As a McMaster instructor, you have access to Zoom videoconferencing software to host live sessions for course-related activities. At MCE, we encourage our online instructors to incorporate the use of this tool into their course delivery because it will allow you to:

• Enhance your presence in the online learning environment
• Enrich your communication with students (chatting individually or in groups, collecting immediate feedback, etc.)
• Address effectively and directly unforeseen issues that may emerge during the course, whether administrative, technical, or academic.
• Actively “teach” more effectively by adding additional insights, expanding on challenging concepts, or providing explanation on specific course content or assignments.

Live Sessions and MCE Course Design

Our course design strategy seeks to leverage the benefits of using videoconferencing tools by integrating live sessions into the course delivery. These sessions should be:

• customized according to the organization and content of the course, in collaboration between the SME and ID,
• scheduled in advance and noted in the Detailed Course Schedule document, and
• entered (manually) in the Avenue to Learn Calendar.

Instructors should inform students of the topic and format of the live sessions via the Avenue to Learn Announcements tool.

In addition to the scheduled sessions, instructors may wish to include additional “ad-hoc” sessions to address specific issues that may arise (e.g. questions re assignments, guest speakers, etc.).

Scheduling a Meeting

Meetings can be scheduled in the Zoom web portal at https://mcmaster.zoom.us/. Sign into the web portal with your username and password.

Once logged in, you will need to

1. Select Meetings from the left side menu and then click Schedule a Meeting in top right of the page.
2. If your meeting is for a weekly/recurring class, check off the box next to Recurring meeting. Setting up a meeting as recurring will allow you and your attendees to use the same link and password for each meeting, making it easier for students to join weekly classes. A new page will open where you can add in all the details for your meeting.
   
3. Once you have input all the meeting information, scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.Once the meeting is scheduled, you will be brought to a new page displaying all the information for the newly scheduled meeting, including the meeting link and password which must be shared with anyone who needs to attend.
   
   If you navigate back to the main Meetings page, you will see your new meeting(s) added to the list of upcoming meetings.
4. When it is time to start your meeting, hover your cursor over the meeting you need to start, and click the blue start icon.
   

For more information about scheduling a Zoom meeting, check out the video below:

Zoom Live Closed Captioning and Transcription Service

Live transcription is now available for the McMaster community. This feature generates an AI-powered live transcription and is enabled by the meeting host or co-host for all meeting participants. Once enabled, participants have the option of hiding the live transcription or displaying the transcription in a chat-like format. 

To activate this feature:

1. Login to your zoom account settings on the McMaster Zoom portal by selecting the ‘sign -in’ option near the bottom of the menu options.
2. After login, navigate to ‘Settings’.
3. Select ‘In Meeting (Advanced)’ from the sub-menu.
4. Navigate down the page to the ‘Manual captions’ section and ensure the following options are active:
   • Allow host to type of assign a participant to type
   • Allow use of caption API Token to integrate with 3rd-party Closed Captioning services
5. Enable Automated captions
6. Enable Full transcript
7. Enable Save Captions   

For more information, please visit Zoom: Live Captions now Available for the McMaster Community, or check out the How to Enable Live Captions in Zoom video below: