This guidance is to provide a way to book and share online Zoom sessions for a specific discussion / lab section by leveraging Canvas Assignments. The results of following these steps is that Zoom sessions will be listed under the Assignments tool (in a designated Assignment Group) and will only be visible to the members of the discussion / lab section to whom it is assigned. There will also be a corresponding entry on the Canvas Calendars and Syllabus page (under Course Summary) for the members of that discussion / lab section.
In the following instructions, we use the term TA to represent the person who is scheduling and running the Zoom sessions for the discussion / lab groups.
In practice, anyone with a Zoom account and Instructor / Guest Instructor / TA level access in the Canvas course can follow these instructions.
Table of Contents
This article will walk you through the steps of implementing a specific strategy for organizing and presenting your Zoom sessions to discussion / lab sections. The steps are:
STEP 1: TA Schedules Zoom Sessions On Yale.Zoom.us
The TA leading the discussion / lab section will follow these instructions to create the Zoom sessions.
- Log into https://yale.zoom.us with your Yale NetID and Password. Go to the "Meetings" link in the left side navigation menu.
- On the meetings page, click "Schedule a Meeting."
- Schedule the meeting as you would normally. Click "Save" when you are done.
- Feel free to make the meeting recurring so that your meeting ID will be the same for all of your sessions.
If you plan to record your sessions, the sessions will NOT automatically be copied to Media Library. For instructions, see our help articles on how to share Zoom cloud recordings to Media Library or how to share local recordings to Media Library.
- After you have created your Zoom session, click the "Copy Invitation" link in the meeting details page.
- In the invitation pop-up, click the "Copy Meeting Invitation" button to copy the fully meeting invitation details.
STEP 2: TA Creates a Canvas Assignment in the Canvas Course
The TA will now go into the Canvas Course site and create a no-submission, ungraded assignment for the session. They will need to create one Assignment for every Zoom session.
If there are multiple sessions, you can duplicate your assignments following the instructions below.
You may also want to create Assignment Groups following the instructions below to keep your Zoom sessions organized in Canvas.
- In Canvas navigate to the course where the discussion / lab sections are located and click the "Assignments" tool.
- Click the +Assignments button.
- Fill in the Assignment Form as follows:
- Assignment Name: Enter a name for the discussion / lab section Zoom meeting.
- Instructions Box: In the rich content editor, paste the Zoom meeting invitation information you copied from STEP 1 (instruction #6). You may also wish to enter any additional useful information you want to include about your session here as well.
- Points: Set points to 0
- Assignment Group: Select the appropriate discussion / lab assignment group if you've created one. See the "Create an Assignment Group for each Discussion / Lab Section" section below for more instructions.
- Display Grade as: Not Graded
- Assign to: Remove the Everyone group and add your discussion / lab section (start typing in the name of the discussion group and then select it from the filtered list)
- Due Date: Enter the date and time when the Zoom session will begin.
- Until Date: Enter the date and time when the Zoom session will end. (The until date will keep the student's upcoming "to do" list accurate by putting old sessions as past assignments.)
- Click "Save and Publish" when finished.
You will see a pop-up warning you that the assignment is not assigned to other discussion / lab sections. Click "Continue" to dismiss this warning.
Because you are using the Assignments tool to create calendar items that are visible only to sections, you may want to organize these Zoom Session Assignments so that they are separate from graded / weighted course assignments and activities. The following is only a suggestion for organizational purposes and only needs to be done once for each discussion / lab section.
- In Canvas navigate to the course where the discussion / lab sections are located, and go to the "Assignments" tool in the course navigation.
- Click the "+Group" button to create a new Assignment Group to house and organize the discussion / lab Zoom sessions.
- In the pop-up box, enter a "Group Name" then click the "Save" button.
Name the groups consistently. Naming the Assignment Groups to include the discussion / lab section number and / or the name of the TA running the sessions can help make it easier to identify and organize.
- Repeat steps 2 and 3 above for each lab / discussion section.
If you have a recurring meeting with multiple sessions, you can duplicate the assignment you created in STEP 2 and make minor modifications to the date / time for the other sessions to save time.
- Open Canvas and navigate to the course where the discussion / lab sections are located. Go to the "Assignments" tool.
- Find the Zoom session assignment you just created in the list of assignments (under the appropriate Assignment Group heading if you created one).
- Click the three-dot icon to the far right of the item and select "Duplicate" from the menu.
- When you see your duplicate in the assignment list, click on its title.
- The title of the duplicate should be the same as the original assignment plus the word "Copy" amended to the end of the title.
- On the Assignment summary page, click "Edit."
- You can modify anything you want on the duplicate, but you should definitely update:
- Assignment Name: Remove the word "Copy" and make any other updates as appropriate.
- Assign to: Keep or change your discussion / lab section (start typing in the name of the discussion group and then select it from the filtered list)
- Due Date: Enter the date and time when the next Zoom session will begin.
-
Until Date: Enter the date and time when the next Zoom session will end.
- The until date will keep the student's upcoming "to do" list accurate by putting old sessions as past assignments.
- Click "Save and Publish" when finished.
STEP 3: Joining the Zoom Session
STUDENTS
The Zoom session link will be available through the Canvas Syllabus Tool (Course Summary), Assignments Tool, and Canvas Calendar for all students who are members of the discussion / lab section. The student will need to click on the Syllabus / Assignment / Calendar entry and click the Zoom session link that is included in the Assignment instructions.
Student View: Syllabus Page (Course Summary)
Student View: Assignments Page
Student View: Canvas Calendar
TA (Host)
The TA can join the session in the same way as students (above), or they can go directly to https://yale.zoom.us and start the Zoom session from there.
The TA who created the session must be logged into their Zoom desktop client with their Yale Zoom account in order to join the session as the Host.
For more help, please contact [email protected].