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Zoom now available

2 September 2020

Zoom is now available for UCL staff and students to use alongside our existing recommended live teaching platforms such as Blackboard Collaborate and MS Teams. Find out more.

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To support staff and students during this extended period of remote teaching, UCL has purchased an additional live online teaching platform – Zoom.

Zoom is now available for all staff and students to use alongside our existing recommended digital platforms such as Blackboard Collaborate and MS Teams. To support you in using Zoom we have produced the following guidance:

Guidance for using Zoom 

Why are we introducing Zoom? 

UCL has purchased a 12-month licence for Zoom as evidence from some staff and students suggests it can provide the best performance throughout the world, including in China.

Our teaching staff will need to choose the most suitable live teaching platform for them and their students, based on a variety of factors including their teaching requirements, the nature of the subject being taught and – critically – whether their live sessions include students who are based in China.

Existing Zoom Account holders 

If you have already registered for a Zoom account with your UCL email address, you can either transfer your account to the central UCL account to use it for UCL purposes or keep it for your own private use by changing the email address on your account to a non @ucl.ac.uk account. Transferring your account will ensure it is integrated with Moodle once this becomes live from mid-September. It will also allow you to access the benefits of the central account such as large meetings functionality (up to 300 participants) and cloud storage. 

Once you have joined the central account, you can then log on via Single Sign On using your UCL email address and password. Please visit the Zoom Support site for instructions on how to migrate your existing Zoom account to the UCL central account

Using Zoom for large scale events 

The meeting functionality in Zoom should be adequate for most staff and student needs. For individuals with a large-scale event requirement (for example several hundred participants or external speakers) there may be a need to use alterative platforms. ISD will be providing advice and guidance on the most suitable platforms based on your events requirements.

Please note: Our choice of platform for live teaching will be reviewed during 2020/21 and there is no guarantee that we will extend the Zoom licence beyond the remote teaching period.

If you have any outstanding questions about the UCL Zoom Account please get in touch.