Meeting Roles
Meeting roles
Zoom offers multiple meeting "roles," and each have different permissions to schedule and manage meetings.
If you're an instructor and schedule a class meeting, you're the "Host" of the meeting. Hosts can grant permission to other participants to manage aspects of the meeting:
- Host
- Alternative host
- Co-host
- Participant
Meeting roles:
Host
The host is the primary role for facilitating Zoom meetings and manages pre-meeting and in-meeting settings. By default, the person who schedules the meeting is assigned the role of Host when they join the meeting. During the meeting, this role has the most control over settings and functions of the Zoom meeting room, including polls, captions, chat, breakout rooms, and recording.
Co-Host
The host can assign any meeting participant to the co-host role after a meeting begins. A co-host has most of the same permissions as the host for managing participants and interactions, but they cannot assign other co-hosts and may have limited access to certain extra features such as polling or captioning.
Alternative host
An alternative host takes on the Host role if the original host who scheduled the meeting is unable to join (and designates the alternative host when they schedule the meeting). If another host is already in the meeting, alternative hosts are automatically assigned the Co-host role.
An alternative host can start a meeting when the host is not present.
The host who scheduled the meeting can add alternative hosts under Options when scheduling or editing a meeting. For UW Zoom meetings, alternative hosts must be UW Zoom users with a current faculty, staff, or student role at the University.
Participant
Attendees of the meeting who join using the meeting link or ID. They can control their own participation in the meeting, but their ability to use chat, share screen, and use other interactive features visible to other meeting attendees can be customized by the meeting hosts and co-hosts.
NOTES:
While any host or co-host can initiate recordings to the cloud, new cloud recordings will always be saved to the Zoom account of the individual who scheduled the meeting. This is true even if an alternative host initiated recording, or even if the scheduling host was not present at the meeting. For more on how to find and share these recordings, see Zoom's guide on managing and sharing cloud recordings Links to an external site..
To see a full comparison of the permissions assigned to each of these roles, you can review the Comparison table in Zoom's guide to Roles in a meeting Links to an external site..
Image courtesy of: University of Washington Marketing and Communication Links to an external site. (UMAC).
Check for Understanding