Best Practices for Creating, Managing, and Sharing Zoom class meetings For Instructors

Dear Chapman University Faculty,

I would like to share some best practices and recommendations to help you create, manage, and share your Zoom class meetings to help you prepare for the upcoming semester.

Before the Zoom meeting creation:

• Activate your Chapman University Zoom account (if it’s not activated).
• Update the Zoom application.
• Enable Zoom in Canvas.

During the Zoom meeting creation:

• Create your class Zoom meetings in Canvas.
• Create recurring Zoom meetings for your classes so that each occurrence uses the same Meeting ID and settings.
• Add a Waiting Room for your meetings. Adding a Waiting Room will help prevent “Zoom-bombings.”
• If you intend to share your screen, review your meeting’s Screen Share settings.
• For large classes, assign someone (co-instructor, TA, etc.) to act as your Co-Host.
  • Before the class, meet with your Ho-Host and plan for managing the meeting participants.
  • During the Zoom meeting, ask your Co-Host to monitor the Waiting Room and the chat window, also monitor the audio and video quality.
• If you want to record your class meetings, record them in the cloud to save disk space on your local hard drive and to be able to easily share the recordings later. You have a few options to share your Zoom recordings with your students:
  • Publish your class Zoom cloud recordings in Canvas.
  • Use YuJa to share your Zoom cloud recordings in Canvas.

Zoom meeting tips:

• Start your class Zoom meetings in Canvas.
• Utilize Breakout Rooms to allow for group work.
• Use the Annotation Tools to keep your students engaged.
• Prepare the content you want to share with your students ahead of time.
• Turn off other applications’ notifications and close applications that have pop-ups on your computer.
• Test your Zoom audio and video settings.
• Create a contingency plan for your online meetings.
• Minimize your data usage to avoid audio and video issues during the class.
  • Only share your screen when necessary.
  • Shutdown or limit other high-bandwidth applications on your devices at your location.

If you would like to learn more about Zoom’s features and get quick tips, please visit Zoom’s YouTube channel.

You can also visit the Chapman University Canvas blog for updates on features.

If you have questions about Zoom, Canvas, or related applications, please contact the Educational Technology Services team at edutech@chapman.edu; or visit our Virtual Tech Hub.