Note! These are initial recommendations and may be updated as circumstances change.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been several articles about "Zoombombing" incidents, where uninvited participants join and harass the presenter and participants. If you are concerned about this occurring in your courses, the following are steps you can take to minimize the likelihood of it occurring:
Keep your meeting information private
First and foremost, only share the joining information with your intended attendees. To the best of our knowledge, the majority of "Zoombombing" has occurred when someone has inadvertently shared meeting information in a public setting.
Require a meeting password
To add a layer of protection, you can schedule your your meetings with the Require Meeting Password setting. More details here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362413-Scheduling-meetings
To change this for all new meetings you schedule, scroll to the Enabling Password Settings for Your Own Meetings and Webinars heading at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360033559832
Enable the Waiting Room feature
Another option is to use the Enable Waiting Room setting. More details, including how to make this setting your default for future meetings, can be found here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115000332726 (Scroll to the User heading)
Updating an existing meeting's security
The above settings will not impact meetings that you've already scheduled. For instructions on applying these settings to an existing meeting, see https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362503-How-Do-I-Update-A-Scheduled-Meeting-
Please note: you may need to resend meeting details to participants after making changes.
Regarding phone participants
If you have people joining via phone, we recommend you ensure that they identify themselves prior to continuing your meeting. Please contact canvas_help@whitman.edu if you'd like assistance adding a passcode for phone particpants.
Other considerations
In addition to using these two features to control access to your Zoom meetings, we recommend that you:
- Always choose Generate Automatically for your Meeting ID when scheduling.
- Leave Enable join before host unchecked in Meeting Options.