Updated 2/2/21
With so many classes moving online, there are a lot of Zoom meetings to handle! There is not one “right” way to handle an online meeting schedule but we’ll give you some of our suggestions for setting up your Zoom semester meetings.
- Zoom scheduling from Brightspace
- Always available Zoom link
- Make sure you control the meeting
- Other Zoom security settings
Zoom scheduling from Brightspace
We’ve been working with Zoom + Brightspace for quite a while here at Meredith but we have a shiny new update! You now have a simple to use Zoom area to directly schedule your class Zoom meetings in Brightspace.
How does this help my students?
Associates a meeting with a specific course. The way this integration works is by associating a specific meeting with a specific course. There was really no way to do this before.
Puts your course links in an easy place for students to find. You can put all your meeting links for the semester in one place! This should make it much easier for the students to find all the Zoom links they need instead of search around the whole course.
Less confusing for you with links separated. It will also be less confusing as instructors to see what you have scheduled so far for your class. A long running list of everything on the Zoom portal page does not make it easy to see things at-a-glance.
How to schedule or import a Zoom meeting in Brightspace
Luckily this is a pretty simple interface. The form to schedule a meeting has the exact same options as when you schedule a meeting from the Zoom web portal. But this video will walk through the features.
*This video says the Zoom integration is called “Zoom Classroom”. We have just shortened that to Zoom on your course navigation.
You will still see ALL your Zoom meetings in your main Zoom account portal (meredith.zoom.us). Scheduling through Brightspace just groups them in an easy to read way. If you head to your Meredith Zoom portal, you will see all meeting you have scheduled.
What students see
When clicking on Zoom in the course navigation, students will see the list of any meetings you have scheduled for this course. Next to each meeting are button options to Join the meeting or to view the Invitation.
Access to video recordings
Through the Zoom scheduler in Brightspace, students can also see the video recordings. On the Zoom page from the main Brightspace navigation, you will see a tab named Cloud Recordings. All Zoom recording from meetings that were associated with this course will show up in this tab.
These are only available for 30 days from the recording date. using this option.
Always available zoom link
You can set up individual meetings, set time recurring meetings, or always available recurring meetings right in your Brightspace Zoom.
Setting up a recurring meeting that is always available requires less Zoom links to keep track of for students. You can also set up a separate recurring meeting like this for office hours or use the same link.
When you schedule your meeting, add your topic and description. Then check the Recurring Meeting box.
We suggest setting the recurring meeting to “No Fixed Time“. This essentially gives you an always open meeting.
Maybe you have a regular meeting Tues/Thurs at 10am but you need to add a session on Friday for a special assignment. No problem! Your recurring meeting has no fixed time so students can use the same link to access our extra meeting.
Under the Recurrence dropdown menu, choose No Fixed Time. After you have chosen the no fixed time option, all your times will disappear as shown in the screenshot below.
*NOTE: An always available meeting is so convenient! But make sure you read and apply the setting in the next section so you are the one controlling the meeting.
Make sure you control the meeting
Now we’ve set up a Zoom meeting to be always available to use. But now we want to make sure that YOU are the one controlling that use.
After setting up meeting recurrence, you can continue scheduling Security, Video, and Audio options. Then we get down to the Meeting Options.
Make sure that you have unchecked the Allow participants to join anytime checkbox. Allowing participants to join anytime means that students can hop into the meeting anytime. By unchecking this box, the Zoom meeting can only be started by you or an alternate host.
You are now ready to schedule your always available meeting!
Other security settings
To make your meetings super secure, we also suggest these other security settings. You can turn them on in “Settings” so they apply to all meetings or specify them per meeting under the Security section when scheduling.
Some of the most important security setting are locked by the administrator so they are applied automatically. You can decide which other settings are best for your class.
Passcode
If you have enabled a passcode, participants will be asked for it when joining a meeting if they do not have the direct Zoom link. By default, we have Zoom set to embed a passcode in the one-click Zoom link for a meeting. This is locked by the administrator.
A passcode will be automatically generated when scheduling a meeting or you can change it.
Waiting room
With a waiting room enabled, you will be notified when someone requests to join the meeting. They will not be able to join with video or audio until they are admitted by you the host. Participants can be admitted one by one or all at once using the Admit All option.
You can learn more about using waiting rooms from this Zoom article.
User authentication
Another option is requiring user authentication. This means students will only be allowed to join the meeting if they are signed into their Meredith Zoom account. This not only increases security but also helps if you are pre-assigning breakout rooms.
A drawback to this is obviously that guest or others who do not have a Meredith account would not be allowed to join.
Get started!
Now you should be all setup for Zoom meetings for the semester!
If you have any questions about Zoom, please contact the IDAT team and we can help you with any other setup.
And you can always check out our other Zoom posts for updated features and tips.