Seattle University has provided all students, faculty and staff with access to Zoom accounts for hosting virtual meetings and events. Based on your role in the University, you automatically have access to the following types of accounts:

• Seattle University Students: Zoom Pro
• Seattle University Staff & Faculty: Zoom Pro

Zoom Basic and Zoom Pro are excellent tools for hosting interactive virtual meetings and events, and should be able to be used for most meetings and events.

If you are looking for a platform that is less interactive, and designed more for one person or a panel to be able to present without any interaction with event attendees, you may want to look into Zoom Webinar. Seattle University has a limited number of accounts that are available for use on a per event basis and are subject to availability. They are entirely separate accounts, and access is not able to be added to your individual Zoom account as an upgrade.

The key differences between Zoom Basic/Pro and Zoom Webinar are INTERACTIVITY and CAPACITY. If you want to be able to engage in conversations with participants, using your usual SU Zoom Basic or Pro account will be your best option. If you only want to be able to engage with attendees via question submissions, or need a higher capacity for participants, then Zoom Webinar may be the right choice.

If you are interested in possibly using Zoom Webinar, please submit a Virtual Event Request through the EMS Web App. Once CES receives this, you will be contacted to talk more about your event needs to determine if Zoom Webinar or Zoom Basic/Pro will be the best platform for your event. Because there are such a limited number of licenses of Zoom Webinar, we highly encourage using Zoom Basic or Pro if at all possible. Zoom Basic and Pro are able to mimic the “listen-only” mode of Zoom Webinar by having anyone designated as the host able to mute participants as necessary.

• Host and Co-Host Controls in a Zoom Basic/Pro Accounts
• Panelist, Attendee, Host and Co-Host Roles in Zoom Webinar
• Screen Sharing and Sharing Multiple Screens Simultaneously
• Audio and Video Sharing
• Creating and Using Polling within Zoom – Basic/Pro
• Creating and Using Polling within Zoom Webinar
• Creating and Using Breakout Rooms – Zoom Basic and Pro ONLY
• Using Closed Captioning
• In-Meeting File Transfer
• Sharing a Whiteboard
• Live Stream to YouTube
• Live Stream to Facebook
• How to Track Zoom Meeting Attendance
• How to Prevent Audio Echo
• Zoom Support Center

Because SU has a limited number of Zoom Webinar accounts, we have implemented a series of deadlines and policies to give as many people access to the tool as possible, and also to ensure that you have enough time to plan and practice for your event.

• Requests to use Zoom Webinar must be submitted at least 10 business days ahead of your event date
• Access to Zoom Webinar will only be given a maximum of 48 hours prior to your event. This means the participant link for your event will not be able to be generated until that time. You are welcome to advertise your event as soon as UE has confirmed there is a Zoom Webinar license available for the date and time of your event, but you will just not be able to send the link right away. Sending the Zoom link closer to the event is a great way to remind your participants that the event is happening, and also means they won’t have to dig through their older emails to try to find the link!
• You will only have access to Zoom Webinar for events for which you have submitted a request. For each different event you will need access to Zoom Webinar, you must submit a new request. Your access to the Zoom Webinar account will be removed after each event.

Create a Plan: Here are a few questions to think through as you are beginning to plan this event:

• Who do you hope to engage?
• What kind of experience do you want to provide?
• Will the event be recorded and made available to participants after the event is over?
• How will you promote the event?
• Will you require event registration?
• What time works best for the audience you hope to engage?
• Are conflicting events happening at the time you hope to hold your event?

Promote the Event

• Make sure you communicate the value of attending this event. What can your audience expect to get out of the event?
• Remind your audience and/or participants that the event is happening about 24-48 hours prior to the event

Practice to Help Prevent Technology or Presentation Issues

• If possible, have all presenters and/or panelists practice their presentations ahead of time – a rehearsal is never a bad idea!
• Test your audio
• Make sure you are sitting in a space with good lighting so your audience can see you
• Open all presentations, documents and websites you intend to share with your audience PRIOR to the event starting
• Close all distractions like email, instant messaging, music, etc. before the event to stay focused and ensure there will not be any notification noises interrupting your presentation
• Make sure your Internet connection is stable for presenting
• Require a password for all meeting participants to keep the event or meeting secure
• Provide your event participants with how-to guides if you think anyone might struggle with learning how to use Zoom

Make Your Event Accessible

• Use closed-captioning whenever possible
• When displaying a presentation, use large fonts that have a high color-contrast
• Provide captions and visuals for audio
• Provide descriptions for visuals

Engage Your Audience!

• Make the chat function available for questions or comments
• Use polls to gather participant responses and then share the data from the information collected with participants
• Use the breakout room function in Zoom Basic and Pro to encourage more discussion. It can sometimes be intimidating to throw out an idea on a Zoom call of 100 attendees! Using breakout rooms to create smaller discussion groups can often be a great tool to get more people engaged

Ask for Event Feedback

• At the end of the event, use a poll to gather information on how your guests enjoyed their experience