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Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing solution that enables faculty, staff and students to collaborate, teach and learn from anywhere. The service is used for online teaching, training, remote support, audio calls and meetings.
Zoom is available to all Aims faculty, staff and students when logging in with their Aims email address using the ‘Sign In with Google’ option. This provides a basic (free) license of Zoom. Students may request a paid license by submitting a support ticket.
You may be required to sign in to Zoom with your Aims account to access a meeting or meeting recording. The steps below will explain how to sign in using Aims single sign-on (SSO) or your Aims Google account.
1. Launch the Zoom App
2. Click "Sign In with SSO"
3. Enter "aimscommunitycollege" if it is not already populated. Click "Continue."
4. Enter your Aims username and password. Click "LOGIN."
1. Go to Aims Zoom
2. Click "Sign in"
3. Enter your Aims username and password. Click "LOGIN".
4. You are now signed in to the Zoom portal!
1. Launch the Zoom App
2. Click "Sign In with Google"
3. Enter your Aims email address. Click "Next."
4. Enter your password. Click "Next".
5. Click "Open" if prompted
Zoom meetings involving counseling or personal health information (PHI) require a special license. Please contact the IT Help Desk to request a license.
Zoom Webinar offers a more controlled environment ideal for large meetings and public events. Webinars are generally used to host large meetings and public events where the meeting link is shared with others outside of Aims. Zoom Webinars are “view-only” meetings where attendees enter the meeting in listen-only mode and do not interact with one another by default. They can only see the host’s video and screen share. Hosts can control who sees attendee chat submissions and use Q&A and polling features which allow hosts to manage and share attendee input after previewing it to make sure it’s acceptable.
Explore the differences between a Zoom Meeting and Webinar.
Zoom Webinar licenses are a premium service and must be requested through a Help Desk Ticket.
Zoom is a powerful video conferencing solution that allows people around the world to connect virtually. However, if not configured and secured appropriately, Zoom can easily be abused by uninvited participants and hackers resulting in a disrupted meeting and an embarrassing or offensive situation.
In order to keep your Zoom meetings secure and free of uninvited people, never post the meeting link, meeting ID or passcode publicly such as to a website that does not require authentication or on social media. Meeting information should be shared through authenticated means only such as Aims email or the D2L portal.
“Zoombombing” is the term for when individuals “gate-crash” Zoom meetings. These uninvited guests share their screens or video feed to disturb real attendees with bothersome material including pornographic or violent content. These acts are often perpetrated via Zoom links that have been made public.
Public Meeting Disclaimer: Public Zoom meetings are highly discouraged because the risk of Zoombombing is significantly higher. If you must make your meeting public, please require registration and manually approve the registrants to ensure each participant is thoroughly screened. It is the meeting organizer’s responsibility to ensure that their meeting is adequately configured to avoid misuse.
We recommend using Zoom Webinar for public events as they offer a more controlled environment. Please see the “Large Meetings & Public Events” heading above for more information.
Do not record meetings that involve confidential data or FERPA protected information as this data is not approved to be stored in the Zoom cloud service. Consult Aims Information Security if you have a need to record this type of meeting.
While Zoombombing disruptions often take the form of profanity, hate speech, or pornography, they have also been known to include threats. If you receive threats during a Zoom meeting, please notify Aims Campus Safety & Security immediately.
If you are the victim of Zoombombing, please report it by emailing the Aims Information Technology department.
Please include the following information:
We encourage you to take steps in advance of a session to make it harder for uninvited guests to break into your session, using the recommendations outlined above. You can also utilize the following Zoom security resources:
Best Practices for Securing Your Zoom Meetings - a walk-through guide on the various security settings for virtual meetings.
Best Practices for Securing Your Virtual Classroom - This excellent Zoom blog gives advice for those using Zoom for remote teaching.
The settings below will help you get the most out of your Zoom meetings while protecting yourself, meeting participants and the college from online misuse. We recommend using as many of these options as you reasonably can to protect your meetings.
Ensure you have the latest version of Zoom. This will protect you from software vulnerabilities and ensure you have the latest features.
