Hosting large meetings, especially meetings open to the public, require special considerations on top of the normal Zoom security recommendations for normal sized meetings and classes. Many of these recommendations apply to both Zoom meetings and Zoom webinars but a distinction will be made for those that only apply to one or the other.
This guide is broken up into two sections:
Setup
Setup (both meetings and webinars)
- Registration required
- For large scale meetings and every webinar, registration should be enabled. The registration process allows participants to sign up for a meeting. After they sign up, Zoom sends them the meeting information automatically, including any password and sign-in information
- Registration also pulls people's names from the registration form. When they join the meeting, the name displayed in the session will be what they entered when registering
Setup (for meetings)
Zoom allows you to pick some security settings ahead of time when creating your meeting.
Settings that should be enabled
- Mute participants upon entry
- This will make it so that everyone's microphone is muted by default. When conducting large meeting settings, having multiple microphones on at the same time can cause audio issues and distractions, so having everyone muted by default makes it more possible to be selective with who has their mics on at the time
- Enable waiting room
- With a large meeting, especially one open to the public, the waiting room allows the host to allow people in once you're ready to go.
Settings that are recommended to be enabled
- Only authenticated users can join
- Requiring authentication makes it less possible for "unauthorized" participants to join a session. However, if your meeting is open to the general public, anyone who joins would need to have a Zoom account, either one on their own or provided by their institution.
- If the primary audience for the meeting is the general public and not SF State participants, do not enable this setting
Settings that should not be enabled
- Enable join before host
- While this is OK for smaller meetings, allowing people to join before the host is ready can be problematic in a large meeting as there is nobody in the session able to moderate the participants as they join
- Record the meeting automatically
- Combined with the above, recording the meeting automatically may present a situation where a session is recorded before everyone is ready
Setup (for webinars)
Zoom webinars behave differently than normal Zoom meetings and are geared for sessions where you need to meet with more than 300 people at once. Webinars have the concept of Panelists and Participants, and only panelists can speak, share their camera and their screens.
Note: The campus has a limited number of webinar licenses available. As such, webinars are only available by request via email to at@sfsu.edu. Be sure to include the purpose for the webinar and how many participants you are expecting.
Settings that should be enabled
- Q&A
- Q&A provides participants with the ability to ask questions of panelists since they normally cannot communicate via voice and video. Panelists can then choose to address questions that come up in the list
- Only authenticated users can join
- Requiring authentication makes it less possible for "unauthorized" participants to join a session. However, if your meeting is open to the general public, anyone who joins would need to have a Zoom account, either one on their own or provided by their institution.
- If the primary audience for the meeting is the general public and not SF State participants, do not enable this setting
Settings that are recommended to be enabled
- Enable practice session
- A practice session allows the host and panelists to make sure audio is working and everyone is connected before "going live" to the general participants. It is highly recommended to do so to make sure all panelists are ready to go
Settings that are not recommended to be enabled
- Record the webinar automatically
- Recording the webinar automatically may present a situation where a session is recorded before everyone is ready
During the session
For both meetings and webinars, it is highly recommended to have more than one person with host capability. Running a session with a large number of participants can be very demanding, so having someone else on hand to handle moderating the session is a huge help.
During a meeting or a webinar, selecting any participant will give the host to promote them as co-host.
A co-host has all of the same permissions and capabilities as a host and can moderate the session while the host or panelists are speaking.
Webinar specific recommendations
While participants generally have fewer permissions during a webinar, there are some settings to tweak during a session to prevent disruption.
Disable chat
To prevent participants from being able to chat with each other and panelists:
- Click on the chat button in the Zoom window
- Click on the three dots menu in chat
- Under Attendee can chat with, select No one
For additional assistance, contact Academic Technology: (415) 405-5555, at@sfsu.edu, LIB 80
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