Google Meet may be a good option for alternative instruction. However, there are a few technical considerations to be aware of when evaluating Google Hangouts Meet. Please review the following considerations for Google Hangouts Meet functionality for instruction.
Note: Google Meet and Chat has been made available to HCC members for the duration of alternative instruction related to COVID-19 without the need to request a BAA-Exception
Meet Participant Considerations
Anyone in a Meet is allowed to:
- Remove someone from the meeting, including the meeting organizer, who could be the instructor.
- Mute the camera or microphone of everyone in the meeting, including the instructor or any other students.
- Start a recording.
- Example: If a student starts recording, the recording is owned by the meeting organizer, likely the instructor, not the student (see below).
- Rejoin a meeting after it has ended.
- When students are given a meeting code to join the Hangout, that meeting is still available for students to rejoin after the meeting has ended.
- Invite others to attend. Once a meeting has started, it is not possible to prevent students from inviting other participants or removing current participants.
Note: For UMN users currently outside of the U.S., dial-in (phone) capabilities are not available. Users will need to connect to the meeting via VoIP only.
Meeting Recordings
Google Meet has the option to create recordings. However, there are a few important technical details to note when using this feature:
- Recordings are automatically stored in the meeting organizer's My Drive under a new folder that is automatically created after the first recording called Meet Recordings.
- Recordings can be downloaded by the owner.
- The owner can share recordings with others to view or download by allowing Editing access.
- Note: The download format is .mp4.
- Recordings cannot be viewed offline unless they have been downloaded.
- Meeting recordings can be accessed until at least July 1, 2020.
- We recommend downloading all meeting recordings to ensure they are accessible after July1, 2020.
- Note: Google has temporarily enabled the recording feature until July 1. OIT is working closely with the team at Google to determine if/how recordings will be accessible after this date. We will update this page as soon as we learn more.
Note: These considerations have been raised to Google by the higher education community and Google is aware of these concerns and actively working to address them. Currently, Google is working to allow only the meeting organizer to mute participants and remove participants from the meeting.