UA has purchased 2 Webinar-500 licenses for one-time use for all departments. Please contact the VCS office if you would like to reserve one of the licenses for your event, or if you are interested in purchasing a license for your department.

Zoom meetings are ideal for hosting more interactive sessions where you’ll want to have lots of audience participation or break your session into smaller groups. 

Think of webinars like a virtual lecture hall or auditorium. Webinars are ideal for large audiences or events that are open to the public. Typically, webinar attendees do not interact with one another. Though Zoom provides options for you to get more social with your attendees, your average webinar has one or a few people speaking to an audience.

Visit herefor a side to side comparison of the two.

UA Zoom is accessed using the standard UA authentication protocol. Zoom did contact the University of Alaska about a potential issue with Zoom’s login via Facebook on iOS devices. The personal information (name, address, email etc.) of UA Zoom users was never sent to Facebook, and the issue within Zoom has since been addressed with a software update. For a full explanation please read Zoom’s Use of Facebook’s SDK in iOS Client.

UA IT organizations and Zoom have taken all precautions to protect your personal information. Users should regularly update their Zoom client and watch UA publications for announcements regarding steps they can take to improve their online security. You can also visit our website our Zoom pages for more information and the most up to date status. It’s important to note that we all can take steps to secure information. Make sure you know who you are sharing information with over chat, email, and other digital formats.

All calls using the Zoom client on their PC/Mac/mobile device are transport level encrypted.   For a straightforward explanation of encryption within Zoom please read: The Facts Around Zoom and Encryption for Meetings/Webinars.

All information shared from Zoom is controlled by the host of the meeting. Zoom meetings are recorded at the host’s discretion and are stored on the cloud under the host’s recordings. Only the host and admin staff (IT admins) can access the recordings. The UA instance of Zoom notifies every meeting participant via an audio notification when a recording has started, that a meeting is being recorded and will notify anyone joining a Zoom meeting that an ongoing meeting is being recorded. This feature is account-wide and cannot be turned off.

 Note that in addition to recording the meeting, a host has the option to save all chat messages, even private ones, during the meeting. This feature is often used during brainstorming sessions and for minute taking during meetings so that participants can view chats later.

Yes, Zoom is safe for you to use. As with any online platform, there are steps you can take to have a safe and secure meeting. The online environment is always changing and UA IT at all campus sites is in constant communication with our peers, vendors, and other agencies to keep abreast of any new developments that may occur. Your security is very important to us and we take this very seriously. Please read UA related news sources—Cornerstone, Green & Gold and email lists—for important updates, tips, and suggestions.

UA video conference users have multiple platforms to choose from, depending on the size and scope of their meetings.

Zoom is UA’s most robust video conferencing platform. Zoom is excellent for larger and smaller meetings, live streaming, annotation, and meetings that may need to be recorded. Up to 300 may attend a UA Zoom meeting. Zoom information 

 Google Meet is a convenient option, accessible through Google Apps @ UA Gmail and the Google Meet webpage. This is an excellent platform for smaller, informal meetings. Multiple people can screen share at a time. Meetings can be scheduled through Google Calendar to include a Google Meet. During COVID-19 Google has provided UA with Enterprise Features that include extending participants from 100 to 250, adding live streaming up to 100,000 participants in the domain, and the ability to record meetings directly to Google Drive. Google Meet information

 Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is a convenient conferencing solution accessible from within Blackboard that can be used to deliver one-time or ongoing video conferencing sessions and recordings to attendees, be they students, faculty or staff. Blackboard Collaborate Ultra information

Microsoft Teams is a robust collaboration platform, accessible through Office 365 @ UA. It supports audio and video conferencing, text chatting, file storage, and more. Teams can be used for one-to-one, and group chats, large and small meetings, live streaming, annotation, and meetings that may need to be recorded. Meetings can be scheduled with calendar invitations sent out to participants. Up to 250 may attend a Team conference meeting, 10,000 attendees can participate in a Live event/Webinar; additionally, up to 10,000 people can be a member of a Team.  Microsoft Teams information

 Other options check with your local IT service desks to explore options they may offer.

