Zoom can change the way you interact with people by giving you the ability to hold online office hours anywhere with anyone, once or on a recurring basis.

Features to consider:

Pre-schedule upcoming office hours by creating a meeting that can be shared with people to virtually join you at the appropriate time.

To start, navigate to https://uiowa.zoom.us/ and schedule a new meeting:

Apply the following settings:

  • Recurring meeting set to on with the Recurrence set to No Fixed Time.
  • Meeting ID should be set to Generate Automatically.
  • Enable join before host should be turned off.
  • Only authenticated users can join should be on and set to the HawkID option. This will only allow users with a HawkID into the meeting.
  • New Meeting
  • Add anyone you would like to be able to start the meeting for you under the "Alternative Hosts" box.
  • Select Save at the bottom of the page.
  • Make a note of the Join URL and Meeting ID you are given.

Consider using the waiting room feature in conjunction with your personal meeting room.  This will allow you to use the same meeting link for all of your office hour sessions, but admit only one person at a time into the meeting for privacy.  You can still require that people sign up for a specific time slow on a calendar or spreadsheet to avoid long wait times.

You can meet with individuals or groups depending on your needs, all using the same link.

Equipment Needed:

Computer with a good internet connection

Headphones or earbuds (optional)

Microphone (either built-in to your computer or separate)

Web cam(optional but preferred for face-to-face interaction)

Before Your Meeting:

  • Schedule the meetings for your office hours and communicate them to people you want to meet with - consider using a calendar or spreadsheet to allow individuals to select a specific time slot.
  • Let people know your meeting expectations
  • Can people enter and exit the "room" as they wish, or should they enter only at the time you specify? 
  • Will you be using the waiting room feature to control access to the meeting?
  • Will you want people to share their screens during the meeting?
  • Are you planning to record the meeting for future access and referral?

After Your Meeting:

  • Poll participants regarding the effectiveness of the session.
  • Invite participants to future sessions as needed.

Setting up the appointment group in ICON

How do I add a Scheduler appointment group in a course calendar?

  1. Navigate to your Calendar in ICON. (https://uiowa.instructure.com/calendar)
  2. Find the date you would like to start your appointment group on.
  3. Clicking on the date will open a new window, from the three tabs at the top, select Appointment Group.
  4. Add a name and put the meeting Join URL in the Location box.
  5. Select the course calendars you would like the appointment group to be available for.
  6. Add a Date and Time Range you would like to have available.
  7. Once you have all of the time ranges in place, you can use the field below to set the length of each individual appointment.
    Clicking Go to the right will divide up the Time Ranges.
  8. You can then elect to further configure the available appointments. We recommend the following:
    • Limit each time slot to [ 1 ] user. This will make it so each appointment is limited to a single student
    • Limit participants to attend [ X ] appointment(s). This will limit each student to X appointments.
  9. Add the meeting ID/Join URL to the Details along with any other information you would like to be provided.
  10. Click Publish at the bottom to make the appointments available. Students will be notified of the new availability.

How students sign up

How do I sign up for a Scheduler appointment in the Calendar?

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