Zoom Meeting Guide

ACM has purchased a number of Zoom licenses to assist conferences holding virtual events.  These licenses are shared among all ACM''s conferences.  

_{How many Zoom licenses may we request?}

Each conference may request up to 5 licenses, which can be utilized as webinars OR meetings for up to 500 people.  Licenses may be requested by contacting your SIG Services Staff Liaison.  It takes ACM up to one week to process requests for Zoom accounts.   

_{Our conference needs more than 5 licenses.  Can ACM provide more?}

If you require more than 5 licenses, ACM can purchase additional zoom licenses on behalf of your event and charge the expense to the conference budget.  

Pricing as of 1/15/2021 is as follows:

• Each 500 participant license is $200/month
• Each 1,000 participant license is $500/month
• Each 3,000 participant license is $1,200/month

Should you find that you don't require a license after you order it from ACM, you will still need to cover the cost.  Please plan accordingly. 

If you find you need many licenses, you may want to consider using a virtual event platform geared towards larger audiences that offers more robust features to accommodate poster sessions, social events, sponsor interaction, etc. Platforms used or being considered by ACM conferences include:

• VFairs
• Clowdr
• Gather.town 
• Cadmium CD 
• Conference Direct 
• Whova
• Hubb 

If you plan to use a platform, please notify your SIG Staff Liaison so they can assist you with contracting.  

_{How long may we use the licenses?}

All licenses, including those charged to the conference, are available up to 2 weeks prior to and 3 days following the conference.  If you require the licenses for a longer time period, please contact your SIG Services Staff Liaison to discuss options. 

Please remember these are shared licenses and should only be requested based on the time period as outlined above. Returning them to ACM promptly after the event will help other conference organizers.

_{What happens to our conference recordings after the event is over?}

It is the responsibility of the conference organizers to download their conference content immediately following the conference.  A way to save time is by downloading after the end of each session.  Guidance on how to do this can be found below. The accounts are reset upon return to ACM and we do not save the recordings.

• Unlimited time for meetings and webinars.
• Up to 500 participants for meetings.
• Up to 500 attendees for webinars.
• Registration can be required for meetings and webinars (CVENT integration is available for ACM accounts).
• Importing Webinar Registrants Via CSV
• Chat capability is available for meetings and webinars.
• Saving in-meeting chat for archiving or later use.
• Unlimited cloud storage for recording of meetings and webinars.
• An option is available for Enabling the recording disclaimer.

Meeting

• Host required, can appoint co-hosts.
• Participants can all participate equally (participants can be muted or dropped by the host/co-host).
• Breakout rooms – can be set up ahead of time,or on-the-fly. Participants can be moved to these rooms by pre-assignment or by the host manually and then returned to the “main” room automatically, when the breakout room closes or by their own action. Each room has its own chat session and the host can message all rooms.
• Enabling breakout rooms
• Managing breakout rooms
• Pre-assigning participants to breakout rooms

Webinar

• Host required, can appoint co-hosts.
• Panelists can all participate equally.
• Attendees are in “listen only” mode (attendees can be promoted to panelists by the host/co-host).
• Q&A can be enabled to allow attendees to ask questions during the webinar. Host, co-hosts and panelists can answer questions. Public Q&A can be enabled and attendees can answer each other’s questions.

Converting a Meeting to a Webinar

When converting from a meeting to a webinar, the registration URL will remain the same, those who have already registered can still join with the same link as before, and meeting settings and registrants will also b transferred to the webinar.  

• Sign into the Zoom meeting portal
• In the  navigation panel, click Meetings
• Click the name of the meeting you would like to convert to a webinar
• To the right of the Start and Edit buttons, click Convert this Meeting to a Webinar

Recording Conference Sessions

Zoom has the ability to record conference sessions directly to Zoom for download. Please see the following section in the Zoom Help Center for instructions: 

• Cloud Recording