Chairing a meeting

A meeting can have up to 300 participants. If you are planning an event for more than 300, we recommend a webinar as an alternative. Read about the difference between a meeting and a webinar.

Let participants in from the waiting room, lock the meeting, appoint co-hosts

• If the meeting has a waiting room, remember to let the participants in from there. See more about the waiting room.
• If you want to lock the meeting so that no one else can enter after the meeting is opened, do so. For more information on locking a meeting, see Avoiding unwanted participants.
• If you have co-hosts in the meeting, remember to appoint them. Read more about Host / co-host/ alternative host.

Welcome the participants, and tell them about the meeting rules

When you open the meeting and welcome the participants, it is always a good idea to tell what kind of rules you want to be observed. For example, that all should mute the microphone when not talking, that you have video on, that you raise your hand if you wish to speak and whether breakoutrooms or other is planned. If you want the participants to use chat, you can also say so, and tell how they find the chat.

Recording the meeting/lecture?

• If you are going to record the meeting, you must say so before you start recording. Remember UiO's regulations for streaming and recording.
• Also read UiO's guide on Recording in Zoom for the correct settings and advice, in particular step 3, Start your meeting.

Let those who raise their hand, speak, and keep order

To see if anyone is asking to speak, click Participants at the bottom of the Zoom window. The list of participants opens, and those who to speak have a blue hand icon next to them. When you want to let somebody speak, say their name and for example "Please", and click on the hand icon to deactivate it. If you do not do this (or if the participant does not do it himself), the hand icon will still appear after the participant has finished speaking.

Large meetings – consider using co-hosts

If it is a large meeting/lecture or an event, you should consider having helpers in the form of co-hosts who can also see who is asking to speak and what is happening in the chat. There is a lot to keep track of in a large meeting, both of a professional and technical nature.

See more about co-hosts:

• Co-hosting
• Host / co-host/ alternative host

Share content /share screen

A host can share screen to show a presentation or other content. If others than the host should share screen, they must be made co-hosts. When you are the host of the meeting, you can either agree in advance who should be able to share a screen, or you can give rights during the meeting. Only grant screen sharing rights (co-host privilege) to participants you know. This is how you ensure that unwanted content is not shared.

Turn microphone and video on and off

If there are more than 3 participants in the meeting, everyone should have their microphone off (muted) so as not to disturb the other participants with sounds, eg typing on the keyboard, or background noises. Participants can turn the microphone on and off themselves, but if they forget to turn it off when they are not speaking and on when to speak, you as host can turn it on and off by clicking on the microphone icon at page of the name in the Participants list. You can also turn video off for a participant if the video is disturbing or unwanted. If you want all participants to be shown, you can turn on video for those who have it switched off. Before turning on video, you should always alert the participants.

Long meeting?

Long meetings can be successfully broken up with breaks, polls, breakout rooms and other activities. You should plan activities in advance, and alert participants before sending them to breakout rooms or similar. If you are going to take a break, always state the time when the break is over. If the meeting is locked, you should remind participants not to log out of the meeting during the break.