions, please contact Academic Technology at canvaslms@colum.edu.

New Zoom Application for Chrome Books

Zoom has released a new application specifically for Chrome Book users. This new release will allow for Chrome Book users to take advantage of key features of Zoom, including live transcription, breakout rooms, a customizable gallery view, and improvements to screen sharing. The new Zoom application for Chrome Book users may be found in the Google Play store.

To learn more about the new Zoom application release for Chrome Book users, visit Zoom’s blog.

Zoom 5.10.3 Update

Zoom has recently announced several feature improvements for the month of April with an update to version 5.10.3.

Central library of polls: Users can now have a central library of polls for meetings. You can create or edit polls and use them for any of your meetings. Previously, polls were managed separately for each meeting. When a poll is marked as available to all meetings, it will appear in the list of polls that can be launched in a meeting.
View Breakout Rooms activities from main session: Hosts can get an idea of how active their breakout rooms are by viewing the list of open breakout rooms. Each participant in those breakout rooms will show their current video and audio status, if they are sharing their screen, and any active reactions or nonverbal feedback.
Enhancement to Waiting Room participants order: Hosts can now choose to display the participants currently in the Waiting Room in either chronological or alphabetical order.

Zoom 5.10 Update

Zoom has recently announced several feature improvements for the month of March, 2022, with an update to version 5.10.

Meeting hosts will now have the ability to share audio content to breakout rooms.
When assigning participants to breakout rooms, hosts will have the option to determine whether or not any co-hosts are included in a breakout room assignment.
After assigning breakout rooms, hosts will have the option to save their breakout room assignments for future use.
- NOTE: This requires a re-occurring meeting series, and for all attendees to consistently join meetings with their Columbia issued Zoom accounts.

Zoom 5.8 Update

Zoom has recently announced several feature improvements for the month of November 2021 with an update to version 5.8.

Users can now choose to stop incoming video. This will hide the video of other participants only within your own view, while also keeping your video visible to others in the meeting. This feature can assist with bandwidth issues, or video fatigue, and can be found in your view options, where you choose between speaker and gallery view.

Additional question types will also be added to the polling feature. This includes matching questions, ranked responses, and the ability to designate a correct response for poll questions. Alternative hosts will also now be able to edit poll questions.
Meeting hosts can also use a new feature called focus mode to force participants to only see the videos of the host, co-hosts, and their own as a participant.

To take advantage of these new features within Zoom, you must update to the latest version of Zoom.

Zoom 5.7.3 Update

With the Zoom release of version 5.7.3, meeting hosts are now able to add a survey that will appear to participants when the meeting ends. The survey can be built within Zoom, and a meeting host can retrieve the results from their meeting reports. Hosts can also choose to add a survey from a 3^rd party provider, such as Qualtrics or Microsoft Forms.

Please note that the host and participants must be updated to this version of the Zoom application in order for this feature to be available.

To learn more about using the new survey feature in Zoom, visit this instructional guide from Zoom.

Zoom 5.7 Update

With the release of Zoom 5.7, several new features are now available. Zoom has added a new feature that allows you to enter your pronouns on your profile. Once your pronouns are added, you may choose to share them in meetings that you host and attend. Zoom has also added the ability for meeting hosts to share their screen to each active breakout room at the same time. Participants also may now place requests to meeting hosts to enable automatic live transcription if it has not been turned on within a meeting.

Academic Technology has created instructional guides for how to use each new Zoom feature.

To take advantage of these new features within Zoom, you must update to the latest version of Zoom. To update your Zoom app, please see these instructions on how to do so.

Zoom 5.4.6 Update

Zoom has recently released Zoom 5.4.6. This Zoom update includes significant improvements to the Breakout Rooms feature. Previously, Breakout Rooms in Zoom could only be controlled by the meeting host. With this release, co-hosts will also have the same controls for Breakout Rooms as the meeting host. Co-hosts can set-up, assign, and control Breakout Rooms, as well as move between each room along with the meeting host. For instructions on how to use Breakout Rooms, please see this instructional guide from Academic Technology. You may also review this Zoom guide on how to assign a co-host in your meeting.

To take advantage of these new features within Zoom, you must update to the latest version of Zoom. To update your Zoom app, please see these instructions on how to do so.

Zoom 5.2 Update

Zoom has recently released Zoom 5.2. This Zoom update features several new features of interest. When using the gallery view, you may now re-order the video tiles of other participants on the call to adjust your own meeting view.

Meeting hosts are also able to allow specific participants on a call to pin multiple videos at once in a meeting. Pinning videos in Zoom allows one to see the video tiles of specific participants.

For instructions on how to use the multiple pin feature, please see this instructional guide.

