Tips to avoid issues with Zoom recordings

Tips for all McGill

• If you are signing into Zoom directly, go to https://mcgill.zoom.us - If you are not accessing Zoom through myCourses (recommended method), be sure to sign into McGill's zoom site with your McGill Username and Password, not the general Zoom.us site.

Tips for instructors

• Automatically record meeting in the cloud  - It may seem obvious, but some professors have not checked the option to record their Zoom meetings when setting them up initially. From the Zoom Settings, click Recordings then turn ON Automatic recording and Record in the cloud.
  
  
• Set up your Zoom meetings directly from myCourses  - If you schedule them from the Lecture Recordings tab within myCourses, your meetings will be automatically associated with your course, and accessible to students via the Lecture Recordings tab. Also, any instructors and TAs with full permission will be enabled as Alternative Hosts.
   
• Keep course title and CRN in Zoom meeting topic - If you cannot access Zoom directly from myCourses, and you need to schedule meetings via mcgill.zoom.us, make sure to enter the course title and code for the meeting Topic so that th e recordings will be correctly associated with the course in myCourses.
   
• Turn OFF "Allow participants to join before host" - Make sure to turn this option OFF from the Settings Meetings tab. so that participants will not be allowed in (and will not appear in your recordings) until the host starts the meeting. Also, turn ON the option to Mute all participants when they join. 
  
   
• Recordings not correctly associated in myCourses - With some cross-listed courses the code conflicts with the CRN from a another course, causing the recording to be associated with the wrong course. If you notice your course recordings are missing from myCourses, or if you notice recordings from a different course appearing within your course, please notify the IT Service Desk by reporting an issue. We will manually resolve these issues.

Tips for students

• Turn off Ad Blocker in Chrome - If you use the free AdBlock extension for Chrome, you will need to turn it off in order to access the Zoom recordings.
   
• Playback is slow or halted - Some students, particularly in countries outside North America, have reported they see buffering messages or the recording starts to play and halts. We are currently investigating these issues and believe they are related to the size/resolution and quality of certain recordings, as well as the region where the students are located. We will update this announcement with further details as they become available.
   
• Recording missing or not playing at all - If you are having problems accessing your course recordings that are not related to the two points above, please report an issue so that we may investigate your situation.