Recommended Zoom Settings

"Waiting room" is a useful feature for managing traffic flow during drop-in office hours and can help mitigate Zoom bombing as well.

Here, in your main Settings for "Security," we recommend enabling the "Waiting room" feature, and choose "Everyone" to place in the waiting room. This enables the "Waiting room" feature by default for all meetings (which works especially for managing traffic flow during office hours), but you can still choose to disable it when scheduling recurring or individual Zoom sessions as well. You may want to remind attendees to use their names when joining so you can easily identify who has joined your Zoom session.

We recommend you enable both (1) the "Only authenticated users can join meetings" setting and (2) the "Only authenticated users can join meetings from Web client" setting. There are two reasons for this: (1) it helps prevent Zoom bombing; and (2) if you use Zoom's "Reports" for "Usage," you can better track and identify who attended your meeting and for how long.

We recommend you disable "Join before host" to help reduce the likelihood of Zoom bombers joining your session.

To the extent you still want to give your students an opportunity to interact and engage with each other and with you before class, you can just plan to start/join your session 5-10 minutes early.

We recommend you enable this setting to help reduce the likelihood that your presentation is interrupted by participants who forgot to "mute" themselves. Participants can still unmute themselves as necessary during the Zoom session.

We recommend that you enable the "Chat" feature so that you have the option of using it as a method for interacting and engaging with your students during class (e.g., pose a question and solicit student responses via Chat).

You can always set ground rules for how students should be using the "Chat" feature to engage with you and with each other during class. This will help appropriately control the use of "Chat," but not eliminating the functionality altogether during class sessions.

Be sure to uncheck this setting if you, as the host, want to be able to save the "Chat" transcript from your meeting (e.g., so you can go back and review and follow up on student questions or comments).

We also recommend you enable "Auto saving chats" (two settings down) so you don't have to remember to separately save chat transcripts at the conclusion of each meeting. "Auto saving chats" applies only to the host, not to participants.

If you want to cut down on private chatter between students during class sessions, we recommend you disable "Private chat" so students cannot send private 1:1 messages to each other. (But participants can still send private 1:1 messages to the host/co-host.)

We recommend you enable this "Sound notification when someone joins or leaves," but allow "Host and co-hosts only" to hear it. This way, you'll know when a student drops off from the class session so you can react as appropriate, but the sound will not disrupt your class session.

To help protect against viruses being shared, we recommend you disable "File transfer" via Zoom's "Chat" feature. File sharing can still occur by using "Chat" to post links to files saved on the web (e.g., Google docs or Canvas)--just make sure the link includes "http://" or "https://" at the start so that the link will be clickable.

We recommend you enable this setting so that you can make another participant a co-host during the meeting. Making someone a co-host will enable that person to share their screen if you also enable "Screen sharing" (see four settings down).

This is another method for interacting and engaging with your students, so we recommend you "enable" this feature.

For more information on how to create and administer a poll, visit https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/213756303-Polling-for-meetings.

We recommend selecting "Host only" to prevent Zoom bombing. You can still temporary disable this during your Zoom sessions should a need arise for your participants to be able to share.

We recommend you enable "Annotation" so that you can select, draw, stamp, and spotlight items shown on your shared screen. We also recommend you check "By default, only the user who is sharing can annotate"; this way, participants cannot interrupt a host/co-host's presentation with annotations--unless during the meeting, a host/co-host actively chooses the setting to "allow participants to annotate."

For more details on how Annotations work, visit https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115005706806-Using-annotation-tools-on-a-shared-screen-or-whiteboard.

We also recommend you enable the "Whiteboard" feature for use during class sessions. As a default, only you will be able to draw on the whiteboard; if you want participants to be able to draw on the whiteboard with you, you will need to enable Annotation in the previous setting and then, during the meeting, "allow participants to annotate."

We recommend you enable this feature, which allows you to interact and engage with your students by allowing them to provide nonverbal feedback in response to a question you pose. Your students can communicate their reaction by clicking on icons such as thumbs up, thumbs down, and clapping.

We recommend you enable this setting because it is another feature that can be used to interact and engage with your students, including as part of an ice-breaker activity or to allow students to identify their preferred pronouns.

This is a great feature for creating small-group discussions during class, so we recommend you enable this setting.

For more information on how to use breakout rooms, visit https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476093-Enabling-breakout-rooms. Note that at the bottom of this page, there are additional links to helpful instructions on breakout rooms.

