Zoom Meetings Recommended Settings for Office Hours and Classes

 

Zoom allows you to customize your session depending on your needs. You can use zoom for one-on-one meetings, small classes, or classes up to 500. If you’ve integrated your Zoom client with your Microsoft 365 calendar, you can schedule meetings and classes and make them recurring, if needed.

For office hours meetings with students

  • Registration: Not required as requiring registration would add complexity with no benefit.
  • Meeting ID: Use a Generated ID, not your Personal Meeting ID. Reserve your Personal Meeting ID for other, ad hoc meetings.
  • Meeting Password: No if you will be enabling a Waiting Room. Yes if there is no Waiting Room (you must have one or the other).
  • Video: Choose Off for Host and Participant, so hosts and participants can choose when/if to share video.
  • Audio: Choose Both Telephone and Computer Audio so that participants can make the choice appropriate to their network connectivity.
  • Meeting Options:
    • Join Before Host: No. Join Before Host and Enable Waiting Room (below) will not work if both are enabled.
    • Mute Participants Upon Entry: Yes. Permits participants to choose when to unmute themselves.
    • Enable Waiting Room: Yes. Essential for handling sequential one-on-one, drop-in meetings. Students are added to waiting room list in the order they arrive.

Zoom Help Center: Waiting Room

    • Only Authenticated Users Can Join: Yes, if your attendees have Zoom accounts with a Duke email address; No, if you are expecting attendees from outside of the University. NOTE: be aware this requires attendee be authenticated in the Zoom client to function. 
    • Record the Meeting Automatically: No. Recording one-on-one conversations with students is not recommended.
    • Alternative Hosts: No, not needed for meetings with only two people.

For classes of fewer than 50 students

  • Registration, Meeting ID, Password, Video, and Audio: As noted above.
  • Meeting Options:
    • Join Before Host: Yes. Early-arriving students can talk amongst themselves before class begins.
    • Mute Participants Upon Entry: Yes. Allows participants to choose when to unmute themselves.
    • Enable Waiting Room: No. The waiting room doesn’t let early-arriving students talk among themselves before class begins.
    • Only Authenticated Users Can Join: Yes, if all your attendees have Zoom accounts with Duke email addresses; No, if you are expecting attendees from outside of the University.
    • Record the Meeting Automatically: No. Recording would start as soon as the first student enters the session. If you are concerned about forgetting to record the session and would prefer it be recorded automatically, please refer to the recommendations for larger classes, below.
    • Alternative Hosts: Enter the netid@duke.edu addresses for your alternative host(s). Please note: If an individual has not yet created a Duke Zoom account, attempting to add them will generate an error message that their email address “is not associated with a Zoom account.”

Zoom Help Center: Alternative Host.

For classes of more than 50 students  

  • Registration, Meeting ID, Password, Video, and Audio: As noted above. 
  • Meeting Options:  
    • Join Before Host: No. With large classes, the results are likely to be confusing to students. 
    • Mute Participants Upon Entry: Yes. Permits participants to choose when to unmute themselves. 
    • Enable Waiting Room: No. Students who enter the session late will need to be admitted, taking time and attention from other matters. 
    • Only Authenticated Users Can Join: Yes, if all your attendees have Zoom accounts with Duke email addresses; No, if you are expecting attendees from outside of the University. NOTE: be aware this requires attendee be authenticated in the Zoom client to function. 
    • Record the Meeting Automatically: There are several factors to consider for recording:
      • If your class sessions might involve private conversations at the beginning, during, or end of class that should not be recorded.
      • If you choose to record automatically, also select Record to the Cloud.
      • Cloud recordings can be transcribed automatically, and these results can be improved with editing. The beginning and ending of recordings can be edited.  
      • Content cannot be edited from middle sections of the recording using Zoom so you may want to pause and resume recording as needed.
      • If you leave this option unchecked, you may forget to record the session; having at least one alternative host (see below) in charge of recording helps mitigate this risk. Wait to begin recording once the class starts and pause, resume, and end recording as needed. 
        See Zoom Help Center: Starting a Cloud Recording and Zoom Help Center: Cloud Recording Playback 
    • Alternative Hosts: Enter the netid@duke.edu email addresses for any alternative hosts. If an individual has not yet created a Duke Zoom account, attempting to add them will generate an error message that their email address “is not associated with a Zoom account.”  See Zoom Help Center: Alternative Host 

Settings and Tools to Consider for Any Instructional Context 

To simplify the meeting interface, several features have been enabled or disabled that you may want to modify before using Zoom for instruction. 

