"Co-Host" vs "Alternative Host"
When you start or schedule a meeting on your Zoom account, you are the owner of that meeting, and will act as its "Host," with the power to invite, admit or deny entry to participants, control who can be seen and heard and who can share, record, etc.
If you want or need assistance with hosting duties, you have a couple of options.
Co-Host
A Co-Host shares many of the powers normally reserved for the Host. With a meeting in progress, you can assign anyone in attendance to the "Co-Host" role by clicking on the "Participants" icon, finding the name of the attendee you want, and clicking on "Make Co-Host." Anyone in the meeting, whether they are from VCU or not, can be made a Co-Host.
If you need to leave the meeting early, whoever you've made a Co-Host can remain in charge for the duration of the event. Note, however, that if you're recording to your local computer, your recording will end when you leave, so the Co-Host will need to start another recording to their device, to capture what remains of the meeting. If you're recording to the Cloud, that recording will continue even after you leave, and at the meeting's end it will be delivered to your account, not the Co-Host's.
Please note there are a few host powers that are not available to Co-Hosts. While the Host remains in attendance, a Co-Host can not:
- Start closed captioning
- Start live streaming
- End the meeting for all participants
- Make another participant a co-host
- Start the waiting room (although a co-host can place participants into an existing waiting room or admit/remove participants from the waiting room)
A Co-Host is also unable to start a meeting, for the obvious reason that they aren't be named as Co-Hosts until the meeting is already in progress. For that, you will need help from another role...
Alternative Host
Like a Co-Host, an Alternative Host shares the powers of the Host when the Host is in attendance, and takes on the full Host role when the original Host is absent or has left. However, an Alternative Host also has the power to start a meeting, so the owner/host need not attend the meeting at all.
For this to work, the Alternative Host must be named prior to the start of the meeting, and they need to have a VCU Zoom account.
To name an Alternative Host, schedule your meeting on vcu.zoom.us, look for the section marked "Options" and click on "Show."
In the last field, enter the e-mail address of the Zoom user who will serve as your Alternative Host.
As with a Co-Host, your Alternative Host is still conducting the meeting on your account, so if a Cloud Recording is created, that recording will still be assigned to your account. Likewise, only you as the meeting owner will be able to see and download Registration and/or Attendance Reports associated with your meeting.
The main difference between these two roles? Co-Hosts can only be assigned with a meeting in progress, and can be from anywhere inside or outside of VCU, while Alternative Hosts can only be assigned before a meeting occurs, and must be members of the VCU Zoom account.