Canvas – Zoom Integration Guide

Zoom has now been integrated with Canvas, streamlining the online experience for both instructors and students. It is now even easier for instructors to create new meetings for their courses, automatically populate the meeting links to Canvas course calendars, and generate meeting attendance and polling reports. Use this guide to integrate Zoom into your Canvas course.

Find “Zoom Meetings” in Canvas course navigation menu

To use Zoom in Canvas, simply click on Zoom Meetings found in the course navigation menu. Zoom is available by default for all courses.

Note – The first time you use this new integrated application in Canvas you may be prompted to authorize use of the Zoom Pro LTI. If you see a pop-up, select Authorize to proceed.

Sample authorization message

The location of where Zoom Meetings is found on the course navigation menu can be changed by clicking Settings/Navigation and dragging the tool to the location you want it to appear. If you are not going to use the tool, it can also be hidden from the students’ navigation menu by clicking Settings/Navigation and dragging it to the lower section where other tools are also hidden.

When you click on Zoom Meetings, you will see a page with tabs that show your upcoming meetings, previous meetings, personal meeting room and cloud recordings.
Note: Students only see a tab for Upcoming Meetings and Previous Meetings.

Schedule a Zoom meeting

To schedule a new Zoom meeting, click the Schedule a New Meeting button. Note: this button only appears for users with the teacher or TA role.

Screenshot demonstrating where the Schedule a new meeting button is located

Complete the meeting information by entering a topic, description, when the meeting will take place, its duration, whether or not it is a recurring meeting, security settings, recording settings, etc. Be sure to click Save at the bottom. If you are uncertain about any of the meeting settings, especially regarding security options, you can visit the Zoom at UD website. 

Hint: Name your meeting topics appropriately for class meetings versus office hours or other types of meetings. This will help with students recognizing the appropriate meeting to join.

All meetings will be added to the Canvas course calendar automatically.

Sample Canvas calendar with meeting sessions listed

If needed, an additional instructor or TA can be added as an alternative host in the meeting settings. This should be done when you first schedule a meeting. Otherwise, click on the meeting in the upcoming meetings tab, scroll to the bottom and click on Edit this Meeting. There you can add the email addresses for anyone that should be an alternative host in the meeting. Remember to save all changes you have made to the meeting settings.

Edit this meeting is highlighted to show its location on the screen

Alternative Hosts can be added by their emails

Teacher view of upcoming meetings

Screenshot to show button to Schedule a New Meeting

Student view of upcoming meetings. Students would just click “Join” when ready to enter the meeting.

Student view of the upcoming meetings

Import an existing meeting

If a meeting has already been created and you would like it to be integrated into the Zoom application in Canvas, you can use the Import Meeting feature. Click the three dots feature options located next to the Schedule a New Meeting button. You will need to have the meeting ID number of the existing meeting to complete the import. (Not the whole meeting link, just the ID number.) Click the Import button to incorporate the meeting into your Canvas course site.

Screenshot showing where the Import meeting tab is located and the popup to enter meeting ID

Start a scheduled Zoom meeting

Starting a scheduled meeting in Canvas is simple.

  1. Click on the Zoom Meetings link on your Canvas Navigation Bar
  2. Click on the Upcoming Meetings tab
  3. Locate the Meeting ID for the upcoming session
  4. Click the Start button.

Start a meeting button located in upcoming meetings

Personal Meeting Rooms in Canvas

You can use the Personal Meeting Room tab within Canvas to start an impromptu meeting. You can add it to your personal calendar, but it does not appear on the Canvas calendar. If you record the meeting, it will appear in your My Media, but it does not appear in Canvas under previous meetings.

Cloud Recordings

Recordings will go to My Media, where you can publish to the Media Gallery (same as your current process), if you want your students to have access.

Note: The Cloud Recordings tab only shows the sessions for the individual class, not your overall Zoom recordings. In this tab, they will only be available for 60 days. Share the recordings from My Media to the Media Gallery as mentioned above. 

Attendance and Polling Reports

Generate meeting reports by selecting the Previous Meetings tab and clicking on the Report button for the desired meeting.

Location to find Report is on the previous meetings tab

Select either the Meeting Report tab or the Poll Report tab to generate the desired report. Then click the Export as CSV file to generate the report in a spreadsheet format.

Meeting report tab showing a report is available to export

Important to know

Within the Canvas – Zoom integration, students and instructors can only see the meetings/recordings that are associated with each course.

All meetings created or imported into the Canvas/Zoom interface will be seen by the enrolled students. If you need to restrict a Zoom meeting to specific students, please use the regular Zoom interface to schedule.

Students in multi-section Canvas courses will see all meetings associated with the course. If these Zoom meetings should be restricted to a single section, then a separate Canvas site for each specific section would be needed.

The integration does not allow for the same meeting ID to be shared between courses (i.e. a common office hours meeting). To share a meeting between classes, you could create the meeting directly in Zoom and add the meeting link to your syllabus.

A meeting does not move from upcoming meetings to previous meetings until the time allocated for the meeting is complete.

Meetings are not automatically added to personal calendars.  If your personal Google or Outlook calendar has been associated with your Zoom account, you can open the meeting within the Zoom interface and click the button to add to your personal calendar.

Additional Zoom documentation can be found at the Zoom at UD website.