All VIU employees can now request access to Cloud Recording on their institutional Zoom account. Local recording will continue to be available to all users, but VIU employees can also now opt to add the option of Zoom Cloud Recording. 

What is Cloud Recording?

Cloud Recording allows you to record your meeting online so you can access the recording from anywhere. Cloud recording also gives you the ability to download a video or audio-only recording and, if you enable automatic transcription, you can download a caption file that can add closed captions to your recording. 

Who Can See My Cloud Recordings? 

Cloud recordings on VIU’s Zoom account cannot be shared directly. Instead, your Zoom cloud recordings will be automatically imported to VIUTube for sharing and longer term storage. If you do not need to keep a recorded Zoom session, you can delete it from your VIUTube media.  

Once your video has been successfully uploaded to VIUTube, the original recording will be deleted from Zoom’s cloud storage. Deleted recordings can be recovered if necessary within 30 days. After 30 days, the original Zoom recording is permanently deleted and cannot be recovered. 

When Should I Use Cloud Recording?

Cloud Recording is the best option for you if you are hosting a meeting from an instructor station or other shared computer and will not have time to allow a local recording to process before you log off. You can also use Cloud recording to record a meeting that you are hosting from a tablet or phone which cannot locally record.

For meetings hosted from your personal computer or primary work computer, a local recording is still your best option. Local recordings process on your local computer immediately after the meeting is over rather than going into a larger processing queue and will likely be ready for you sooner than Cloud recordings. Local recordings can then be uploaded to VIUTube or another streaming service to share with colleagues, students, or members of the community as soon as they have finished processing without requiring you to wait for the automated process to complete.  

The table below shows some of the key factors you may want to consider when choosing where to record your meeting. 

	Cloud	Local
Record from Zoom app on computer	✓	✓
Record from Zoom app on phone or tablet	✓
Provides exportable computer generated captions	✓
Computer generated transcript can be saved from meeting	✓	✓
All processing and storage of recording is on your computer		✓
Zoom processes and stores your recording in their Canadian Data Center	✓
Recording is kept until you delete it		✓
Recording is automatically deleted after being transferred to VIUTube	✓
Recording can be uploaded to VIUTube for sharing with others	✓	✓
Recording can be made of E2EE meeting		✓

How Do I Get Cloud Recording for My Zoom Account?

If you would like to add cloud recording capabilities to your Zoom account, you will need to fill out a request form. Once CIEL staff receive your form they will add the necessary permissions to your Zoom and VIUTube accounts to ensure you can access cloud recording in Zoom and that your recordings will automatically be imported to VIUTube within 24 hours for sharing and long term storage. 

Whenever you submit a request to CIEL we do our best to respond within two business days. However, at the start of the Fall term we are at our busiest so we do recommend that if you are interested in cloud recording you fill out the form as soon as possible to allow processing time of up to a week for these requests. 

How Do I Start a Cloud Recording

If you have both Cloud and Local recording enabled in your account you will be able to choose between a local or a cloud recording each time you click Record in a Zoom meeting scheduled on your account. 

1. Launch a meeting for which you are the host. 
2. Click Record 
3. You will see the option to Record on this Computer or Record to the Cloud. Click Record to the Cloud to start a cloud recording. 
4. When you end the meeting, your recording will begin processing on the Cloud. 

Please note: Zoom sets the processing expectation at two times the meeting duration but may take 24-72 hours to process a cloud recording in times of extremely high usage. Once the meeting has processed on Zoom it will go into a queue to transfer to VIUTube. 

How Do I Share My Recording?

In order to share your recording, you will want to wait until your media has copied over to VIUTube. If you cannot wait for the automatic processing to complete, you can manually download the Zoom cloud recording and upload it to  VIUTube or another video streaming service. The VIU Zoom account is not configured to allow account holders to share their cloud recordings with anyone directly.

Can I Edit My Recordings Before Sharing? 

VIUTube offers a set of online editing tools for simple changes, such as trimming or clipping as well as some simple annotation options. However, if you want to do more robust editing, we suggest doing so in a video editing program such as Camtasia 2020 or Adobe Premiere Pro. For more on how to access or obtain a license for one of these video editing programs please see https://technology.viu.ca/software. Once you have made your edits, you can then upload the final copy of your media to VIUTube to share. 

Have Questions?

The CIEL team is happy to answer any questions you have. You can reach us by emailing learnsupport@viu.ca or calling 250-740-6179. 

We are open 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, Monday-Friday except days the University is closed. We will get back to you as soon as possible but ask that you please allow up to two business days for a reply during very busy times of year.