Participant Interaction Guidelines
Zoom is still new. As you think about inviting people to attend your meetings, webinars or classes as participants, audience members or students, orienting them to some key interaction norms may be helpful. Towards this you need to decide how you would like them to signal that they would like to talk, and also if you would like them to use their videos. Additionally, when you ask a question, would you like to pause and look at the entire audience to see who has their real hand up, or would you prefer to respond to virtual “zoom hands”?
While there are a number of items around general etiquette you can cover (and we discuss several of these in upcoming sections), let’s restrict this section to 5 common norms around participation, assuming video capabilities are available. You can either send these beforehand, or you can mention them at the start of the meeting, or have a slide listing them.
Keep your video on if connection allows
Keep your mic muted unless speaking (you can also administratively mute all)
Raise your hand (electronically on zoom) to speak or ask questions
Lower your Zoom hand after the you have spoken or we have moved on
Be mindful when using chat - would you make this comment to your neighbor in a live setting or classroom
As you will see, these five pointers will nicely cover the necessities, and help ensure an order and fairness to interactivity. Zoom also places individuals with raised hands at the top of the participant list. As the speaker, host, or co-host, you have to remind yourself to keep an eye out for raised hands. As the host, you can also lower someone’s hand if they haven’t done so already, or lower all hands at once if you want to move on from the interactive session.