Since Zoom meeting passcodes are embedded in the meeting link, ANYONE with the link can join your meeting. For this reason, it is very important to never post a meeting link publicly like on social media or a website that does not require authentication. Meeting information should be shared through authenticated means only such as Aims email or D2L.
By requiring a meeting passcode (password), you’re able to prevent others from guessing your meeting ID. Simply check ‘Passcode’ when scheduling a meeting and specify a strong passcode that is not easily guessed.
Since the passcode is embedded in the meeting link, only participants joining without the meeting link will be prompted for the passcode. For this reason, requiring a passcode is ineffective in protecting against Zoombombing if the link was publicly shared.
It is also important to note that if you change the passcode on an existing meeting, the meeting link will be updated since the new passcode is embedded in the link. This means that you will need to provide your participants with the new meeting link, otherwise they will be prompted for the passcode if they use the old link to join.
Have control over when participants can join the meeting by enabling the Waiting Room feature. The meeting host can admit attendees one by one, or hold all attendees in the virtual waiting room and admit them all at the same time.
While the Waiting Room feature is an excellent safeguard when you know exactly who should be in the meeting, it’s nearly impossible to know who should or should not be a participant if the link is shared publicly.
You can require all participants to be signed in to a Zoom account before joining the meeting using the following instructions:
It may be helpful to advise participants in advance when using this setting since some may not be accustomed to signing in to Zoom meetings. Anyone with an Aims account may click on “Sign in with Google” and enter their Aims email address.
You can configure your meeting so individuals can't attend unless they have registered.
Participants register for meetings through a custom URL that Zoom generates for you. To register, participants must provide their first name, last name, and email address. Participants won't be able to join unless their name and email address matches the information they initially provided when registering.
This feature is particularly useful for larger meetings or ones that may have members from the public. See the "public meetings" section below for more information.
When Join Before Host is enabled, the first person who joins the meeting will automatically be made the host and will have full control over the meeting. While this can be convenient for allowing the meeting to proceed if you’re not available to start it, it also represents a privacy and security risk. We recommend disabling this option, or assigning an alternative host.
Limiting screen sharing to the host prevents guests from accidentally or intentionally (see Zoombombing above) sharing inappropriate material. While in your meeting, click the up arrow next to Share Screen and select Advanced Sharing Options. Under who can share, click Only Host.
We recommend locking your meeting once all your attendees have joined. This prevents the risk of unwanted participants joining a meeting in progress.
Unlock the meeting following these same steps.
If you discover an unwanted attendee in your meeting use the following instructions:
To mute a participant:
To disable a participant's video feed:
Zoom prohibits children and teens under the age of 16 from creating a Zoom account, although they can still use their Aims account to sign in to the meeting. For this to happen, the meeting host must set up the meeting to require authentication using Aims single sign-on using the steps below. This will prevent students from having to create a Zoom account and, instead, use their Aims account.
1. Sign in to Zoom.
2. Select an existing meeting or schedule a new meeting.
3. In the Security selection, ensure Require authentication to join is enabled and select Aims single sign-on users.
4. Save the meeting
You receive the following error message when attempting to view a Zoom recording: ”You cannot view this recording. No permission.”
The default setting for cloud recordings in Zoom requires viewers to sign in to their Aims Zoom account to view any recorded Zoom meeting. Viewers may also receive the error message even if they’re signed in with their Aims email address. This is because the account was originally signed up for through Zoom, rather than signing in through Aims.
Please follow the steps below to fix the problem.
1. Within your web browser, go to https://aimscommunitycollege.zoom.us. The page should look similar to the image below. If it does not, try opening the page in an incognito or private browser window.
2. Click on Sign in
3. Sign in with your Aims username and password.
4. Click Confirm your email address.
5. Check your Aims email. You should see an email similar to the one below. Click Switch to the new account.
6. Review and then click I Acknowledge and Switch.
7. Click Sign In to Profile Page.
8. You should now be able to view the recording.
Cloud-based services like Zoom are continuously and often rapidly changing to meet customer needs. Because of this, we’ve provided a number of Zoom support pages below to help you get the most out of the solution.