Zoom Meeting Notes

A Zoom meeting is auto-created for a USC Blackboard course when all of the conditions below are met:

  • Class Start Time is not TBA or Blank in Schedule of Classes
  • The instructor for the course has an account in the main USC Zoom account (usc.zoom.us), and not in another Zoom specific to their school.
  • The course section exists in USC Blackboard 
  • The course section is not a merged section in USC Blackboard
  • There is no existing meeting schedule that has already been created for that section using the “USC Zoom Pro Meeting” tool within Blackboard.

Notes and FAQs

  • The Zoom auto-population application monitors changes in the USC Schedule of Classes and makes corresponding changes to Zoom schedules daily.
  • Zoom sessions are not created for Canvas, Desire to Learn, Moodle or other alternative Learning Management Systems (LMS).
  • Zoom sessions are not created for school Zoom instances.
  • Instructors will see the auto-populated meetings in both the Zoom and the Zoom tool in Blackboard.
  • For students to access courses and view links to Zoom sessions for scheduled lectures and lecture discussions in Blackboard, faculty must:
    • Make their courses available to students. See this video for instructions.
    • Confirm that the USC Zoom Pro Meeting link is displayed in the left-hand panel. If it is not, see this video for instructions.
    • Make the USC Zoom Pro Meeting link available to students:
      • Click  next to the USC Zoom Pro Meeting link.
      • Click Show Link.
  • Links to the meetings will automatically post to Blackboard if the course has been activated in Blackboard.
  • A Zoom series (using the same meeting id) is created for each day/time slot. If a section is split over different days/times, a series will be created for each (e.g., For a section that meets Mondays at 6:00 p.m. and Wednesdays at 11:00 a.m., two series will be created).
  • If the instructor has already created their meetings using the Zoom tool within Blackboard, a series will not be auto-populated for that section.
  • Auto-populated series account for university holidays.
  • Auto-populated series use the following university-recommended Zoom settings:
    • Host video will be on
    • Participant video will be on
    • Join before host is off
    • Mute upon entry is on
    • PMI personal meeting ID is off
    • Meeting Audio is set to both phone or computer
    • Auto recording to the cloud is on
    • Waiting room is on
  • Alternative hosts (such as TAs and co-instructors) can’t be auto-populated using the Zoom tool within Blackboard at this time. Auto-populated meetings can be edited by the meeting host to add others at usc.zoom.us/meeting.
    • At the bottom of usc.zoom.us/profile/setting, the host can set up a scheduling privilege to allow someone else, such as a TA or school IT support, in the same account to edit their meetings.. 
  • If a Blackboard course is merged, the course instructor will need to manually create Zoom meetings for that course.
  • If a Zoom meeting needs to have the host/instructor changed, the original instructor/host will need to give scheduling privileges to the new host. This new host can then edit the meeting and change the host over to themselves. After this is completed, scheduling privileges can be removed from the original instructor/host.
  • Recorded Zoom meetings will be automatically published to Blackboard.