Similarly, a meeting host can now spotlight the video of multiple attendees as once. A host can spotlight the video of a participant(s) to make them the active speaker of the meeting.

To take advantage of these new features within Zoom, you must update to the latest version of Zoom. To update your Zoom app, please see these instructions on how to do so.

Zoom 5.0 Update

Zoom recently announced the release of Zoom 5.0. This release includes upgraded encryption which adds increased protection for meeting data and enhanced meeting security. A new security control will also become available to meeting hosts, where they can easily lock a meeting, enable the waiting room, or control the ability for participants to chat and screen share. Hosts may also report a disruptive or unwanted participant to Zoom through the added security option in your meeting menu.

After May 30, 2020, all Zoom clients on older versions will receive a forced upgrade when trying to join meetings. It is strongly recommended to download the latest version of Zoom prior to May 30th to take advantage of these new security features and prepare for Zoom’s upgrade.

More information about Zoom’s 5.0 update can be found on Zoom’s website. Instructional guides and help resources for Zoom can also be found on this page. If you have any questions, please reach out to Academic Technology at canvaslms@colum.edu.

Zoom Security Updates

Zoom continues to strive to improve their service by providing updates to enhance the security and functionality of the Zoom application. The Information Technology Team at Columbia College Chicago is working closely with Zoom to monitor any new security and feature updates. As Zoom follows a 90-day privacy and security initiative, it is important to make sure that your Zoom client is up to date to take advantage of new features and updates. Zoom will provide you pop-up notifications within the Zoom client when updates are available. You may also check for updates within the Zoom client to by clicking on your profile image, followed by “check for updates.” Visit the Zoom download center to download the Zoom client if you have not already.

Please see below for a list of recent updates to Zoom:

As of July 19th, 2020 Zoom will require that all meetings are either protected with a password or use the waiting room. The waiting room will be turned on automatically for meetings that do not have either a password or the waiting room enabled. Zoom is implementing these meeting security options to better secure meetings and to allow meetings hosts to maintain control over their Zoom sessions. The waiting room is a feature available in Zoom that requires the host to admit meeting participants before they are able to join a Zoom meeting. It is recommended to watch Academic Technology's video on Zoom Bombing prevention, which demonstrates how to use the waiting room and set up meetings with a password. You may also review documentation in the Help Guides & Resources section of this site to learn how to use the waiting room and set meeting passwords when scheduling Zoom meetings.
On June 3rd, 2020 Zoom released 5.0.5. This update includes minor bug fixes. Improvements have also been made to chat, and allows for more transparency with privacy controls in chat channels. Giphy has also been re-enabled for Zoom chat with this release. More information on these improvements can be found on Zoom's website.
On April 22nd, 2020 Zoom announced the release of Zoom 5.0. This release includes ugraded encryption which adds increased protection for meeting data. A new security control will also become available to meeting hosts, where they may report a participant to Zoom through the added security option in your meeting menu. Zoom has also made it more clear if you are ending or leaving the meeting as a host. Full details about the release of Zoom 5.0 can be found on Zoom's blog. Download the latest version of Zoom to take advantage of new features and upgrades. After May 30th, all older versions of Zoom will be automatically updated to Zoom 5.0 when joining meetings.
On April 15^th, 2020 Zoom implemented password requirements for meetings hosts when sharing cloud recordings for their Zoom meetings. This option is now on by default, which will require a password to access cloud meeting recordings. Existing shared recordings will not be impacted by this new feature.
On April 15^th, 2020 Zoom has allowed for unique meeting ID numbers to be up to 11 digits long. Your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) still remain the same and will not change. Previously scheduled meetings will not be affected.
On April 1^st, 2020 Zoom made a blog post to explain how Zoom meetings are encrypted.
On April 1^st, 2020 removed the attendee attention tracker feature from Zoom meetings.
On April 1^st, 2020 Zoom Released a fix for an issue with a security vulnerability involving UNC links on Windows devices.
On April 1^st, 2020 Zoom corrected an issue with client installs on Mac devices to comply with Apple’s security settings.
On April 1st, 2020 Zoom added a new toolbar icon for security for meetings hosts. As a meeting host you are able to adjust security settings right within a meeting. Click “security” to lock a meeting or enable the waiting room. You may also decide if participants are able to share their screen, chat, or rename themselves within this area as well. If you do not see this option in your meeting, visit the Zoom download center to update your Zoom client.

On March 29th, 2020 Zoom made updates to their privacy policy to be more clear about what data Zoom collects and how it is used. Zoom specifically states that they have never sold the data of their users and have no intention of doing so in the future.
On March 27th, 2020 Zoom removed the Facebook SDK from their iOS client. The application was reconfigured to prevent the collection of unnecessary device information from Zoom users.

