Zoom Checklist for Faculty: Creating and Starting Up Your Meeting

The recommendations below apply to using Zoom in a physical classroom space or from a virtual, fully online course. 
Last updated 4/6/2023

Creating Your Zoom Meeting 

1. Decide if you want to use the St. Thomas Zoom web portal (stthomas.zoom.us) or Zoom Pro (integrated within Canvas).  
   1. For Group Class Sessions: Use Zoom Pro in Canvas to schedule meetings that are for all participants in the course to attend.
   2. For Individual or Small Group Meetings Outside of Class Sessions: The web portal, http://stthomas.zoom.us, is where you should schedule individual meetings with students or other meetings outside of Canvas. 

2. Choose your security settings for that Zoom meeting. 

   For additional security and for accurate attendance taking (if using A+ Attendance) select only authenticated users can join. If you have a guest speaker, do not check this box. In this case, students who log in with their UST credentials will be automatically passed through to the meeting while the guest speaker and other unauthenticated users can be admitted from the waiting room.  
    
3. More helpful resources:
   Classroom Technology Tips
   Classroom Technology Training Videos
   Zoom: Security Features and Best Practices

Avoiding Mishaps When Recording Your Zoom Meeting 

• Note: When using Zoom Pro (in Canvas), links to meetings recorded to the cloud are automatically emailed to participants as soon as the faculty member goes to Canvas > Zoom Pro and selects to release the recording. In contrast, when meetings are scheduled through the St. Thomas Zoom portal (stthomas.zoom.us), links to recordings are not distributed unless the instructor copies the link and manually shares it.  Instructors can either copy the recording link from the Recordings tab in the web portal and share with students through an announcement or email, or, they can download and save the MP4 video file to Panopto for further editing and sharing. 
   
• When scheduling meetings through Zoom Pro and recording to the cloud, use the automatically record meeting setting carefully and we don't recommend combining this with the setting Enable join before host.   
  • If those two settings are combined, a recording will be created every time someone joins to test the link. Any pre-class conversations occurring after the Zoom meeting has been started will also be recorded. These may be edited out by you prior to releasing each recording -- but only if the content to be removed occurs at the beginning or end of the recording -- Zoom only allows trimming the head and tail of a recording, not editing within one. If you do not stop the recording at the end of class, any potentially private conversations with students will also be included in the recording, potentially resulting in a FERPA violation.  
  • You can further control access to Zoom recordings, by recording locally and then uploading the MP4 file to Panopto and streaming. Use the Panopto and Canvas settings to control access. Panopto, unlike Zoom, does allow editing anywhere within a recording, so this may be a solution if there is content to be removed that is not at the beginning or end of the recording. 

Starting and Facilitating Your Zoom Session 

1. Start your meeting in the "host" role
   1. when logged into your Canvas site, select Zoom Pro and click Start. Or, if someone has joined the meeting before you, click Join. 
   2. If you start the meeting in a Participant role (by selecting the link in the calendar) you will not be able to record and will not have access to all Zoom controls.  

2. If the Zoom meeting is being recorded, communicate this to your students and tell them how the recording will be shared. 

3. Choose your recording options based on the information above. 

4. If using the Waiting Room feature, monitor access yourself or assign someone to let participants into the meeting. If you are not using the Waiting Room, consider asking someone to help watch and greet people who may enter late.  

5. Create a plan for monitoring your Zoom Chat. For example, if you have a classroom monitor or assistant, volunteer to help, or pause periodically to look at the chat.