Google Hangouts Meet

What is Google Hangouts Meet?

Hangouts Meet is Google’s video conferencing software provided as part of G Suite apps for education. Meet is fully integrated with G Suite, so you can join meetings directly from a Calendar event or email invite. This app is similar to the free, consumer version of Hangouts, with a few additional features like real-time captions.

Who can use Google Hangouts Meet?

All Oxy faculty, staff, and students can use Google Hangouts Meet as part of G Suite apps for education. To access it, log in to your Oxy email and select the “Google apps” menu at the top-right hand corner. Select “Meet” from the drop-down menu.

Is Google Hangouts Meet the right choice?

View a side-by-side comparison of Oxy's video conferencing tools to help you choose the right tool for your needs. Hangouts Meet is recommended unless you need a gallery view of more than 9 participants, a waiting room, pre-set breakout rooms, a pop-out chat window, or polling.

Using Google Hangouts Meet

Joining a Meeting

• You will have an email in your Oxy email inbox with a link to the meeting.

• If you follow that link, you will arrive in a waiting room in the Google Hangouts web interface. You can check your microphone and camera, turn on accessibility features like closed-captioning, and test out screen-sharing. Hangouts Meet will also list any users who have already joined the video call.

• Select “Join Now” to leave the waiting room and enter the videoconference. 

Scheduling a Meeting

• The easiest way to schedule Hangouts Meet video conferences in advance is to use its integration with Google Calendar. 

  • From the Calendar interface (which, like Meet, is accessible from your Oxy email via the Google apps menu), begin by creating a new event.

  • In order to add a Meet call to the event, select “More options.” From the following menu, select “Add conferencing” and choose Hangouts Meet. 

  • When you select this option, Calendar auto-generates a new link for a Meet. If you would prefer to enter a pre-existing link instead, you can click on the pencil icon and add that joining information. 

  • Finally, you may select “Add live stream” to invite a view-only audience for your event.

  • Once you complete your new event listing, email invitations will automatically include Hangouts Meet links.

• You may also start an impromptu meeting through the Hangouts Meet interface.

  • Head to meet.google.com and select “Join or Start a Meeting”

  • A dialog window will offer you the option of selecting a nickname for the meeting (for fellow Oxy email account-holders only). If you leave this space blank, Google will auto-generate a sharable meeting link.

  • Select “Join Now” in the waiting room. A dialog window will follow with joining information for your invitees. You can select “Add People” to invite specific users.

  • Joining information will be available throughout the meeting in the bottom left-hand corner.

Recording and Sharing a Meeting

• In Hangouts Meet, recordings include the active speaker and anything that’s presented. Other windows or notifications are not included. Pinning a participant won’t affect who is shown in the recording. While instructors can record meetings, students cannot.

• To record, open the menu at the lower right-hand corner of the screen and select “Record meeting.” Meeting participants will be notified. To stop the recording, select “Stop recording” from the same menu. Alternatively, recording will stop when all participants leave a meeting.

• Recordings are saved to the organizer’s “Meet Recordings” folder in My Drive. These can be shared like any other file saved to Google Drive. A link to the recording is also added to the Calendar event and sent to the meeting organizer via email. From these links, you may share the recording on your Moodle page or download it directly to your computer.

• Guide to recording video meetings in Meet

Preventing Disruptions

• External participants can join a meeting directly, but only if they are on the calendar invite or if they have been invited by in-domain participants from within the Meet session. 

• Any other external participants must request to join the meeting, which must be accepted by a member of the host organization.

• Additional features, such as the ability of an in-domain participant to remove an attendee from a meeting, gives in-domain participants more control over handling undesirable behavior during meetings.