Academic Advising Using Zoom

DRAFT - This guidance models a physician's office. Service providers are located in specific 'locations', those requiring service arrive to a waiting area and there is someone that serves as the central point-of-contact for both groups, moving those requiring service to providers.  This point-of-contact is in place during the entire time that service is being provided.

Student academic advising sessions can be held using Zoom as the 'meeting place' for advisors and students. All attendees will initially enter a waiting room for the advising space. The meeting host will allow the advisors to enter the main meeting room, create a breakout room for each, and then assign advisors to a room. The host will then have students move from the waiting room to the main meeting room at which point the host will move students into the appropriate breakout room to meet with their advisor. (The meeting host, or whoever has that role in the meeting, will be the only person able to manage breakout room use.) The session host, advisors and students should arrive at the appropriate time with knowledge of the relevant schedule information - host has a master schedule, advisors have their schedule of advisees and students have a scheduled time with their advisor.

1.  Create Zoom session, enabling the 'Waiting Room' feature.

Prior to the advising session, the meeting host logs in to lehigh.zoom.us using their Lehigh credentials, and provides an event title, description, date, and time. Be sure to enable the 'Waiting Room' and add an alternative host if that person will be joining the session to manage the breakout rooms. Alternative hosts will receive an email from the meeting creator with the link to join in the host role. The regular 'Invite link' can be shared with advisors and advisees.

2. The host will start the advising Zoom session in advance of the advisors.

The meeting host will start the session in advance of the advisors and students. As advisors arrive to the session, they will be placed into a waiting room. The host can bring all advisors from the waiting room into the main advising session for discussion or questions prior to the arrival of students or admit them selectively. Additional information on using the Zoom waiting room can be found here. Scroll to 'Using Waiting Room.'

3. The host will create a breakout room for each advisor.

Using the 'Breakout Rooms' feature at the bottom of the Zoom window, the host can create automatically create a breakout room for each adviser. (Make the assignment of one participant into the number of rooms that equals the number of advisers.) There will now be a series of breakout rooms, each with an advisor waiting to meet with a student. Additional information on managing Zoom breakout rooms can be found here.

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4. As students arrive to the advising session, they will be placed into a waiting room. 

The host can bring all students from the waiting room into the main advising session for discussion or questions or admit them selectively.

5. The host will move each student to the breakout room in which their advisor is located.

While in the breakout room, the advisor and student can share video, audio and shared screens.

6. The host remains in the main session.

While advisors and advisees are in the breakout rooms, the host can broadcast a message to all rooms or use the 'Chat' feature to send a message to a specific room, as needed.

7. At the end of the allotted time, the host can bring a student back to the main advising space. 

The student can then leave the advising session. The host can continue to move new students arriving to the advising session into breakout rooms as described above. 

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