Zoom Webinar – University Digital Teaching Portal

Instructional Guide: Zoom Webinar

Overview

Zoom Video Webinar allows you to broadcast a Zoom meeting to up to 10,000 view-only attendees, depending on the size of your webinar license. Webinar licenses start at a capacity of 100 participants and scale up to 10,000 participants. As the host or a panelist, you can share your screen, video and audio in a webinar and attendees can use the chat or question and answer options to interact with the host and panelists.

Webinars can require preregistration, with the option for the host to add custom registration questions, or registration can be turned off for attendees to join by simply clicking a link at the time of the webinar. Webinars can be held once, can reoccur in a series, or can be the same session held multiple times.

Instructional Guide

Inviting Attendees and Panelists

Panelists are full participants in the meeting. They can view and send video, screen share, annotate, etc. You can have 100 panelists (including the host) in a Webinar. Please note that panelists will receive a direct email invitation separate from the attendees of the Webinar.

Learn how to invite panelists.

Attendees are view-only participants who can be unmuted if the host chooses. Their view of the webinar is controlled by the host. They can interact with the host and the panelists through the Q&A and the chat.

If the webinar does not require registration, you can copy the join link and share with your attendees.

If the webinar requires registration, the host will need to share the registration link and have the attendees complete the registration form. Once registered, they will receive an email notification with a unique join link.

There are three different ways to invite attendees to register:

Copy the registration URL and share via email, your website, etc.
Select Copy the invitation to view and copy the invitation created by Zoom to send out to your attendees.
Select Email me the invitation to receive a copy of the Zoom invitation that you can then forward to potential attendees.

Starting a Webinar

There are a few ways that you can start your webinar.

In the Zoom client, click on the Meetings tab. Find the webinar, and click Start.

If you have added this to your calendar, click on the link displayed on your calendar reminder. Make sure that you are logged into your Zoom account before clicking the link.

Roles in a Webinar

Overview

There are multiple roles available for a webinar: host, cohost, panelist, and attendees. The role that you have in the webinar will be designated by the host.

The host of the webinar is the user who the webinar is scheduled under. They have full permissions to manage the webinar, panelists, and attendees. There can only be one host of a webinar. The host can do things like stop and start the webinar, mute panelists, stop panelists’ video, remove attendees from the webinar, and more.

Co-hosts share many of the controls that hosts have, allowing the co-host to manage the administrative side of the webinar, such as managing attendees or starting/stopping the recording. The host must assign a co-host. Co-hosts cannot start a webinar. If a host needs someone else to be able to start the webinar, they can assign an alternative host.

Panelists are full participants in a webinar. They can view and send video, screen share, annotate, etc. You must be assigned panelist permissions by the webinar host. The host can also disable some features for panelists, including starting video, sharing your screen, and recording. Learn how to add and invite panelists as a webinar host.

Prerequisites

Webinar Add-on
Host privilege for this webinar
For co-host feature:
- Co-host enabled for host’s account
- Co-host control assigned by the host
For panelist feature, promote attendee or invite panelist

Comparison of controls

The following table compares the webinar controls available to the host, co-hosts, panelists and attendees. To learn more about each feature, click the embedded links in the table or see Host and Co-Host Controls in a Meeting.

Features with an asterisk (*) can be disabled by the host.

Participate in Webinar

	Host	Co-host	Panelist	Attendee
Join during practice session	✔	(see note)	✔
Start the broadcast	✔	✔
Mute/unmute themselves	✔	✔	✔
Start/stop their own video	✔	✔	✔*
View attendee list	✔	✔	✔
Share screen	✔	✔	✔
Request or give remote control	✔	✔	✔
Chat	✔	✔	✔	✔*
Save chat	✔	✔	✔
Ask questions in Q&A				✔
View All Q&A and respond	✔	✔	✔
Create or edit polls	✔
Start polling	✔	✔
Answer polls			✔*	✔
Assign someone to enter closed captions	✔
Enter closed captions	✔	✔*	✔*
Raise hand			✔	✔
End webinar	✔

Note: Co-hosts cannot be assigned ahead of time. If you would like to designate someone as a co-host, invite them to the webinar as a panelist and then promote them to a co-host. Alternatively, you can assign them as an alternative host. Alternative hosts are able to start or join a practice session.

Manage Participants

	Host	Co-host	Panelist	Attendee
Mute or unmute attendees	✔	✔
Stop panelist’s video	✔	✔
Ask a panelist to start video	✔	✔
Spotlight a Video	✔	✔
Promote attendee to panelist	✔	✔
Demote from panelist to attendee	✔	✔
Change attendees’ view	✔	✔
Change who attendees can chat with	✔	✔
Remove attendees	✔	✔
Allow attendees to talk	✔	✔
Assign Co-host Permission	✔
Put panelist on hold	✔
Invite others to join webinar	✔	✔	✔

Record

	Host	Co-host	Panelist	Attendee
Record to cloud	✔	✔
Record locally	✔	✔	✔*

Live Stream

	Host	Co-host	Panelist	Attendee
Live stream on Facebook	✔
Live stream on Workplace	✔
Live stream on YouTube	✔
Custom live stream	✔

Links Providing More Information about Webinars on How To:

For more information about Zoom Webinars, please click here.