Consider holding your course office hours virtually in Zoom, an excellent platform for personalized communication. To setup office hours in Zoom, schedule a new meeting or use a recurring meeting, and remember to enable the waiting room feature so students have guaranteed 1:1 time with their instructor.

To create a Recurring Meeting, locate the appropriate pre-scheduled meeting in Zoom, click Edit or Edit this Meeting, and check this box:

From now on, there will be one Meeting ID/link/password which can be reused for each session.

One of the main purposes of holding office hours is to provide students an opportunity to interact individually with their instructor. The waiting room feature in Zoom allows the meeting host to control when individual participants join the meeting, essentially admitting students one by one: privacy of student information being a key consideration for office hours.

To enable the Waiting Room, locate the appropriate pre-scheduled meeting in Zoom, click Edit or Edit this Meeting, and check this box:

You will see this expanded options view when accessing Settings from uoregon.zoom.us. Make sure to toggle ON the Waiting Room: Zoom Waiting Room controls

When students enter the live meeting, they will see this window:

Zoom Waiting Room please wait window

To admit students to the Zoom meeting one by one, click Manage Participants: Zoom Manage Participants button

Then, click the Admit button next to the name of a student:

Zoom Manage Participants Admit window

You may need to return students to the Waiting Room, if too many end up in the live Zoom meeting. To send a student back to the waiting room, click Manage Participants: Zoom Manage Participants button

Then, click More next to the student's name and choose Put In Waiting Room:

Zoom Waiting Room put in

Students in the Waiting Room may be wondering what's happening and when it will be their turn to speak with you. To send messages to students in the Waiting Room, click Chat to open the chat window. Select Everyone (in Waiting Room), then type and send your message: Zoom Waiting Room send message

Once the message has been sent, students will see it on the Waiting Room screen: Zoom Waiting Room message student view

For further assistance, UO Online & Canvas Support is available remotely. Please contact us by phone at (541) 346-1942, by email at uoonline@uoregon.edu, chat with us at livehelp.uoregon.edu or submit a Service Portal Ticket by clicking the Help button at the bottom of the far left Navigation menu in Canvas.

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