An important reminder: clubs who are interested in offering virtual classes should contact their insurance provider and/or governing body to confirm that their insurance covers virtual instruction and programming before proceeding.
For those clubs that are able to transition their programming and instruction online with proper insurance coverage, there are a number of companies offering virtual solutions including Skype, Webex, Zoom, and several more. From this group of companies, many clubs and businesses have been choosing to offer virtual classes using Zoom. For this reason, we wanted to share some Zoom best practices to help improve your privacy and security on this platform. If you choose a different video conferencing platform, these tips still apply so long as the platform offers comparable features.
Background About Zoom
Zoom was primarily used for virtual business meetings prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. This means many of their original default features and settings allow for open sharing between both meeting hosts and meeting attendees. In the setting of virtual athletic training classes, these default features are not always the most appropriate.
With more childrens’ services transitioning online, Zoom is taking steps to improve their privacy and security. This means Zoom best practices will continue to evolve. However, it’s still helpful to understand the features we’ve included in this article, regardless of their default setting in the future.
This article specifically focuses on preventing uninvited guests from entering your virtual class, and preventing students from taking over class, or sharing unwanted materials.
Let’s begin.
1) Do Not Publicly Share Zoom Links on Social Media
Social media is great for promoting class offerings, but it’s not a good place to share Zoom class links. Instead, direct your club members to login to a private platform, like Uplifter, in order to access your Zoom class links. This will help ensure that no unwanted guests find your class link and attempt to access your Zoom class.
2) Learn how to Remove a Participant
It’s very simple to remove an unwanted guest from your Zoom class. If you’re experiencing issues with an unwanted guest during a class, simply click the “Participants” option and hover over the name of the user you’d like to remove. Upon hovering, a list of options will appear including the “Remove” option. Click Remove.
Tip: Make sure you read Zoom best practice number 4 to find out how to prevent removed guests from re-entering your virtual class.
3) Make use of the Waiting Room
One of the best features for managing your class attendance is Zoom’s virtual waiting room. Using this feature, students who sign on before class will be placed in a separate virtual room. In this virtual room, instructors can quickly take class attendance and grant individual access for each person to join the class.
This waiting room also helps coaches or instructors to maintain a sense of control over the class, rather than showing up to a Zoom session in which kids are already practicing without supervision.
If a club’s instructors are always online before students, the waiting room can still add an extra level of security. By enabling the waiting room for “Guest Participants Only”, familiar students can skip the waiting room, while unknown guests are filtered into the waiting room area to be reviewed. This allows coaches to weed out any user who shouldn’t be there.
4) Disable Features Meant for Open Sharing
As previously mentioned, prior to the COVID-19, Zoom was primarily used by business professionals holding small meetings with other trusted business professionals. For this reason, there are built-in default sharing features that clubs will want to change or disable. These include:
- Changing screen sharing options to “Host Only” to prevent other users from sharing their screens
- Disabling the “File Transfer” feature to minimize the risk of digital virus sharing
- Disabling the “Join Before Host” feature to ensure that coaches are the first to arrive in the class
- Ensuring the “Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin” is disabled, in case an unwanted user gets access to your Zoom class and an instructor has to virtually remove them
5) Shut the Virtual Door Once Class Has Begun
Once your virtual class begins, instructors can shut the virtual door just like teachers might shut the door in a real-world school classroom. This feature in Zoom is referred to as “Locking” the meeting, and it’s an important best practice in Zoom for anyone instructing kids. In order to do this, instructors simply need to click the “Participants” icon at the bottom of the screen. Then, click “Lock Meeting” in the Participants pop-up once the class begins.
6) Grant Co-Host Access to Other Instructors or Assistants Helping with Your Class
Depending on how you plan on running your virtual classes, or how your instruction evolves as you become more familiar with Zoom, it may be helpful to assign a “Co-Host” for your Zoom class. By enabling a “Co-Host” you can allow another coach, instructor or assistant to share in moderating responsibilities.
7) Disable Zoom’s Chat Feature
Each Zoom call includes access to a chat feature. While this can be helpful in a business meeting, many instructors may find it distracting.
To prevent students from chatting or sharing links to other websites during class, it may be best to disable the chat feature.
By doing so, instructors can also prevent unwanted guests from interrupting, if they do find their way into your class.
8) Set a Password for Zoom Classes
By default, Zoom classes currently have a one-click password embedded in each meeting link. This means that when a user receives your meeting link via email, they automatically submit the password by clicking it. This offers great convenience for your students. However, it also allows unwanted guests to automatically enter your class if they find your class link.
Disable the “embed password in meeting link for one-click join” option to prevent unwanted guests from easily entering your class. When this option is disabled, users will be prompted to manually enter the password before entering.
If this is the route you choose, you may also want to update the randomly generated password for meetings. You can learn more about Zoom passwords here.
Security Allows Students to Thrive
Ultimately, this collection of Zoom best practices can allow your athletes to thrive. By creating a secure virtual environment your athletes can focus on improving their skills and building their confidence, without distractions. At a time when normal schedules have been upended, giving kids this freedom can benefit their physical and mental health.
We will continue to update our security tips and Zoom best practices as the platform adapts to their changing client-base. If you’re a clubs that is searching for software to help streamline online operations during COVID-19 outbreak, you can find out more about Uplifter’s club management software here.
