Using Zoom
While face-to-face meetings are often the preferred method of communication, with the Arboretum’s flexible work arrangements and increased collaboration with outside partners, sometimes meeting in person is not possible. To facilitate the Arboretum’s continued growth, we’ve invested in Zoom, a web conferencing tool. With Zoom, you can share both video and your screen with others across multiple devices, including mobile phones and tablets.
We also have the ability to display live captioning during Zoom meetings using a tool called Otter on our shared, institutional Pro accounts. This feature can make live presentations more accessible for all participants! This document explains more about how to use Otter.
Joining a Zoom Meeting:
If you’re invited to a Zoom meeting, you don’t need to have a Zoom account! Simply click on the link you’re given and follow the on-screen instructions. It will be helpful to make sure your computer, tablet, or phone has a good internet connection and working speakers / microphone.
Hosting One-on-One Meetings:
Anyone can create a “basic” Zoom account. This allows you to have unlimited one-on-one meetings and group meetings for 40 minutes or less. To create a personal Zoom account:
- Go to the Morton Arboretum Zoom Sign-In Page.
- Click on the blue “Sign In” button.
- Choose the “Sign in with Google” button.
- Select your mortonarb gmail account.
- You will then be automatically logged into your own personal Zoom account.
Hosting Meetings with Two or More Participants:
If your meeting will last less than 40 minutes, you can actually just use a personal Zoom account (see above).
If your meeting will be longer than that, you can take advantage of the Arboretum’s “Pro” accounts. Each division has access to a shared, business Pro account. As a shared account, when scheduling it is critical to make sure time slots are not double-booked. It is not possible to have two concurrent meetings on the same account. If the meeting time slot you need is already booked, please contact IT to see if you may use another account. These Pro accounts allow you to:
- Organize and manage video meetings for up to 300 participants wherever internet is available, from any type of device (including smartphones and tablets)
- Broadcast video, share your screen, or chat with participants
- Share presenter rights to allow other people to show their screens and engage the other participants
- Record meetings, which can then be stored in the cloud with automated transcription so you can search for key words and jump to that section
- Integrate with our online learning management system (Arborversity / Tree Learning) so that external learners can have the opportunity to communicate in real-time with instructors and classmates for class meetings, instructor virtual office hours, as well as potentially interact with guest lecturers from around the world.
Staff who currently use individual web conferencing accounts (e.g. Skype, GoToMeeting, Uberconference, etc.) for smaller meetings may continue to do so and just use the new shared Zoom accounts when increased meeting capacity is needed.
To get access to your division’s shared Zoom account, contact ithelpdesk@mortonarb.org.
Still have questions about what account to use? Check out this decision tree.
Secure and conduct your zoom meetings safely by taking these precautionary steps. Zoom has enhanced its default security as of April 5, 2020.
For more information, see Getting Started with Zoom
Zoom FAQs, Zoom Live Captioning with Otter, and Using Arboretum Virtual Backgrounds.
Zoom also has a number of helpful videos on YouTube to help you get started.