Stanford
Teaching Commons

Zoom

Zoom is a video conferencing tool for facilitating remote learning, collaboration, and community engagement. 

Zoom enables faculty to deliver lectures and conduct discussions in real-time, while also allowing for virtual office hours, research meetings, and student organization activities. The platform supports  interaction through screen sharing and breakout rooms. 

Stanford UIT provides campus-wide access to Zoom web conferencing for current Stanford University faculty, staff, students, members of the Stanford health care community, or other users with base or fully sponsored SUNet IDs. 

Launch Stanford Zoom

Zoom features

Features include: 

  • High-quality video, audio, and screen sharing
  • Device and OS parity: the same features and functionality are available on laptops and desktop PCs (Windows and Mac) and mobile devices
  • 50TB of shared cloud storage for recorded meetings for the Stanford community, with no expiration date
  • Chat and virtual presence functionality
  • Options for closed captioning and live transcription
  • Mobile collaboration with co-annotation
  • Whiteboard, note-taking, and survey functionality
  • Up to 500 attendees can participate in Zoom meetings
  • Webinar license accounts are available by request. From 1,000 to 5,000 webinar attendees can participate, depending on the chosen license option.
  • Zoom Rooms for video conferencing, wireless content sharing, and integrated audio for hybrid meetings
  • H.323/SIP room systems integration (See important note)
  • Toll-free number for Zoom participants in the United States, the Caribbean, or Canada

Zoom AI Companion

Zoom's AI Companion introduces a range of features for meetings and communications, including meeting summaries, asking in-meeting summaries, and smart recording. These features are not automatically enabled on Stanford Zoom clients. To enable them, visit the Stanford Zoom web portal and follow the linked instructions.

The university approves the use of Zoom AI Companion in accordance with the GenAI Tool Evaluation Matrix but advises against third-party bots due to privacy and data security concerns. For more information, refer to Stanford’s Responsible AI guide.

Visit UIT's Zoom AI Companion webpage for more details about this feature.

Getting started with Zoom

To use Zoom, you must install the Zoom application for your device. Go to the Zoom Download Center, or stanford.zoom.us, and click Download in the footer. It’s a good idea to install that software ahead of time so it doesn’t delay your first meeting; however, if you haven’t yet done that, Zoom will automatically start downloading the application to your device. Install the application to start your meeting.

When you log into Zoom, always choose the single sign-on option. If you’ve inadvertently set up your account with an alias email address instead of using the Stanford email address (that’s your SUNet ID followed by @stanford.edu), update your Zoom account for single sign-on by submitting a help request.

For more details, go to log in to Zoom for the first time.

Zoom integration with Canvas

The Canvas-Zoom integration allows instructors to schedule online meetings from within Canvas, and is available in all Canvas sites. 

To schedule a Canvas Zoom meeting:

  1. Click Zoom from your course navigation. If you don't see Zoom, you can enable it by going to your course, then Settings > Navigation.
  2. Your Zoom account should be automatically provided.
    • If you see an error message, refresh the page and try again as the auto-provisioning may have a lag.
      If you continue to see an error, manually install the Zoom software and log in for the first time by going to stanford.zoom.us and clicking Download in the header.
  3. In Canvas, click Schedule a New Meeting.
  4. Enter the meeting settings:
    • Topic: the title of your meeting
    • When: date and time of the meeting
    • Duration: total amount of time the meeting will run for (you can enter a meeting early)
    • Recurring meeting: meetings that will be used more than once in the course (e.g., weekly discussion meetings)
    • Registration: leave unchecked
    • Security: "Passcode" is selected. It’s also recommended that you select "Only authenticated members can join meetings".
    • Video Host/Participant: select whether you'd like your/your participants' video to be automatically turned on or off
  5. Meeting options:
    • We recommend NOT selecting "Enable join before host"
    • We recommend NOT selecting "Use Personal Meeting ID"
    • Breakout Room Preassign. You can add students individually when you create rooms, as long as they can authenticate into Stanford with their stanford.edu account.
  6. If you'd like automatic recordings of the meeting, select "Record the meeting automatically" and save the recording in the cloud.
  7. Once processed, all Zoom cloud recordings are made available to students within the Canvas Zoom tool and are imported into Panopto Course Videos.
  8. Alternative Host: You can add the official (non-alias) stanford.edu email of any teaching team member you’d like to be able to start the meeting to the Alternative Hosts text box.
  9. Click Save. You will now see the conference appear under Upcoming Meetings. 

See the Canvas Help article, Create Zoom meetings in Canvas, for more information regarding student notifications and web portal settings.  

UIT Zoom training resources

UIT provides resources on how to use Zoom effectively:

Canvas Zoom resources 

Questions?

UIT Zoom support

Canvas Zoom support

Email our Canvas Support team directly at canvashelp@stanford.edu for technical support. They will respond to your help request by the next business day.

Click Help in the left-hand side global navigation within Canvas to:

Canvas integration

  • Canvas optional

Tool type

  • Video & Video conferencing

Generative AI

  • Includes AI features

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