Additional resources for Zoom’s security can be found on the security portion of Zoom’s website as well as Zoom’s blog.

Zoom and FERPA Compliance

Zoom is committed to protecting the security and privacy of their customer’s data. To help with FERPA compliance, Zoom offers advanced encryption to protect system data. Zoom also offers effective in-meeting security settings. To learn more about Zoom and FERPA compliance, you may view Zoom’s statement on FERPA.
Academic Technology has also implemented additional Zoom features to provide added protection to meetings and meeting recordings. Academic Technology also actively provides documentation and training for new meeting security features, and security updates from Zoom.

Hosting Accessible Meetings on Zoom

Live Captioning: Zoom has an automatic live captioning feature available so that participants can view closed captions in real time. When enabled by a meeting host, participants can opt into viewing the automatic captions. A host can also assign a participant to manually enter closed captions for the meeting live in real time.

Multi-Pin and Spotlight Features: Hosts can allow participants to pin multiple attendees within a meeting at once. This allows for a participant to view a speaker and interpreter simultaneously. Meetings hosts can also spotlight a speaker and interpreter to adjust the view of all attendees.

Muting Participants Upon Entry and Muting Yourself: Background noise can impair the accuracy of automatic closed captioning and the use of screen readers. As a host, mute participants upon entry to your meetings. As a participant, mute yourself when you are not speaking.

Mute participants upon entry when scheduling meetings

Identify Yourself: When you attend meetings with anyone that is hearing or visually impaired, identify yourself before speaking. This allows those who rely on captions, interpreters, or only audio to be aware of who is speaking at a given point in time. Meeting hosts should encourage this of their participants.

Virtual Backgrounds: Avoid using a virtual background that contains motion or flashing images. These backgrounds can adversely impact those with epilepsy, migraines, or motion sickness. It is best to use a static image or the blurred background feature when using a virtual background.

Using a virtual background

To take advantage of accessibility features in Zoom, make sure that your Zoom application is up to date. To ensure that you have the most up to date version of the Zoom application, review this instructional guide from Academic Technology.

Tips for Using Zoom With Bandwidth Issues or a Poor Connection

If you are participating in a Zoom meeting and are having issues with network connectivity, the following steps will assist in allowing you to still participate in the session.

Turn your video off. This will help free up bandwidth on your connection, and will still allow you to engage in conversation with those on the call until your connection improves.
Close any unneeded browsing windows and applications that are open on your device.
Avoid screen sharing multi-media content, such as videos. As an alternative, deliver these resources to participants so that they may view prior to your meeting outside of Zoom.
If needed, you may dial into your meeting from a telephone if a poor connection is affecting your audio. From your telephone call, you can listen to and engage with other participants. Each meeting invitation includes a call-in number that you may dial to join a Zoom call by telephone. Once you dial this number, you will be prompted to enter the meeting's ID, which is also found in the meeting invite.

Tips for Using Zoom for Students

Before your Zoom meeting:

Have your video on unless you are experiencing connection issues.
Find a quiet space without interruptions and background noise.
Have a plain background. Avoid backlight from bright windows.
Have good lighting on your face so you can be seen clearly.
Adjust your camera to be at around eye level if possible – especially take note of the angle of your laptop screen if using the built-in camera.
Dress as if you are attending to your class. Avoid bright colors that may be distracting.
Contact your faculty if you are unable to attend the meeting before the class time.

Source: Zoom

During meeting:

Mute your microphone when not talking.
Try to avoid talking over or at the same time as other participants.
Raise your hand to get attention.
Be aware that you are on camera and try to avoid doing other tasks, checking emails, looking at your phone etc.
Respect each other’s comments. If you disagree, please use critical thinking, and engage in supportive discussions.
Feel free to wave your hands to get attention if your faculty didn’t see you.

Source: Peter Cook, Chair of the American Sign Language department.

After meeting:

Review any concepts that you did not understand and contact your faculty or tutor for clarification if needed.
Reach your classmates for peer interactions through separate Zoom meetings.
If a class was recorded, check the Zoom meeting record of the presentation for reviewing and watching.
- For instructions on how to get to a cloud recording from a Canvas course, students may refer to the following help guide:
- https://about.colum.edu/information-technology/remote-instruction-support/zoom-guide---access-cloud-recordings.pdf.

Source: Peter Cook, Chair of the American Sign Language department.

The following options are available within Zoom to assist you in managing your meeting attendees and settings appropriately.

