Learning and Teaching Hub @Bath

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Scheduling meetings in Zoom

 What do we mean?

  • Online whiteboard: an online digital canvas allowing collaboration and saving of the completed canvas.
  • Synchronous meeting: a meeting where participants can communicate live, in real time.
  • Polling: requiring participants to indicate a response to a question. Replies are received instantly.
  • Breakout rooms: participants move from the online meeting space to smaller meeting rooms, often for discussion or to collaborate.

Scheduling meetings in Zoom

For teaching purposes, most meetings in Zoom should be scheduled using the Moodle/Zoom activity integration. In some circumstances, you may also need to schedule standalone sessions.  Guidance on how to do both is detailed below.  Remember, that the maximum number of participants in a Zoom session at any one time (students and staff) is 300. The maximum number of breakout rooms in any one session is 50.

Please note, if you are using the Moodle Scheduling tool to schedule your meetings (recommended option), then please FIRST log into Zoom desktop or web client via SSO to create your account. You only need to do this once.

 

In Moodle

The option to schedule a meeting for your Unit cohort, or a sub-group of the cohort, is possible from within Moodle, using the Zoom meeting activity.  This ensures that students will have a single and consistent place to go to find their meeting links, and also saves the need to share meeting links with them individually. If you need to change the meeting settings after scheduling, we would recommend doing this on Zoom's website. The settings will "flow" back down to Moodle (however, please see our FAQ on recurring meetings).  Further, meetings added via Moodle will automatically be added to the External tools activity block.

The procedure for setting up a Zoom meeting through Moodle has changed for the 2021-22 academic year.

 

Watch the following video for guidance on scheduling a Zoom meeting through Moodle.

To schedule a meeting please follow the steps below:

Please note, scheduling a new meeting should be carried out by the person who will be the Host of the meeting (usually the unit convenor). If they are created by an administrator etc, then the Host of the meeting (the teacher) WILL NOT be able to start the meeting unless they are made an Alternative Host.

  1. In your Moodle course, Turn editing on using the green button at the top of the page.
  2. In the appropriate section of your Moodle course, click on the link to Add an activity or resource.
  3. Select the Zoom meeting option at the bottom of the list.
  4. Give your Zoom meeting an Activity name, then Save.
  5. Click the link that now appears in the Moodle course.
  6. Use the Zoom interface to Schedule a New meeting. 
  7. Add a topic (meeting name), and optionally a description.
  8. Choose the time and date for the session.  You should also specify the duration of the meeting (students will not be able to join after the duration has elapsed, but the meeting will not close if the session runs beyond this time, as long as the host is still present). Alternatively, you can create a recurring meeting to reuse the meeting link for subsequent meetings. A recurring meeting is recommended over creating multiple links with the same host and participants.
  9. Leave the remaining settings as they are set, unless you are using some of the additional functionality outlined below. We recommend these settings:
    1. Enable waiting room - Enabled. This ensures that participants who are NOT using their Bath Zoom accounts will join a waiting room. Participants using their Bath Zoom accounts will not enter a waiting room.
    2. Enable join before host - Disabled. This ensures that only the host or alternative host can start the meeting.
  10. If you have alternative hosts you can add them at this stage. An Alternative Host will be able to start a meeting if the host is not able to.

This image summarises the default settings when scheduling a Zoom meeting through Moodle.

Zoom meeting scheduler dialogue with annocations recommended meeting settings. Topic Annotation: Descriptive name (same as recording name) Description Annotation: Outline meeting expectations and any additional information When Annotation: Set date/time for one-off meetings Recurring meeting Annotation (not checked): Creates a single meeting instance. Meeting can be run at any time Waiting room (checked) annotation: Students who don’t sign in via SSO will enter the waiting room and see a message with instructions on how to sign-in. The host should not admin students from the waiting room Video host/participant settings (OFF) annotation: Can be left as default Enable join before host (not selected)/mute participants on entry (checked) annotation: Can be left as default Record the meeting automatically in the cloud (checked) annotation: Check for automatic recording. You must let students know the meeting will be recorded from the start Alternative hosts annotation: Add alternative hosts by their UoB email address Save button: Save to setup your meeting

Additional functionality

Importing Zoom meetings

A meeting created by you in the Zoom app or Zoom browser can be imported to your Moodle unit.

Watch the following video for guidance on importing a Zoom meeting into Moodle.

Restrictions to importing a meeting:

  • You cannot import a meeting ID created by another host.
  • You cannot import the same meeting ID to more than 1 Moodle unit.

Using Waiting Rooms

Waiting rooms are enabled by default and we advise keeping this functionality turned on.

