In order to make Zoom as safe and private as possible, Guilford College has followed recommendations by Zoom and security experts to enable/disable certain Zoom features by default. You can change any of these settings by visiting https://guilford.zoom.us and selecting Settings on the menu. Some of these features can also be edited when scheduling a meeting or changed on the fly during a class.
- Require password: Passwords are enabled by default when scheduling a meeting (and are embedded in the link for the Zoom meeting). You can choose to turn this off for all meetings you schedule (in your Zoom settings), or when you schedule one meeting.
- Mute Participants upon Entry: This setting mutes your students when they enter the class so that you don't hear background noise or conversation that isn't directed at the class. Students can unmute themselves when they need to speak (and can temporarily ummute by holding down the spacebar). You can also use the Participants panel to mute individual students or everyone in the class.
- Private chat is disabled by default. You can allow students to chat privately with each other in your Zoom settings. Keep in mind that the host and co-host can always chat privately with individual students and students can chat with the host and co-host privately whether you enable private chat between students or not.
- Screensharing is set by default to Host Only. To allow your students to share their screen during a class session, click the up arrow next to Share Screen and choose Advanced Sharing Options. Choose All Participants under Who Can Share?
- Annotation is turned off by default. This means that students will not be able to annotate shared screens, including shared whiteboards. If you want students to be able to annotate during class, you'll need to turn this on in your Zoom settings.
- Waiting Rooms can be used during virtual office hours so that you can meet with one student and any other students joining the meeting have to wait for you to admit them. You will receive a message that someone is waiting and you can move students to and from the waiting room.
- Local Recording by attendees is turned on by default, but requires the host to give permission before students can record. You can disable this in our Zoom settings.
There are many other settings you can control to customize the Zoom experience.
