Occidental College has a number of video conferencing tools available to help facilitate meetings, lecture capture, and more. Below is an overview of the video conferencing tools we support with recommendations on when to use each.
The primary video conferencing tools currently supported at Oxy are Zoom and Google Hangouts Meet. The table below shows a side-by-side comparison of all three tools. Hangouts Meet is recommended unless you need a gallery view of more than nine participants, a waiting room, pre-set breakout rooms, pop-out chat window, or polling.
Occidental faculty and students can use Zoom to create and attend meetings as well as record the meeting’s content for download and future reference. Staff who create Zoom Basic accounts with an Oxy email can host conferences without the usual 40-minute limit on a temporary basis.
For Faculty and Students, go to https://occidental.zoom.us, click “Sign In” in the upper-right hand corner of the page and log in with your Oxy username and password.
| Feature | Hangouts Meet | Zoom Basic (Staff) | Zoom Business (Faculty & Students) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum Meeting Size | 100 users | 300 users | 300 users |
| Maximum Gallery View | 49 participants | Moderator plus 49 (with hardware specifications) | Moderator plus 49 (with hardware specifications) |
| Meeting Duration | 60 min | Unlimited through July 2020 |
Unlimited |
| Recording Capability | Yes, to Google Drive (free) | Yes, local storage (free) |
Yes, local (free) or cloud (limited) storage |
| Screenshare into Meeting | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dial-in by Phone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Breakout Rooms (temporarily split meetings into separate discussion sections) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Key Integrations | Google Calendar | Google Calendar (with Chrome browser extension), Panopto | Google Calendar (with Chrome browser extension), Panopto |
| Mobile Apps (Android & iOS) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Required Software | Any browser | Client Application | Client Application |
| Embedded Polling Feature | No | No | Yes |
| Hand Raise Feature | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pop-Out Chat Window | No | Yes | Yes |