  • Once the meeting has been started, participants who join using their University of Bath Zoom accounts will bypass the waiting room.
  • Participants who join using a non-University of Bath Zoom account will enter a waiting room and see the following message – ‘Please wait, the meeting host will let you in soon. University of Bath students should be logging in to sessions using their Bath IT credentials (via SSO).

The host will receive a pop-up notification telling them that somebody is in the waiting room. The host can choose to admit the user(s) to the meeting. However, there is no way to know whether this participant is using their real name, is part of the unit of study or even if they are a student studying at Bath. Participants should only be admitted from the waiting room if the host is fully confident that they should be in the meeting – normally this is only external guests from outside of the University who have been explicitly invited.

Please impress upon your students that they should all be joining meetings using their University of Bath Zoom account. If they join a waiting room because they accidentally used their personal Zoom account, then they should sign out of Zoom and join again using the correct account.

Using Breakout rooms

Once a meeting has started, the meeting host can create breakout rooms.  Full guidance on how to do this is available on our Zoom FAQs page.

If you wish to pre-assign participants to breakout rooms, please follow the steps below:

  • Create the meeting link in Moodle, as described above
  • You will then need to log in to Zoom in a web browser (not the Desktop Client) and click on the link to Meetings where you should see your list of upcoming meetings
  • Edit the relevant meeting and ensure that you check the following boxes:
    • check the box ‘Only authenticated users can join: Sign in to Zoom’.  This will force students to login via SSO and, if your participants are external, will require them to create a free (Basic) Zoom account.  Pre-assigning will not be possible otherwise.
    • check the ‘Breakout Room pre-assign’ box
  • Follow the instructions to pre-assign participants to the breakout rooms. You can either upload a CSV file containing University of Bath email addresses (abc@bath.ac.uk) or search by participant name (Jim Smith) as long as the participant is a registered Bath staff member or student.
  • PLEASE NOTE: you can create up to 50 breakout rooms and pre-assign up to 200 participants.

Adding Alternative Hosts

The Host of a Zoom meeting can specify an Alternative Host when setting up a meeting in Moodle.  The Alternative Host needs to also be set up within Bath’s Zoom account and have logged into Zoom with their Bath SSO.  Further information on what Alternative hosts can and cannot do is available on the Zoom Support Hub.

It is also possible during a Zoom meeting, to give a participant co-host permissions, so that they can assist with running a session.  A co-host does not have the same permissions as an alternative host.  Please visit the Zoom Support Hub for further information.

Schedule a meeting on someone else's behalf

It is possible to have another member of staff, such as a Programme Administrator, schedule a meeting on your behalf. By scheduling the meeting for you the meeting will still have you as the host and you will retain host abilities, versus another member of staff scheduling a meeting for themselves and sharing the meeting link with you, as this will not give you hosting abilities.

The video below will go into more detail about different host roles and how to arrange Scheduler Privilege.

Recurring Meetings

If you check the option for a recurring meeting during set-up, the meeting becomes open-ended.

Creating Polls in Zoom meetings

  • Only a meeting Host can pre-schedule polls in advance.
  • Create the meeting link in Moodle, as described above
  • You will then need to log in to Zoom in a web browser (not the Desktop Client) and click on the link to Meetings where you should see your list of upcoming meetings
  • Click on the title of the scheduled meeting (NOT the edit button)
  • Follow the instructions to Create a Poll in the Zoom Support Hub
  • You can create a maximum of 25 polls for a single meeting
  • If you have created a recurring meeting, and set the polling questions in advance, they will available for every meeting.  Alternatively, you can create a Poll during a meeting
  • You can download the Polling results at the end of a meeting by following this guidance.

Standalone meetings

To ensure your students gain access to the correct Zoom meetings, we recommend you follow the guidance above and schedule the sessions from the relevant Moodle course.

You can also schedule standalone meetings from within the web browser or from the Zoom client.  Zoom provide extensive help guides but, when scheduling meetings, it is important to remember the following:

  • All users accessing a meeting will need to have, as a minimum, a basic Zoom account to be able to join a session.  University of Bath staff and students should have accounts linked to Single sign-on.  Individuals joining a session from outside of the University will need to set up a basic (free) account in order to join a session if they do not already have one.
  • We recommend that you set up your own meetings rather than delegating this otherwise you may find that you are unable to access the meeting yourself.
  • If you do delegate the set up of meetings, ensure that you refer to the scheduling privilege and alternative host information before doing this and follow the guidance carefully.

Remember to press record  if you want to keep a copy of your session.  The recording will automatically be saved to your personal folder in Re:View/Panopto.

Schedule a Meeting with the Desktop and Web Client

Before scheduling a meeting with the Zoom Client app you will first need to download it and install it on your computer.

tel@bath.ac.uk

Updated on: 05 January 2022