To help students, faculty and staff finish the semester remotely, Pomona College, like many colleges across the country, has implemented Zoom. Unfortunately, this rapid rise in users has come hand in hand with increased trolling on Zoom. To help ensure a safe learning and work environment, ITS has developed a set of preventative measures for meeting hosts:
Keep Meeting Information Private
In an effort to keep our community safe from potential bad actors, ITS suggests that links to meetings only be posted in Sakai or sent directly to students via email. Do not post Zoom links in public chats or forums and remind participants to not share meeting information with others.
Require Attendees to Sign In
To restrict meeting access to the Pomona College community, require users to be authenticated and select “Sign in to Zoom with specified domains” as the authentication method.
Meeting Registration
To extend participation in meetings beyond the Pomona college community but still ensure that only approved participants attend, require registration for the meeting.
Waiting Room
Waiting rooms allow meeting hosts to control meeting participants. By default, all Zoom meetings have the waiting room feature enabled by default. To learn more about waiting rooms and how to use them, please visit Zoom's helpful article on waiting rooms.
Restrict Participant Chat
By default, participants can message anyone, even other participants. You can prevent participants from sending unwanted messages by restricting their ability to chat. Click the "Chat" button, then click the button at the bottom right of the Chat pane and select from the "Participant Can Chat With" options.
Restrict Annotation During Screen Share
During screen sharing, both you and your attendees can doodle and mark up the screen. To prevent attendees from writing all over the screen, click the "More" button and select "Disable Attendee Annotation." Please note that this option is only available after you start your screen share.
In Meeting Security and Controls
The meeting host has a variety of controls they can use to secure their meeting:
- Lock the Meeting: Meeting hosts can lock a meeting, by selecting “Participants” at the bottom of the meeting window. In the participants pop-up box, you will see a button that says “Lock Meeting.” When you lock the meeting, no new participants can join, even if they have the meeting ID and password.
- Expel a Participant: To expel a participant, mouse over a participant’s name in the “Participants” menu, and several options will appear, including “Remove”. Selecting “remove” expels participants from the meeting. If you have locked the meeting, they cannot return.
- Prevent Participants from Screen Sharing: In the host controls, click the arrow next to Share Screen and click Advanced Sharing Options. Under “Who can share?” choose “Only Host” and close the window.
- Attendee On-Hold: If you need a private moment, you can put attendees on-hold. The attendee’s video and audio connections will be disabled momentarily. Click on the attendee’s video thumbnail and select Start Attendee On-Hold to activate this feature.
- Disabling Video: Meeting hosts can turn a participant’s video off or request to start a participant’s video. This will allow users to block unwanted, distracting or inappropriate gestures.
- Mute participants or Mute All: Meeting hosts can turn mute / un-mute participants or all. This will allow instructors to block unwanted, distracting or inappropriate noise from the meeting.
If you experience any additional issues with Zoom, please review Pomona College ITS documentation, Zoom Knowledgebase, or contact the ITS help desk at 909-621-8061 or servicedesk@pomona.edu.