Zoom has been the mainstay of many instructors’ toolkits during the pandemic. And although we are transitioning back to face-to-face classes, Zoom won’t be going away anytime soon. Zoom can be very useful for things like individual calls or virtual office hours. Zoom can also be used to bring outside speakers to your class.
While most users are comfortable meeting with other members of the Wentworth community over Zoom, bringing in outside speakers has some challenges due to our security. Understanding the security settings and knowing what to do tell speakers can make the process smooth and seamless for your students.
Security settings: When setting up a Zoom meeting in which you expect a non-Wentworth user to attend, make certain that you set your meeting security option “Require authentication to join” is set to “Sign in to Zoom.” Our Zoom system is set to require logging into Zoom to reduce the possibility of Zoom Bombing (the “party-crashing” that occurred early in the pandemic and left some meeting attendees traumatized from the abuse the “Bombers” hurled at meeting attendees).
While all Wentworth users can activate a Zoom account under our site license, external users can’t use Wentworth accounts and not all external users have a Zoom license. However, setting the security to only require having a license allows any authenticated user to participate if they have the link. This means that a guest speaker can attend using a Zoom account from an employer, or even a free account. When inviting a speaker to join your class, confirm that they have a Zoom account. If they don’t, let them know they will need to sign up for a free account. If you test the link ahead of time, make sure that you remind the guest speaker to have their Zoom login handy so they can log in when prompted. You may also need to temporarily reset the time settings to allow your guest to enter the room when testing.
Community Article – Zoom Conferencing _ Technology Services (Pdf version of link above).