How to use Zoom

Latest info and manuals

• IMPORTANT: Legal information regarding Zoom usage at ETH
  
• Go to ETH Zoom Manual and check out How to pro­tect your Zoom live lec­tu­re
• A nice tutorial by Peter Chen for online teaching ZOOM_20_0312_D-CHAB_online_teaching_v1.1_Chen.pdf (password protected)
  
• Going digital with your face-to-face lectures – a practical guide, by Fabian Suter Going_digital_with_your_face-to-face_lectures__a_practical_guide.pdf (password protected) - see also https://moodle-app2.let.ethz.ch/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=45779

First crea­te your ETHZ Zoom ac­count

• Go to https://ethz.zoom.us
• Click on 'Create account'
• Enter your username@ethz.ch (username = your ETHZ username)
• You will get an email from Zoom with an activation link for your Basic account

Zoom client and setup

• We strongly recommend to install the zoom client. In Windows, ZOOM is preinstalled. Mac users, please install ZOOM via the ETH Self Service App in your Applications Folder. LINUX or all others, please us this download link:Download Zoom Client
• Zoom Test Mee­ting (check Mic/Spea­ker/Ca­me­ra set­up): https://ethz.zoom.us/test
• During the meeting, you will be able to adjust the media settings

Basic Account

• Basic users can host meetings with up to 300 participants. Meetings with 2 participants have no time restrictions.
• If 3 or more participants join, the meeting is restricted to 40 minutes and cannot be recorded.

Li­cen­sed Account

• If possible try to work with a Basic account
• For ETH em­ployees on­ly: If you need more features contact servicedesk@id.ethz.ch with a request to upgrade your account to a Licensed Account. Plea­se in­clu­de your Zoom Ba­sic Ac­count username (username@ethz.ch)

Recommended Devices

• Consider to use a stereo Bluetooth headset for better audio quality.
• For presentations use a virtual pointer/presenter. For example Logitech Spotlight

Important Remarks

• If you are lecture, please read In­fos zum Lehr­be­trieb für Do­zie­ren­de
• For sharing Powerpoint slides: Always start Powerpoint first. Start the slideshow and then start Zoom Meeting go to share screen and select Powerpoint.
• You can either share the Slide Show View in a Window or the Slide Show in Full Screen. For more info see this Zoom Help article
• Be sure to have your laptop plugged into a power source when using Zoom. It uses quite a bit of battery power, and Zoom will not work properly, especially when presenting, if the battery is at low power.

Record and stream a lec­tu­re with zoom

• With a Basic Zoom Account you can only record a meeting in case not more than 2 participants are joining
• If needed upgrade to Li­cen­sed Account (see above)
• Share the Meeting Link in advance with your students (see below)
• When the Meeting is finished, your recording will be converted to mp4 and stored locally on your computer
• You can then upload the file to polybox and share the link with your students
• IAC users can also use the IAC FTP Server or for password protected access (recommended) the IAC webserver
• See this tutorial in German or in English for more info

Record a Power Point presentation with Zoom

• With an ETH Basic Zoom Account you can record a Power Point presentation to share later via Moodle, Polybox, Website...
• When the presentation is finished, your recording will be converted to mp4 and stored locally on your computer
• See this tutorial on Youtube

Share the lec­tu­re link with your stu­dents

• With a Basic Zoom Account you can only share your personal meeting ID
• With a Li­cen­sed Account. You will get an own Mee­ting ID for each meeting. Click 'Mee­tings' and 'Sche­du­le A New Mee­ting'
• Send the link (the URL is https://ethz.zoom.us/j/Meeting_ID) to students beforehand through edoz
• Note that in order to join a meeting no zoom account is needed
• Ask students to mute their microphones or turn their microphones off (see below)

Pre­vent stu­dents from un­mut­ing their mi­cro­phones

• This can be set by the host or co-host once the meet­ing has star­ted
• Once in the meet­ing, click on Man­age Par­ti­cipants
• Click on Mute All
• Deselect Al­low par­ti­cipants to un­mute them­selves and click con­tinue
• All par­ti­cipants are now muted and can­not un­mute them­selves. Host and co-​hosts can now un­mute in­di­vidual par­ti­cipants

Getting help

• Member of IAC can contact iac-it@env.ethz.ch
• Member of IBZ can contact it-ibz@env.ethz.ch

Important Links

• ETH Zoom Service
• Options for remote teaching (ID MM and LET)
• For more resources on Zoom meetings, please visit: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us
• ETH page related to Coronavirus

Fun with zoom

• Recod yourself while pretending to be in a meeting. Your recording will be converted to mp4 and stored locally on your computer.
• Go to a meeting and use the ^ arrow symbol next to the Video button and go to "choose a virtual background". Choose the recording of yourself.
• Now you can sneak out of any boring zoom meeting: https://twitter.com/dz/status/1240344847292170240

Zoom recordings of PowerPoint presentations (long version)

To record a lecture, proceed as follows

1. Start a Zoom session with you alone, using "New Meeting"
2. If you have several screens be careful. Use ONE of the screens for both your Zoom window and the ppt-presentation window. If the zoom window is on another screen, pull it to the desired screen, preferably the one with your micro. Check whether ppt really presents in the desired screen. If not, use “swap displays” of PowerPoint.
3. Start the recording. You are asked to record it on your computer, or in the cloud. I only explored the version on the computer, but the cloud option appears to work as well.
4. You will see a small window with the camera view. I recommend you close this window during ppt-presentations. This saves a lot of disk space, and students will not be able to laugh about funny moments
5. You can record yourself (audio and camera), or you can record a ppt show (audio and ppt-slide).
6. To record your ppt presentation, you first need to share the screen with Zoom. When initiating “Share Screen”, you are asked to select a screen or a window. I recommend to choose the “Desktop” selected for the presentation. Be careful about this, if you choose the ppt-window, or the wrong desktop, it is possible that you will record the screen with the presenter view, or your mailbox or the like. You might note this only at the end of the lecture.
7. Put your ppt into presentation mode and hold your lecture. Use the pointer in the recorded window. Be careful with the ppt pointer options (with some I lost the ability to control animations). With some
8. At the end of the session, stop ppt presentation mode, stop the recording, and end the Zoom session.
9. Zoom will automatically save your presentation to your hard disk. This may take 10’ or so. It is in MP4 format.

How to do minor edits to your file

1. You might want to cut the beginning and/or end of the recording. You might also want to cut sequences when you switch between a recording of you and that of the ppt lecture, unless you are really good and fast with switching between the different formats.
2. If you get lost during a slide, you can also restart that slide again, and then cut the bad version. If you do so, make sure to use a couple of seconds of quiet time, this will help the editing.
3. I used QuickTime Player on a Mac. It has all editing features needed.
4. Start your video using QuickTime Player. You can start editing mode with cmd-e. You can split the video with cmd-y, at the location of the red cursor. You can grab individual pieces of the video separated by splits, and delete them with “delete”. If you are finished with the edits, use “save as” to save the file. It will be saved as an MP4 file.
5. In principle it is possible to copy/paste sequences from one MP4-file to another. This can be used if you badly mess up the explanation of one slide. In principle you can record the slide again, and then replace the bad version. However, this is time consuming, and I recommend to avoid perfectionism.

Further tips

• Please provide the students with the raw pdf-file of the slides (as we did in the past), and with the recorded MP4-file. Some students write notes to the pdf.
• On the first slide of the lecture I use the disclaimer “This recording is provided as replacement for the oral lecture, which cannot take place due to the Corona virus. The recording is meant for the students and should not be spread beyond its intended use. Thanks!”