Zoom Video Conferencing

As announced on March 18, 2022, the Institute will return fully to in-person instruction by Monday, April 4, 2022. Resources for remote and online teaching are provided on this site if Caltech must shift to remote instruction in the future.

Outside of special emergency permissions granted during the pandemic, Caltech's accreditation is limited to in-person instruction.

Zoom can be used for asynchronous recordings, synchronous class meetings and recitations, and other meetings with students. It is integrated with Caltech's Canvas Learning Management System, making it possible to schedule Zoom sessions and give students automatic access to Zoom cloud recordings from within Canvas. This page has detailed instructions for using the Zoom-Canvas integrated functions.

Faculty, instructors, and TAs have Zoom Pro licenses, allowing unlimited meeting time and up to 300 participants. If a Zoom Pro license is needed for teaching and has not yet been assigned, please contact the Caltech Help Desk, help@caltech.edu, 626.395.3500.

Recording Requirements for Live Zoom Sessions

During remote teaching, all required class sessions must be recorded to ensure student access. Students may not be able to attend a session for reasons such as poor network performance and time zone differences. Zoom recordings can be saved in Zoom Cloud or locally, with student access through the Canvas-Zoom integration, or copied to Google Drive. Both options generate links for access with caltech.edu login-only. Watch Caltech-specific tutorials on how to record a Zoom session, how to use the Canvas-Zoom integration, and how to save to Google Drive, or follow the Google Drive How-To.

IMSS encourages users to follow the Zoom Meeting Privacy Recommendations which address Zoom Privacy and Security concerns. These recommendations will help mitigate ZoomBombing and Zoom War Dialing. In addition, it is important that users maintain their Zoom client updated.

Zoom live transcripts are now available for your meetings. Please note that at the moment, this feature is only available for users with @caltech.edu email addresses. Users with other email addresses like @hss.caltech.edu, @pma.caltech.edu, etc. will not see this feature. Enable Zoom Live Transcripts.

VPN is not required for cloud services such as Zoom. For a better experience, IMSS recommends not connecting to VPN while using Zoom.

Please visit the IMSS Zoom Video Conferencing site for extensive user guides and resources on scheduling meetings, using Zoom features, and more.