Zoom tips

Getting started with Zoom

Most of the conference sessions are Zoom webinars; some are Zoom meetings. Here's a Getting Started guide for webinars and meetings. Zoom also offers free "Getting Started" webinars, both live and recorded.

Session Recordings

Conference sessions will be live streamed as well as recorded (unless noted otherwise) and the recordings shared publicly for the benefit of those who can't attend live.

Anonymity in Zoom

Here are some tips for participating in a Zoom webinar or meeting without sharing personal details that would be visible and thus streamed and recorded (video, Zoom profile picture, name) or be accessible to meeting organizers (email address). Some of these tips are covered in this helpful video from SimpleDucks.

Name

Whatever name you use to join the webinar or meeting is visible to webinar and meeting organizers (in webinar and meeting controls and in reports), to other webinar participants if you ask a non-anonymous question (in the Q&A panel), and to other meeting participants (in the Participants list).

Strategies to control how your name displays.

• Set up a Zoom account in advance, and in your Profile, enter the name you want to use. Then join the webinar or meeting after logging in to your Zoom account. Learn how to Customize your profile here.

• Or, join the webinar or meeting without a Zoom account, and enter a name when prompted.

• In a meeting, you can also rename yourself after you've joined the meeting . Leant about attendee controls in a meeting here. (NOTE: you cannot rename yourself after joining a webinar. You could leave the webinar and re-join using a different name.)

• In a webinar, your name is not visible unless you ask a question in the Q&A panel. You can ask a question without making your name visible by checking the Anonymous option. Learn more about joining and participating in a webinar as an attendee here (see Webinar Controls).

Email

Whatever email address you use to join the webinar or meeting is visible to webinar and meeting organizers in reports. It will not be visible to webinar or meeting participants. If you don't want the organizers to see your email address:

• Join the webinar or meeting without logging into a Zoom account. For webinars, you will be asked to supply an email address when you join, but it can be any address, even a non-existent one.

Video

In Zoom webinars, the only participants whose video is visible are panelists. In Zoom meetings, all participants can share video. There are a few ways to keep your video from showing:

• Set up a Zoom account in advance, and set the option “Turn off my video when joining a meeting”. That way your video will already be off when you join a meeting. Learn more about setting video or microphone off by an attendee here. You can also find useful information about changing settings in the desktop client or mobile app here.

• If you join a meeting with video on, turn it off once in the meeting. Learn more about attendee controls in a meeting here.

• Cover your device's camera.

You may want to show yourself on video, but not your surroundings. In this case, use a virtual background to hide your actual background. Learn more about virtual backgrounds here.

Profile Photo

Your profile photo is shown in meetings when your video is off. It does not appear in webinars.

• To choose or delete a Profile Photo, set up a Zoom account and edit your Profile settings. Learn more about customizing your profile here.

• You can also change your Profile Photo once in the meeting if you're using a Zoom account.

• To join without a profile photo, join the meeting without logging into a Zoom account.