Mastering Zoom Webinar Recordings: Best Practices for Accessibility, Security, and Compliance
Video conferencing platforms like Zoom have revolutionized remote work, education, and event hosting. However, the ease of recording webinars introduces critical considerations around accessibility, privacy, security, and data retention. This article provides a comprehensive guide to best practices for Zoom webinar recordings, covering everything from initial setup to long-term storage and compliance.
Introduction
The surge in popularity of video conferencing platforms like Zoom, GoToMeeting, and Teams has transformed how we connect, collaborate, and learn remotely. While these tools offer unparalleled convenience, it's crucial to use them mindfully, especially when recording virtual meetings and webinars. Recording can be a total cost saver and lifesaver", particularly for training and legal purposes.
Understanding Zoom Recording Options
Zoom offers two primary recording options: local recording and cloud recording. Local recordings, available with all Zoom accounts, are saved directly to your device. Cloud recordings, a paid feature, are stored in the Zoom Cloud, allowing for easy viewing, sharing, and downloading. To start recording, simply press the "Record" button at the bottom of your Zoom meeting window. If cloud recording is enabled, a pop-up will appear, prompting you to choose between Cloud or Local recording. Cloud recording offers high-quality recordings accessible from mobile devices and Zoom Rooms, as well as desktops. You can find your cloud recordings by logging in to your account at zoom.us/signin and clicking on "My Recordings".
Key Considerations Before Recording
Before initiating a recording, carefully consider the necessity and purpose. Ask yourself: "When hosting a meeting, consider whether you need to record and why". Recording without a specific reason increases liability and risk. This risk includes the possibility of public interpretation or misinterpretation of any verbal exchange at the meeting.
Legal and Ethical Obligations
Be mindful of laws related to recordings, such as Washington’s two-party consent requirements for private conversations (RCW 9.73.030). UW recommends against recording staff or one-on-one conversations. When recordings include students or members of the public, obtain consent from all participants or, at a minimum, notify all attendees that the event is being recorded.
Read also: Comprehensive Zoom Webinar Guide
Accessibility Considerations
Ensure recordings are accessible to all participants, including those with disabilities. Provide accurate captions and transcripts.
Optimizing Zoom Settings for Secure Recordings
Several Zoom settings can enhance the security and privacy of your webinar recordings.
Waiting Rooms
Activate the Waiting Room feature to screen participants and prevent unwanted guests from joining. Disable the option "to allow participants to join before the host when scheduling meetings".
Meeting Passcodes
Always enable a strong, unique meeting passcode and share it only with authorized participants. Assign co-hosts "to help manage larger meetings".
File Sharing
Disable or limit in-meeting file transfers unless required for collaboration, as unexpected files may contain harmful content.
Read also: How to Host a Zoom Webinar
Secure Connections
Always join meetings from secure networks and avoid using public Wi-Fi. If possible, require that participants be signed into Zoom.
Recording Notifications
A recording notification and consent pop-up will appear to any person participating in a meeting that is being recorded on a JHU-hosted Zoom account.
Managing and Storing Zoom Recordings
Effective management and storage of Zoom recordings are essential for compliance and accessibility.
Naming Conventions
After the meeting has ended, Zoom will process the recording. By default, the audio/video file (MP4) will be named Zoom_0.mp4.
Storage Locations
Transfer the recording to an enduring, shared location (such as a departmental network drive or OneDrive for Business).
Read also: Audience Limits in Zoom Webinars
Organization
Organize recordings into folders by type of meeting. Include the event/meeting name and date in the file/subfolder name so that the recording can be found, if needed, as well as identified for deletion once the appropriate retention period is up.
Retention Policies
Understand and adhere to University record retention policies. As a result of the automated deletion policies, the responsibility of the management of the meeting materials comes down to the Host, CoHost, Alternate Host, or a delegated participant from the meeting. These users should review the automated deletion policies set forth in the Zoom Cloud in conjunction with our UW Record Retention Policies and determine the type of meeting that took place, the function of what that meeting was for, and determine if the materials need to be downloaded and retained before the automated deletion policies purge records from the Zoom cloud.
UW Medicine and School of Medicine
School of Medicine & UW Medicine Employees will have their Zoom Cloud recordings and transcripts deleted after 30 days.
Standard Zoom Cloud Deletion
Recordings are created and then stored in the Zoom cloud. These recordings will be deleted automatically 120 days after the meeting is recorded. Deleted recordings are moved to Zoom Trash, where they are stored for 30 days and can be retrieved during this time. After that point, recordings are no longer accessible. If enabled, the recording transcript will follow the same trajectory as the meeting recording video files.
Deletion
Remove the meeting from the recording list on the Zoom client.
Utilizing Zoom AI Companion Features
Zoom also offers Zoom AI Companion features to help improve productivity and collaboration.
