Zoom Virtual Office Hours

Zoom Virtual Office Hours

There are two main ways you can schedule a Zoom Virtual Office Hours session:

From Zoom website https://csus.zoom.us/
From Canvas – Zoom page

Schedule Online Office Hours from the Zoom Website

We recommend that you schedule your virtual office hours Zoom session outside of Canvas. This way the session isn’t tied to one specific course/section. This entails three main steps:

Schedule your virtual office hours from the Zoom website https://csus.zoom.us/
Copy the Invite/Join URL (meeting link) of the session
Post the meeting link in your Canvas courses, on your syllabus, as an announcement or in a module.

Steps to Schedule the Session on Zoom Website

Login to Zoom at https://csus.zoom.us/
Click on Meetings from the panel on the left.
Select the “Schedule a Meeting” button.
In the Topic field, enter a name for your session (i.e. Virtual Office Hours).
In the When area, select the first day when your office hours will take place, (i.e. Sept. 1st), then select the start time for your office hours (i.e. 1pm).
In the Duration section, select the amount of hours and/or minutes your office hours will usually take (i.e. 2 hrs).
Select the Recurring meeting checkbox.
In the Recurrence dropdown, select “No Fixed Time” Leave the Meeting ID as “Generate Automatically”.
Next to Security, select Waiting Room (this should be enabled by default). This setting places students into a “Waiting room” when they join the session, and you can admit them to speak with them one by one or as needed.
Leave the video/audio setting as is.
Meeting options – select mute participants upon entry, uncheck the “automatically record meeting” option.
Click Save.
On the meeting summary page, locate the Invite Link and copy it.
Paste this link in every Canvas course syllabus page, create an announcement or post on a page in a Module.

Instructor access to Virtual Office Hours

To access your Virtual Office Hours as a host, from your Canvas course follow these steps:

Open any of your current term Canvas courses.
From the course menu, select Zoom.
From the Zoom page, click the "All My Zoom Meetings/Recordings" link on the top right of the page
This will list all of your Zoom sessions, scheduled both outside (via Zoom website) and within Canvas.
Locate your Virtual Office Hours meeting you scheduled.
Click the Start button to the right of the session name to launch the session.

Schedule Online Office Hours from a Canvas Course

You can schedule your virtual office hours Zoom session from a Canvas course. However, to make it available to all students in every class, you will need to copy the Join URL (meeting link) and post it in your other Canvas courses. This entails three main steps:

From the Zoom page in a Canvas course, schedule the session.
Obtain and copy the Invite Link for the session.
Post the session link in your other Canvas courses – on the syllabus, in an announcement or in a module.

Steps to Schedule the Session from Canvas

Open your current term Canvas course where you would like to schedule the Zoom virtual office hours session.
Select the Zoom link from the course menu.
Click the Schedule a New Meeting button on the top right.
In the Topic field, enter a name for your session (i.e. Virtual Office Hours).
In the When area, select the first day when your office hours will take place, (i.e. Sept. 1st), then select the start time for your office hours (i.e. 1pm).
In the Duration section, select the amount of hours and/or minutes your office hours will usually take (i.e. 2 hrs).
Select the Recurring meeting checkbox.
In the Recurrence dropdown, select “No Fixed Time”.
Next to Security, select Waiting Room (this should be enabled by default). This setting places students into a “Waiting room” when they join the session, and you can admit them to speak with them one by one or as needed.
Leave the video/audio setting as is.
Meeting options – select mute participants upon entry, uncheck the “automatically record meeting” option.
Click Save.
On the meeting summary page, locate the Invite Attendees section and copy the Join URL.
Paste this link in every Canvas course - on the syllabus page, create an announcement or post on a page in a Module.

Instructor access to Virtual Office Hours

To access your Virtual Office Hours as a host, from your Canvas course follow these steps:

Open any of your current term Canvas courses.
From the course menu, select Zoom.
From the Zoom page, click the "All My Zoom Meetings/Recordings" link on the top right of the page.
This will list all of your Zoom sessions, scheduled both outside (via Zoom website) and within Canvas.
Locate your Virtual Office Hours meeting you scheduled.
Click the Start button to the right of the session name to launch the session.

Sharing your Zoom Meeting Link in a Secure and Accessible Manner

If you need to post/share your course Zoom meeting link or Personal Zoom Meeting link on a Website or Canvas page, please do so in an Accessible and secure manner through the use of a Descriptive label/link. Descriptive links provide a textual description/label for the content/page that the URL will open. Avoid using “Click Here” or the Zoom URL on its own.

Descriptive Links are important because they provide information about the content that will open prior to clicking on the link. For students who use screen readers, it minimizes uncertainty about what a hyperlink will open because the description provides context. In addition, screen reader users can pull up a list of available hyperlinks in the document and if you have used descriptive labels instead, they will hear the descriptive labels you have used for each of your links. This simplifies the process to choose what link to visit and also provides some context of the content they are about to open.

Imagine including 10+ URL's on a document or website and hearing "H T T P colon backslash w w w dot sacramento state dot com". Imagine hearing this more than ten times?! Make a habit of using a descriptive label for your Zoom links. Instead of using your long join URL, replace it with a label e.g. "Professor Doe's Zoom Meeting Room". This will make your link accessible and secure it from potential hackers spying for open URL's they can store/access.

How to Create Descriptive Links in Canvas
How to Create Descriptive Links in Word
How to Create Descriptive Links in Websites

Need More Help?

Request support from the Academic Technology Services: servicedesk@csus.edu