Yes, if you experience a Zoombomb during any UA meeting or event, please report it to your local service desk. See contact information below. Your information can be used to help prevent future attacks on our institution.

 Zoombombing will not happen in a private and properly shared UA Zoom meeting. Interruptions can happen in a video meeting if the meeting link and information is published in a public forum such as Facebook or other media platforms. Posting a Zoom link publicly is analogous to putting a bowl of one’s house keys in a public place, with directions to the house. The easiest method to avoid Zoombombing or having any outside person enter your meeting is to follow these simple security steps.

 Please read Zoom’s How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event article.

 Invite non-UA attendees by using a Google calendar invite with the Zoom link shared through Google Calendar integration. This method will email the participants all the necessary connection information while avoiding public display of the Zoom meeting link.

To claim your Zoom account go to alaska.zoom.us and click “sign in”. Sign in using SSO and use your University of Alaska credentials. If you have any issues please contact NTS Video Conferencing Services at ua-video@alaska.edu or call 907 450-8300, option 1. We look forward to working with you on this exciting transition.

If you currently have a free Zoom account using your @alaska.edu email and want to move to the University of Alaska account you can go to alaska.zoom.us and click "Sign In". Then log in using your UA credentials and follow the prompts to switch accounts. If you have any issues please contact NTS Video Conferencing Services at ua-video@alaska.edu or call 907 450-8300, option 1.

Visit here for detailed information on signing into Zoom.

All students, faculty, and staff will have their own Zoom Pro license with unlimited minutes, up to 300 participants, in conference chat, easy recording, and dial-in options.

Absolutely. Using your Zoom account, you will be able to dial out to the conferencing codecs around the system. If you are joining a conference from a conference room that is not equipped for Zoom, VCS recommends you log into your Zoom meeting from a personal device.

To connect room equipment into a Zoom video conference please follow the steps outlined below. A visual illustrating the following steps is located here.
1. Sign into your Zoom account either on the web.
2. Join your Zoom Meeting
3. Click the “invite” button on the bottom tool bar.
4. Click “Invite a Room System”
5. Click “Call Out”
6. Choose the room from the drop down menu
7. Click “Call”
8. Repeat for each room you need to connect

No, Zoom does not. Zoom is replacing the legacy conferencing bridges and offers many of the same features of Blackboard Collaborate and Google Hangouts/Meet.  There would be no cost savings in eliminating Blackboard Collaborate or Google Hangouts/Meet, as they are included in our instances of Blackboard and Google.

VCS will still assist users to find rooms that fit the needs of their meetings, however, a list of room schedulers and scheduling websites for all campuses is available on the VCS website for self-service options.

If users click “join my meeting” directly from a Google Calendar invite without being logged into the Zoom application, they will join their Zoom meeting as a guest and will not have any host controls.

To prevent this, hosts will need to log into the Zoom application through alaska.zoom.us or through the Zoom application on their computer prior to joining the Zoom meeting.

This is particularly helpful for those who work with an assistant. This option allows anyone who has access to manage your calendar to schedule Zoom calls for you.

1. To set up the scheduling assistant privilege:

2. Log into Zoom at alaska.zoom.us
Go to Meeting Settings> Other. You'll see a plus sign next to Assign Scheduling Privilege. Add your scheduling assistants by typing their email addresses, and finish by clicking Assign.

After you add your scheduling assistants, they must log out of Zoom and log back in for the feature to take effect. From this point on, assistants can create meetings for others using the Schedule tool.

There are two options for Zoom recordings. One is to record the meeting locally on your computer. The other is to record your meetings in the cloud. These are then stored in the University of Alaska Zoom account on Zoom’s Cloud servers. Recordings are held for 1 year, then are automatically deleted. The University of Alaska also has integrated Zoom with our instance of Kaltura, and users can link their Zoom and Kaltura accounts to back up all video recordings made to the cloud. 

Every UA Zoom user has a Pro license and can have up to 300 participants in a Zoom meeting.