Web Conferences Large Meetings Best Practices

Best Practices for scheduling Large Meetings (interactive web conferences) with 50 or more participants. This includes WebEx Meetings and Zoom Meetings.

For very large meetings, with 50-300 participants who may be invited to speak during the meeting, there are some settings that the meeting scheduler ("Host" by default) can choose to help the meeting go more smoothly.

Meeting administration

A meeting of this size should have have a minimum of three people administering the meeting throughout. The roles of these three people are:
  • the main presenter
  • someone to exclusively moderate the chat
  • someone to exclusively manage the mics
If the format of the meeting includes a panel or changing between many speakers without a predetermined order, there should be an additional person filling the role of panel moderator.

If participants are predicted to have a great deal of technical difficulty with mics and general platform use, a person should be assigned to fill the role of tech support. This would be a second chat moderator who fields and follows up via email for all tech assistance problems. However, if one web conferencing platform is adopted and used for all web conferencing needs, collective familiarity with the platform will grow and support needs will quickly taper.

Alternate Hosts

When inviting people to the meeting from within the scheduling interface, the Host can designate one or more of these people as Alternate Hosts. Alternate Hosts can start the meeting if the main scheduler/Host does not, which is a useful backup in the event someone had technical difficulties and could not start the meeting early or on time. The screenshots below include Alternate Hosts for each platform.

Recommended Scheduling Options

To access the recommended settings below when scheduling a meeting, use the browser or native client to schedule. The outlook/calendar plugins may not grant access to the "advanced" scheduling options shown below:

WebEx

Access the full meeting scheduler at:
uichicago.webex.com

For general meeting scheduling information, see this ACCC documentation. For Large Meetings, specific settings recommendations continue below screenshot:
WebEx Schedule Large Meeting Recommended Settings
  • Attendees: Input email addresses of the participants you are designated for the meeting administration roles described at the top. People with accounts will appear as possible choices as you type. When they are selected, the name appears below the "Attendees" field. Each "Attendee" there can be made an "Alternate Host" if the little blue head following their name is clicked. If no head is available to click, that person does not currently have an active UIC WebEx Meetings account. See ACCC documentation on activating a WebEx account .
  • Select "Show advanced options", then "Audio connection options"
    • For "Entry and exit tone" be sure to change the drop-down option to "No Tone". This is very important.
There are many other settings available, including to automatically record meetings, and disable some features for participants, but which of these is best will vary depending on your individual meeting situation. The above settings are recommended for ALL large meetings.

Zoom

Access the full meeting scheduler at:
uic.zoom.us

For general meeting scheduling information, see this ACCC documentation. For Large Meetings, specific settings recommendations continue below screenshot:

Recommended Zoom Schedule Large Meeting Settings
  • Choose "Advanced Options" at the bottom of the default scheduling window to see the options described here.
    • DISABLE Waiting Room by unchecking the box
    • DISABLE join before host by unchecking the box
    • ENABLE Mute participants on entry
    • Use the "Alternative Hosts" field to input email addresses of the participants you are designated for the meeting administration roles described at the top. After you "Schedule" the meeting with the button at the bottom of the window, any email addresses that do NOT correspond to Zoom accounts in the UIC domain will be indicated with a red X below that field.
There are many other settings available, including to automatically record meetings, and only allow authenticated users to join (if at all possible, enable this setting!), but which of these is best will vary depending on your individual meeting situation. The above specified settings are recommended for ALL large meetings.


KeywordsWebEx Zoom Webinar Online Remote Distance Dial-in Phone Laptop Mobile Computer Live Synchronous   Doc ID100234
OwnerCharity C.GroupUniversity of Illinois College of Medicine
Created2020-04-07 22:52:46Updated2020-04-08 08:33:18
SitesUniversity of Illinois College of Medicine
Feedback  0   0