Zoom Meetings: Etiquette and Best Practices – University of Pittsburgh

Remote meetings–especially over Zoom–have boomed in lieu of in-person ones amidst the pandemic. Just like a regular meeting held in an office or a boardroom, teleconferencing has its own set of etiquette and rules. Listed here is are a few good-to-knows for all your Zoom calls: 

• Use the Meeting platform for collaborative events to allow participants to share their screen, turn on their video and audio, and see who else is in attendance. 
• Use the Webinar option if you want the host and any designated panelists to share their video, audio and screen with view-only attendees. Attendees have the ability to interact via Q&A, chat, and answering polling questions. The host can also unmute the attendees. 
• Keep meetings private by providing your Zoom meeting link only to those individuals who will be attending your class or meeting. Set meeting passwords to allow only authorized attendees. 
• Manage screen sharing well. Click the security icon (available only in version 4.6.10 or later of the Zoom client) in the meeting host’s toolbar to easily enable and disable screen sharing and other common security settings from within an active meeting. 
• Allow only signed-in users to join as this will allow you to control your guest list and invite only certain individuals (for example, students or colleagues).
• Lock the meeting to prevent new participants from joining. 
• Disable private chat to cut back on distractions by restricting participants from messaging each other privately.
• Keep your audience engaged by using poll questions periodically.
• Enable video only for the presenter and schedule one or more feedback sessions in between for participants to ask questions.