Zoom Security Guidelines

 

Fostering a safe and welcoming online environment at Bates Technical College is one of our top priorities. Therefore, we have developed this webpage  for employees to follow when creating and holding Zoom events, classes or meetings.

Zoom Best Practices

You might have seen the stories of trolls crashing into Zoom meetings and classes in the news and/or social media. Once in, trolls proceed to disrupt the meeting or class in session.

As we continue with remote learning, below are best practices that will help make sure your virtual educational events are successful. Please implement these immediately so that our college community can enjoy high-quality remote experiences:

  • Enable the Waiting Room feature: This allows Administrators to monitor who is joining the room and proactively admit participants into the session.
  • Disable videos until the host is ready to start the meeting and is comfortable with those in attendance.
  • When you set up your meeting, select “Only Host Can Share Screen” to prevent non-members from sharing inappropriate information with the college community.
  • Add a password to join RSVP’d events.
  • Disable “Join before host.”
  • Disable “Allow removed participants to rejoin.”
  • Disabling screen share options from others.

Respond to disruptions with these tips:

  • Mute a participant
  • Remove a participant
  • Disable participant video
  • Move a participant to the Waiting Room

Please take a look at the Zoom links at the end of this page on how to secure videoconferencing meetings.

As preparation for possible disruptions, familiarize yourself with Zoom’s settings and features. Make sure you know how to manage participants.

We suggest leaving your Manage Participants menu open while hosting a meeting. That way, you can easily see raised hands and, in case of a disruption, quickly access the following options below by hovering over a participant’s name:

  • Mute a participant
  • Remove a participant by selecting More, then Remove
  • Disable participant video by selecting More, then Stop Video
  • If Waiting Room is enabled: Move a participant to the Waiting Room by selecting More, then Put in waiting room.

Preventing Disruptions

Share Meeting Links with Care

Don’t share your meeting link on social media or other public forums. It makes your event public, and ANYONE with the link can join your meeting.
Instead, Instructors can create and share Zoom meetings within your Canvas online course shell.

If you need help with Canvas, contact olc@batestech.edu and check their tutorials and resources on our Intranet. Employees, setting a Zoom meeting should share the meeting invite via Outlook calendar or college email.

Use a Random Meeting ID

Avoid using your Personal Meeting ID (PMI) to host public events. Your PMI is basically one continuous meeting. Instead, create a random meeting ID for each meeting.

  1. Click Schedule to create a new meeting and review meeting options
  2. In the Meeting ID section, click the Generate Automatically radio button

Enable Waiting Room

The Waiting Room feature allows the host to control when participants join your meeting.

As the meeting host, you can admit attendees individually or hold all attendees in the virtual waiting room and admit all when you are ready to begin. Admitting participants from the Waiting Room requires an additional step for the host but provides increased control. This feature can be enabled on a per-meeting basis when scheduling.

If you have enabled Waiting Room, you (as the host) can also send a participant there during a meeting. Click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window (if the Participants panel is not already visible), then hover over the participant’s name, click More, and select Put in waiting room.

Disable “Join Before Host”

If you are scheduling a meeting where sensitive information will be discussed and you don’t want participants to start the meeting without you, it’s best to disable join before host functionality. Participants will then see a pop-up that says, “Please wait for the host to start this meeting.”

If you are the host, there is a login button to log in and start the meeting as the host. This feature can be enabled or disabled on a per-meeting basis when scheduling.

Lock your meeting

A meeting host or co-host can lock a meeting once all participants have joined. That prevents anyone else from joining the meeting, even if they have the meeting password.

  1. Click Manage Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window (if the Participants panel is not already visible).
  2. At the bottom of the Participants panel, click More.
  3. Select Lock Meeting.
  4. Limit Screen Sharing to the Host

Limiting who can share their screen during a meeting can help prevent intrusive sharing. However, this may not be appropriate when multiple participants need to share and collaborate.

To limit sharing privileges while hosting a meeting

  1. Click the up-arrow next to Share Screen.
  2. Select Advanced Sharing Options.
  3. Under Who can share, click Only Host.

To re-enable screen sharing by other meeting participants:

  1. While hosting a meeting: Click the arrow to the right of the Screen Sharing icon, select Advanced Sharing Options and select All Participants.
  2. In your default settings (applies to all meetings): Select In Meetings (Basic). Under Screen sharing, under Who can share?, select All Participants.

More Information from Zoom