Zoom Tips

Introduction

Zoom is one of the three communication tools used at the university for synchronous communication. Blackboard Collaborate and Webex are the other tools. On this page, you will learn various tips and tricks to help you navigate zoom and be more effective. UMB CITS has introductory Zoom info here to get you started. Be sure to think about students' needs for interactivity: this video documents some thoughts students have about synchronous virtual classes. 

Zoom has a wonderful support page that can address a number of questions and concerns. 

Technical support is provided by UMB CITS at 410-706-HELP or help@umaryland.edu and be sure to check their information page. 

Zoom Video Overview

The following segment was recorded during a zoom overview for Faculty during the Summer, 2020. 

Zoom Overview

Basic Zoom Settings

There are some basic Zoom settings you should be familiar with to ensure you have a successful Zoom session.

• 1. Log in at https://umaryland.zoom.us with your SSO UMID login. 

  2. Click Sign In to configure your account. Look in the upper right at your name and click it: does it say "Licensed" or "Basic" ? If it says Basic, contact the UMB Helpdesk (410-706-HELP) to get on the license. For full functionality, it should say licensed. 

3. Choose Settings on the left-hand navigation menu.

4. Take a few moments to explore all of the settings. Our favorite ones appear in the table below:

There are a number of additional features and settings. We encourage you to explore all of the settings and play with the features. You may want to consider allowing students to rename themselves after they have entered the class, in case they are using someone else's device that has the wrong name or they would like to include pronouns. 

Profiles & Pronouns

Aside from faculty resetting their meeting settings to allow students to rename themselves (or which is quickly done on the fly by clicking the Security badge icon in the zoom menu bar between Stop/Start Video and Participants and checking Allow Rename Themselves) , there is a more permanent solution:

1. Go to https://umaryland.zoom.us and sign in with UMID

2. Click the profile image in upper right corner (or go directly to https://umaryland.zoom.us/profile )

3. Click Edit to the right of your name 

4. Go to the Pronouns section, enter preferred pronouns and 

5. Select an option from the dropdown about when to display them: (always, ask every time, do not share)

6. Click Save.

In this way, if folks choose always or ask every time, this is set before they even enter a meeting, so it doesn't matter whether the settings for the meeting allow name changes or not. 

The other alternative here is to just enter the pronouns at the end of the Display Name in the profile and that will be how students names are displayed in all meetings.

Personal Room

You can set up a link to your own personal room that you can use whenever you need to have a meeting. To do so:

• 1. Log in at https://umaryland.zoom.us with your SSO UMID login. 

  2. Click on the Profile tab (upper left) 

  3. Click Customize to the right of the Personal Link and enter the personal link name you'd like to use.

  4. Click the Meetings tab and then the Personal Meeting Room tab. 

  5. Edit the Meeting Password if desired

  6. You can give people your personal meeting link and the password OR you can highlight and copy the Invite Link (which contains the personal meeting link AND the encrypted meeting password in 1 link). 

  7. You can also, if you like, create a tiny URL to your personal meeting using is.gd, tinyurl.com or other URL shorteners to make an easy to remember short link to your meeting room. Paste that longer link into one of them, choose a personalized URL ending, and submit. 

Breakout Rooms (Pre-Assign)

To pre-assign breakout rooms in Zoom, you can do the following:

1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal

2. Click Meetings in the navigation menu

3. Select Schedule a Meeting

4. In the Options section, select the Breakout Room pre-assign checkbox

5. Click Create Rooms

6. In the pop-up that appears, choose Create Rooms or Import from CSV to build your pre-assigned rooms

7. Add a breakout room and rename the room (if desired)

8. Enter participant in the Add Participant field

Here is starter info on breakout rooms:

Breakout Room (Assign on the fly)

Here are the basic steps:

• 1. Start an instant or scheduled meeting.

  2. Click breakout rooms.

  3. Select the number of rooms you would like to create, and how you would like to assign your participants to those rooms:

     1. • Automatically: Let Zoom split your participants up evenly into each of the rooms.

        • Manually: Choose which participants you would like in each room.

  4. Click Create breakout rooms.

Start the rooms. All participants will be moved to their respective rooms after confirming the prompt to join the breakout room. The host will be left in the main meeting until manually joining one of the rooms. The participants (and the host when manually joining a room) will see the following message shown when joining the breakout room.

Recording

Cloud recording is now available to UMB and is the preferred method, since these include automated closed captions and transcripts and can be viewed with just a link and passcode via the web browser. Nothing to download, nothing to upload. See how here.  

But please keep in mind, UMB CITS has a policy that deletes Zoom Cloud Recordings that are over 365 days old, so your best practice will be to download a completed recording and then upload somewhere else (like Voicethread) for longer term storage and usage in your classes. 

If you use the Blackboard Zoom integration (Zoom Meetings), recordings you create from your sessions for your class will show up automatically for you and students in the Recordings tab:

Downloading Recordings

As of July 2021, you will only be able to keep Zoom Recordings in the Cloud for a period of 365 days. After that 365 day period, your recordings will be automatically send to the Trash Can and permanently deleted after a waiting period of 30-days. 

1. Sign in to your Zoom web portal.

2. In the navigation menu, click Recordings.

3. You will see a list of cloud recordings that you started. Adjust the date range and status, then search by host, meeting ID, topic, or keyword.

4. Find the cloud recording you want to download

5. Click More.

6. Select download.