Luther faculty, staff, and students may visit luther.zoom.us and click “Sign in” to access the software. If prompted, enter your Norse Key username and password (without @luther.edu). Students are provided a Basic account. Faculty and Staff are provided a Pro account.

Zoom is a remote meeting and collaboration tool used for web conferences and online presentations. It is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to organize and attend online meetings.

If you are familiar with Zoom and have a specific question, visit the Helpful Links further down the page. Contact the Technology Help Desk with questions.

Zoom Meeting Protocol

We are recommending faculty and staff set up scheduled meetings as follows:

• Faculty and staff should require that students use their given/chosen names as screen names.
• Do not use a Personal Meeting ID: This is like giving out your phone number.
• Require a password when scheduling new meetings: Meetings scheduled using the room's scheduling display will use a randomly-generated password. Users will need to enter this password to join the meeting.
• Do not enable join before host: There will be a message “Please wait for the host to start this meeting” Once the Host joins the meeting participants will then have access.
• The host can prevent participants from accessing screen share. Once the Host knows all the relevant participants have joined they can then allow participants to share their screen.
• Allow only authenticated users to join (if only Luther faculty, staff, students are participants)
• Video off for Participants upon entry.
• Mute All Participants upon entry.
• Practice Managing participants in a meeting

Zoom Basic

Through Luther’s site license, Zoom Basic is available to students. It allows up to 100 participants and a meeting duration of up to 40 minutes. Some of the additional features of Zoom Basic include:

• Platform Independence (Windows, Mac, iPad, or Android)
• Hosts using the Zoom desktop client can choose to allow multiple participants to share their screens simultaneously during a meeting.
• Share keyboard and mouse control between participants
• Meeting Host can control the Participant's audio, video and screen sharing options
• Participants can alert the Host that they have a question when they are muted
• Ability to change presenters on the fly
• Recording
• Breakout rooms
• Whiteboarding

Zoom Pro

Through Luther’s site license, Zoom Pro is available to faculty and staff. It provides all of the functionality of Zoom Basic and allows up to 300 participants with a meeting duration of up to 24 hours.

Google Calendar Integration

To integrate Zoom with your Google Calendar, Luther faculty, staff, and students may follow these steps: Zoom - Google Calendar Integration Setup.

You can then make a Google Meet or a Zoom Meeting from within your Google Calendar using the "add video conferencing" option. "Google Meet" is already in the dropdown list. These steps add "Zoom Meeting" to that dropdown. While there are many steps, it only takes a few minutes to set up.

Virtual Backgrounds

The virtual background feature allows you to display an image as your background during a Zoom meeting. Luther College Marketing and Communications has created Luther-related images that you may use for this purpose. For more information and a guide for setting this up, see Zoom Virtual Backgrounds.

Zoom Virtual Backgrounds are not compatible with some computers. If your computer is not compatible, you can check the “I have a green screen” box. While you don’t need to have a real green screen behind you in order to use this feature, a solid color background is required. Within this “Settings” box you can manually pick the color of the background if Zoom did not properly detect it for you. System prerequisites and additional information from Zoom may be found at: Virtual Background.

Helpful Links

• Getting Started on a MAC or PC
• How To Host a Meeting
• How To Schedule A Meeting
• How Do I Start Screen Sharing
• Zoom 101: Breakout Rooms
• How to use Breakout Rooms
  
• Zoom 101: Polling (In-meeting)
• Screen Share & Annotation for EDU
• Sharing a whiteboard
• Using annotation tools on a shared screen or whiteboard
  
• Comprehensive Guide to Educating Through Zoom
• How to use Waiting Rooms to Manage Office Hours & Drop-In Visitor Times
• Zoom Video Tutorials

Alternative Services

We recommend using Google Meet (up to 250 people) or Skype (up to 50 people) for video conferencing sessions. When you're wanting a more structured, controlled environment or need to record the meeting, Zoom (up to 300 people) is ideal.

Faculty, staff, and students can start a Google Meet, Skype or Zoom session at any time.

Webcams and tripods are available for checkout from the Circulation Desk in Preus Library. These webcams have a built in microphone. ITS also has conference carts that may be requested to be set up through help.luther.edu.