AI Companion Transcripts
When AI Companion is enabled by the host, a transcript of the meeting is generated and stored in the host’s zoom cloud. The AI-generated transcript will be automatically deleted 120 days after the meeting closed. School of Medicine & UW Medicine Employees will have their Zoom Cloud recordings and transcripts deleted after 30 days.
Meeting Summary with AI Companion
The AI generated meeting summary, if enabled by the Host, will be available to the Host in the Zoom Cloud for 30 days. The meeting summary artifact is a transitory record and an imperfect account of the meeting. It is not a replacement for a meeting recording or formalized meeting minutes. The summary can be used to help the host generate formal meeting minutes if needed or serve a short-term reference for the host, but it will be destroyed 30 days after the meeting has occurred.
Asking In-Meeting Questions with AI Companion
When a host enables this feature during a meeting, participants can type questions to the AI chat bot. The queries posted by participants and the responses received will be deleted at the close of the meeting. These messages are considered transitory and do not need to be retained locally by participants using the feature.
AI Smart Recording
When enabled, this allows for recordings to sliced and diced into sections. School of Medicine & UW Medicine Employees will have their Zoom Cloud recordings and transcripts deleted after 30 days.
AI Companion for Team Chat
UW Zoom users can summarize lengthy chats conducted outside of meetings. Thread summary can be enabled on your Zoom AI settings page.
Best Practices for Specific Scenarios
The versatility of online meeting platforms allows us to hold online meetings for a variety of different workplace purposes. It is the function and content of a recorded meeting which determines how long the recording must be retained.
Graduations and Other Events
Retain for 6 years after the end of the calendar year then transfer the recording to University Archives.
Educational Settings and FERPA Compliance
If an instructor chooses to record Zoom sessions in which students’ participation may be captured, they should do so in accordance with the following guidelines to minimize recording identifiable student participation as required by FERPA policy:
- Disable the “record gallery view” option and enable the “record active speaker with shared screen” option in order to only record those who speak during the session.
- Notify students beforehand that Zoom sessions will be recorded - i.e. in the course syllabus.
- Remind students at the beginning of the class (either orally or using a slide) that the session will be recorded, and their options for opting-out of identification in the recording.
- Consider offering to pause the recording when students participate to avoid capturing their audio and video.
- Delete recordings of identifiable student participation, including complementary files (e.g. transcript, chat logs) and Zoom recordings hosted on other platforms (e.g. Panopto), as soon as your obligations to your students allow. Deletion by 120 days after the last day of the course is recommended unless the recording is subject to a litigation hold as directed by the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel.
- Disable the “local recording” option. For most instructors, recordings should be kept in the cloud and not downloaded to a local computer.
- Access to class recordings must be limited to students in the class for educational review purposes.
- Faculty should include a statement on the syllabus or communicate in an equivalent method to all students in the class, “Class meetings recorded by the instructor may be shared with students in the class for instructional purposes related to this class.
Students may opt-out from identification in the recording by muting their audio, not enabling video, and not typing in the chat window. No. Instructors cannot not insist upon student participation that reveals identifying information during recorded sessions. Yes, you may share a class recording with the students enrolled in the course, including enrolled students not in attendance during the class meeting. Include a statement on the course syllabus or communicate in an equivalent method to all students in the class, “Class meetings recorded by the instructor may be shared with students in the class for instructional purposes related to this class. The answer depends on whether students are identifiable in the recording. If students are not identifiable in the recording, then the recording may be shared. If students are identifiable, then class recordings, transcriptions, and chat logs are considered student records under FERPA, and access must be limited to students in the class for educational review purposes.
Roles and Responsibilities
Host Responsibility
These users should review the automated deletion policies set forth in the Zoom Cloud in conjunction with our UW Record Retention Policies and determine the type of meeting that took place, the function of what that meeting was for, and determine if the materials need to be downloaded and retained before the automated deletion policies purge records from the Zoom cloud.
Other Meeting Participant Responsibility
Other meeting participants may not have access to artifacts created after the meeting has closed. Even if they have shared access to the materials, per the Meeting Materials - Attendees’ Copies record series, these member copies of materials are not required to be downloaded and retained for legal retention purposes. The official copy retained for the legal retention period should be handled by the Host/CoHost/Alternate Host or delegate. If general participants of the meeting are given access and choose to download the records, they should be promptly purged as soon as the reference purpose has been served.
Troubleshooting Recording Issues
If the meeting unexpectedly shuts down or if the conversion process is interrupted, the recording files could become corrupted and non-recoverable.
Zoom AI Companion
The Zoom AI Companion is an intelligent virtual assistant integrated within the Zoom platform, designed to enhance meeting experiences. Meeting hosts can streamline their meetings by automating tasks such as note-taking and follow-up actions. When the AI Companion is enabled in a meeting, a popup window will advise participants of the usage of the tool, prompting them to accept or leave the meeting. Meeting participants are identified in the meeting summary by first name.
tags: #zoom #webinar #record #best #practices