Changes to consider making on your Zoom Settings webpage: 

  • Private Chat: Disable if you would prefer students not use in-meeting chat to hold private conversations with each other during class. Disabling private chat is recommended for all instructional activities.

Zoom Help Center: In-meeting Chat. 

  • Co-host: Turning on this feature is essential if you teach with a team. You can assign co-host privileges during the meeting. Note: if someone else needs to start a meeting that you’ve scheduled, edit the meeting, and add them as alternative hosts with their @duke.edu address. If an individual has not yet created a Duke Zoom account, they cannot be added. 
  • Polls/Quizzes: Zoom has a polling and quizzing feature. You can create these in advance or add them during class. However, polls and quizzes are added in the meeting configuration on duke.zoom.us. They then become visible in the live meeting. You can also use Zoom to share a Poll Everywhere poll in either a PowerPoint slide or browser window.

Zoom Help Center: Polling for meetings. 

  • Show Zoom windows during screen share: We suggest keeping this off unless your class plans include an explicit demonstration of Zoom.  

Zoom Help Center: Sharing your screen. 

  • Screen sharing 
    • Who can share their screens: By default, screen sharing is restricted to hosts and co-hosts only. You can expand this to All Participants. Be aware this should be restricted for larger classes. 
    • Who can start sharing when someone else is sharing: Host Only.  These settings support the potential for greater interaction with student-driven content while retaining better control. While a meeting is in session, you can adjust these settings from the Zoom meeting control toolbar.  

Zoom Help Center: Sharing your screen. 

  • Annotation: 
    • Turning on annotation adds a drawing layer over the content you or participants share.  
    • The Spotlight (virtual laser pointer) is useful in drawing students’ attention to details. The meeting host can control annotation settings during meetings as needed. 

Zoom Help Center: Using annotation tools on a shared screen or whiteboard. 

  • Whiteboard: Turning on the whiteboard feature is useful if you use classroom whiteboards. You can connect a tablet computer to your Zoom meeting. If you use the Zoom whiteboard, you may want to select  Auto save whiteboard content when sharing is stopped. You can also used templates with your Zoom whiteboards and modify them outside a meeting. 

Zoom Help Center: Using annotation tools on a shared screen or whiteboard. 

  • Nonverbal feedback: Turning on this feature is useful for oral discussions in medium to large classes. Students can indicate they would like to speak and you can unmute them by clicking the raised hand icon.  You can also do limited verbal polling with the "Yes" and "No" reactions. 

Zoom Help Center: Nonverbal Feedback during Meetings
Zoom Help Center: Managing Participants in a Meeting

  • Breakout room: If students work in groups during face-to-face classes, consider enabling this option. If students work in pre-assigned groups, also enable Allow hosts to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling.  

Zoom Help Center: Getting Started with Breakout Rooms. 

 

Securing Zoom Cloud Recordings 

Adjust these Zoom recording settings to ensure student privacy: 

  • Record active speaker with shared screen Yes. Students who have their video on during the session would appear on screen only if they are unmuted. 
  • Record gallery view with shared screen. No. At least some students who have video on during the session will appear on screen, regardless of whether they are speaking. 
  • Record active speaker, gallery view and shared screen separately. No, unless you plan to delete the gallery view recording. (Note: this option uses more cloud storage.) 
  • Save chat messages from the meeting/webinar. No. Enabling this option allows viewers to see participants’ names. Note that this transcript also includes participants’ names. 
  • Display participants’ names in the recording. No. 
  • Only authenticated users [i.e., Zoom accounts with Duke email addresses] can access the recording: Yes. 
  • Recording consent. No. Students who do not consent will not be allowed to participate in the meeting.
  • If you want even more control sharing your recording, such as sharing with just your class group, we suggest using Duke’s Panopto.
  • See: Connecting Your Zoom Meetings Account to Panopto

 

 

Article number: KB0032726

Valid to: March 27, 2025