Using Zoom Breakout Rooms

It’s possible to create your Zoom Breakout Rooms ahead of a meeting session..

Notable limitations

• Only licensed Zoom account holders–these can be Lafayette Zoom accounts or other Zoom accounts–can be pre-assigned to Breakout Rooms.
• Pre-assigned Breakout Rooms participants must be logged into their Zoom client with their Lafayette credentials (or external Zoom account credentials) to be assigned to their Breakout Rooms.
• Up to 200 participants can be pre-assigned to Breakout Rooms.

Pre-assigning participants into Zoom Breakout Rooms

• Zoom maintains thorough instructions for pre-assigning participants to Breakout Rooms.

Notable limitations

• Only the host can assign participants to Breakout Rooms.
• Up to 50 Breakout Rooms can be created.
• Up to 200 participants can be assigned to Breakout Rooms.
• Cloud recorded sessions will record only the main room; the Breakout Rooms will not be recorded.
• Local recordings will record the Breakout Room of whomever is making the local recording; multiple local recordings can happen at one time.

Managing Zoom Breakout Rooms on-the-fly

• Zoom maintains thorough instructions for managing Zoom Breakout Rooms.

Zoom Breakout Rooms don’t have a feature where the host can make materials available to specific Breakout Room participants. A shared Google Drive folder makes for a nice option.

1. Create a Google Drive folder in My Drive.
2. Share that folder with the users of your choice. If sharing with students from a course, instructors can share the folder with their Google Group for Courses.
3. Create subfolders in the shared folder that match with the name of the Zoom Breakout Room names.
4. Place the appropriate materials into each of these subfolders.

For any kind of assignment of Breakout Rooms

• Only the host can assign participants to Breakout Rooms.
• Co-hosts can join any Breakout Room so long as they join the Breakout Room in which they are initially assigned.
• Up to 50 Breakout Rooms can be created.
• Up to 200 participants can be assigned to Breakout Rooms.
• Cloud recorded sessions will record only the main room; the Breakout Rooms will not be recorded.
• Local recordings will record the Breakout Room of whomever is making the local recording; multiple local recordings can happen at one time.
• Breakout Rooms do not have their own Chat function. The Chat function remains available, but it is shared across all Breakout Rooms.

For pre-assigned Breakout Rooms

• Only licensed Zoom account holders–these can be Lafayette Zoom accounts or other Zoom accounts–can be pre-assigned to Breakout Rooms.
• Pre-assigned Breakout Rooms participants must be logged into their Zoom client with their Lafayette credentials (or external Zoom account credentials) to be assigned to their Breakout Rooms.
• Up to 200 participants can be pre-assigned to Breakout Rooms.