Zoom Meeting Settings
Setting Up Meetings Through Canvas 
Personal Meeting ID
 Requiring Password
 Enable Waiting Room 
Mute Participants Upon Entry 
Turn Video Off Upon Entry
 Turn Off File Transfers
 Prevent Removed Attendees from Rejoining

Managing Users in a Zoom Meeting
Remove an Attendee From the Meeting
 Mute a Participant 
Mute All Participants
Stop Video for a Participant 
Control Screen Sharing 
Manage Whiteboard Access
 Lock a Meeting
Meeting Security Option

Zoom Help Guides and Resources

Zoom Meeting Settings

Setting Up Meetings Through Canvas 

If you are an instructor creating a Zoom meeting for a class session, it is recommended to schedule the meeting through your Canvas class. Zoom is fully integrated and available within every Canvas course. When meetings are scheduled for a class from within Canvas, it keeps the meetings accessible from within Canvas and does not require an instructor to send out meeting links through email. This keeps the meetings accessible from within Canvas, and limits the opportunity for meeting links to be shared with outside users.

To schedule a Zoom meeting within a Canvas course, instructors may view this instructional guide from Academic Technology.

Personal Meeting ID 

Every Zoom user has a personal meeting ID that can be used to schedule and join meetings. When setting up a meeting in Zoom, it is recommended to never schedule meetings using your personal meeting ID. Creating meetings with different ID numbers will prevent unwanted attendees from joining your Zoom meetings.

When you set up your meetings, choose the option for Zoom to generate a meeting ID automatically.

Requiring Password

When scheduling a Zoom meeting, you will have an option to password protect your Zoom meeting. This will require participants to enter a password to join your meeting.

 Enable Waiting Room 

If you enable the waiting room feature when scheduling a meeting, participants will not be able to join your meeting until you admit them to the meeting as the meeting host. This option is available in the meeting option section when scheduling a Zoom meeting.

Mute Participants Upon Entry 

You may mute participants upon their entry to your Zoom meeting. This option is available in the meeting option section when scheduling a Zoom meeting. Participants will be able to enable their microphone after joining the call. You can mute specific participants, or all participants throughout your meeting.

Turn Video Off Upon Entry

You may keep participant's webcam videos turned off upon entry to your Zoom meeting. Participants will be able to turn on their webcam after joining the call. You can stop video for specific participants throughout your meeting.

 Turn Off File Transfers

Prevent attendees from transferring files during the meeting by signing in to https://colum.zoom.us. Go to the settings section and make sure that the file transfers option is turned off.

 Prevent Removed Attendees from Rejoining

As a meeting host, you may remove participants from a meeting. To ensure that removed participants cannot rejoin a meeting, signing in to Zoom https://colum.zoom.us and go to the settings section. Make sure that removed participants are not allowed to rejoin.

Managing Users in a Zoom Meeting

Remove an Attendee From the Meeting

To remove attendees from a Zoom meeting, click on "Manage Participants."

Click "More" next to the participant that you would like to remove, followed by "Remove."

Mute a Participant 

To mute a meeting a participant, click on "Manage Participants."

Click "Mute" next to the participant that you would like to mute.

Mute All Participants

To mute all meeting a participants, click on "Manage Participants."

Select "Mute all."

Stop Video for a Participant 

To stop video for a meeting participant, click on "Manage Participants."

Select "More."

Click on “More” next to the participant you would like to stop video for and select "Stop Video."

Control Screen Sharing 

You can control who can share their screen in a meeting. Click on the arrow next to the “Share Screen” option.

Choose who can share their screen or if multiple participants can share their screen at the same time.

Manage Whiteboard Access

To prevent attendees from annotating a shared whiteboard during a meeting, click on "More" when sharing a whiteboard, followed by "disable attendee annotation."

Lock a Meeting

You can lock your Zoom meeting to prevent any new participants from joining your meeting.

To lock a meeting, click on "Manage Participants."

Select "More."

Choose the "Lock Meeting" option.

Meeting Security Option

In newer versions of Zoom after 4.6.10, as a meeting host you are able to adjust security settings right within a meeting. Click “security” to lock a meeting or enable the waiting room. You may also decide if participants are able to share their screen, chat, or rename themselves within this area as well. If you do not see this option in your meeting, visit the Zoom download center to update your Zoom client.

Zoom Help Guides and Resources

Recording of Online Course Sessions

Recording of all Columbia College Chicago courses is governed by Illinois law. The State of Illinois requires the consent of both parties for the recording of any conversation. Therefore, instructors should announce their intention to record any class discussions for the benefit of students participating remotely and give students the opportunity to contact them with questions or concerns. The instructor's announcement may be for an individual class session or included as a policy in the syllabus. Similarly, students should only record class sessions with the consent of the instructor.

For more information about how student privacy relates to video conferencing and recorded class sessions, refer to this resource from the University of Michigan.

Zoom for Personal Use

Like all assets that the college provides to faculty, the Zoom account is intended to support faculty in their contractual responsibilities regarding their own job descriptions as they relate to creative and scholarly work, teaching, and service.