We recommend you enable this setting so that you and your students will be able to use virtual backgrounds (including as a way to protect their privacy).

For more information on Virtual Backgrounds, including prerequisites/system requirements for using them and how to set them up, visit https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/210707503-Virtual-Background.

You should enable both the "Local Recording" and the "Cloud Recording" options so you can then choose to record your Zoom sessions locally on your computer OR on Zoom's Cloud.

There are pros and cons to each type of recording--they're described here so you can make an informed decision depending on the circumstances.

Local Recording:

• Pros: The video processing occurs on your computer immediately after the meeting. And then you can upload the recording directly to YuJa without first having to download the recording from Zoom's Cloud to your computer.
• Cons: "Local Recordings" will always capture gallery view whenever you, as the recording host, switch to gallery view--so even if you choose to "pin" your video as the main video, as long as you switch to gallery view, the recording will capture your students' video feeds/profile pictures/names.

Cloud Recording:

• Pros: You can better protect attendee privacy by enabling the "Record active speaker with shared screen" setting below, in which case the recording will only capture the "active speaker's" video feed--even if you, as the recording host, switch to gallery view. This is true even when you are not actively sharing your screen. The recording will only capture a student's video feed if the student speaks with video enabled. If the student speaks but has disabled video, the recording will not capture the student's profile picture/name.
• Cons: There may be unexpected delays (3+ days) in the processing of your recording if Zoom is experiencing heavy usage during the semester. This may result in long delays before your students can view your recordings because Zoom's Cloud services need to finish processing your recording before you can upload your recordings to YuJa and Canvas for your students.

You should enable both the "Local Recording" and the "Cloud Recording" options so you can then choose to record your Zoom sessions locally on your computer OR on Zoom's Cloud.

There are pros and cons to each type of recording--they're described here so you can make an informed decision depending on the circumstances.

Local Recording:

• Pros: The video processing occurs on your computer immediately after the meeting. And then you can upload the recording directly to YuJa without first having to download the recording from Zoom's Cloud to your computer.
• Cons: "Local Recordings" will always capture gallery view whenever you, as the recording host, switch to gallery view--so even if you choose to "pin" your video as the main video, as long as you switch to gallery view, the recording will capture your students' video feeds/profile pictures/names.

Cloud Recording:

• Pros: You can better protect attendee privacy by enabling the "Record active speaker with shared screen" setting below, in which case the recording will only capture the "active speaker's" video feed--even if you, as the recording host, switch to gallery view. This is true even when you are not actively sharing your screen. The recording will only capture a student's video feed if the student speaks with video enabled. If the student speaks but has disabled video, the recording will not capture the student's profile picture/name.
• Cons: There may be unexpected delays (3+ days) in the processing of your recording if Zoom is experiencing heavy usage during the semester. This may result in long delays before your students can view your recordings because Zoom's Cloud services need to finish processing your recording before you can upload your recordings to YuJa and Canvas for your students.

You must select one of these four settings, or Zoom will not generate a cloud recording whatsoever. Per the previous comment, we recommend that you select "Record active speaker with shared screen" for Cloud recordings, as it better protects attendees' privacy because the recording will not capture a gallery view.

Check or enable this setting if you want the active speaker's video to be captured as part of the recording (in the form of a small "thumbnail" or rectangular box in the top right corner) while you are sharing your screen.

Uncheck or disable this setting if you do not want the active speaker's video to be captured as part of the recording while you are sharing your screen. This is a great way to ensure that no attendees' videos--including your own--will be captured in the recording. But this only works only if you continuously share your screen. If you stop sharing your screen, the recording will still capture the video of any active speaker.

We recommend enabling "Audio transcript" so that your Cloud recording will be accompanied by a transcript that can also be separately downloaded as a .rtf text document. This provides your students with an alternative way to review what was said during the class session.

We recommend you disable "Automatic recording." If you enable this setting, every Zoom recording will begin as soon as you join the meeting--which means it'll capture the "dead time" before your presentation formally begins, and then you'll need to edit/cut out the beginning part of the recording before posting it to your Canvas course page or otherwise sharing the recording as a link through YuJa.

The better practice is to (1) remind your participants that you're about to record the session and that they may turn off their video feeds if they so wish to avoid being recorded, and then (2) manually click "Record" when you are ready to record and begin your presentation.