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 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 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.

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:

You may want to show yourself on video, but not your surroundings. In this case, use a virtual background to hide your actual background. https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/210707503-Virtual-Background

Profile Photo

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