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Google Meet provides desktop and mobile videoconferencing for up to 100 participants (temporarily increased to 250 during the coronavirus outbreak).

IMPORTANT: The information below is for the use of staff and should be used as guidelines in order to 'meet' with participants during emergency situations.

 

Getting started with Google Meet

  • Google Meet is a tool that enables you to 'meet' with people without being in the same place using a computer, mobile phone or tablet.
     
  • It is suitable for use for small meetings, supervisions and other small group teaching. It is free to use and you just need a University Raven account to set it up.
     
  • Anyone with a Raven account can create a Google Meet meeting either by means of a Google Calendar event or directly at https://meet.google.com/.
     

Additional features for Google Meet during the COVID-19 pandemic: live-streaming and recording

In order to aid with remote working and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, Google have enabled the following features for Google Meet:

  1. Live-streaming of meetings
  2. Recording of meetings
  3. The number of meeting participants has been increased to 250 from the previous limit of 100.

Set up a new meeting in a web browser

To create a meeting on the web:

  1. Go to https://meet.google.com
  2. Click Sign-in at the top right hand corner of the screen.
  3. Login using your CRSid@cam.ac.uk email address
    (e.g. abc123@cam.ac.uk).
  4. You will see the Raven login screen and will need to type your CRSid and Raven password.
  5. At this point you might get prompted to enter a mobile phone number in order to verify your identity.
  6. Click Join or start a meeting.
  7. You will see a prompt to 'Join or start a meeting', enter a nickname (anything meaningful) into the box and click continue.
  8. You may be prompted for permission for meet to use your microphone/camera, please click Allow.
  9. You should see your face on the screen and the nickname of your meeting.
  10. Click Join Meeting.
  11. The meeting starts and you can now add other people.
  12. You can choose copy joining info to get a link to email to participants or click add people and enter the email addresses of people to invite:

    Google Meet – add participants
     

  13. The other participants can then click on the link in the email to join the meeting.

    Note: although phone dial-in for meetings has been enabled, our G Suite license does not include UK phone number support.

Other ways to start/join a Google Meet

For more information on the above or for more ways to join a meeting — whether with a link or from your phone’s lock screen, visit the Google Workspace Learning Center.

 

Inviting external guests to a University Google Meet

Google Meet meetings must be created by someone with access to University Google Workspace but, once created, users without a Cambridge Google Workspace account can be invited.

Note: although phone dial-in for meetings has been enabled, our G Suite license does not include UK phone number support.
 

Additional teaching and learning resources

The Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning (CCTL) has created a simple guide for making use of Google Meet for supervisions:

CCTL guide to using Google Meet for Supervisions

 

Using Google Meet

Presenting in a Google Meet

Want to present to a group during your video call? It just takes a few steps.

  1. Join a video meeting from your computer
  2. Click Present now and choose what to share:
    • Your entire screen
    • A window
    • A browser tab
  3. Select Share.
  4. When you’re done presenting, click Stop Presenting.

Optional: To take over presenting from someone else, click Present (the icon of a rectangle with an arrow in it), in the bottom right corner of the screen, choose what to share, and select Present.
 

Muting yourself or others

If there’s feedback or background noise, you can mute your microphone or the microphone of another attendee.

To use mute on the web:

  • To mute your microphone, at the bottom of the screen, click the Mute icon.
  • To mute other people, in the People section, next to the person's thumbnail, click the Down arrow and then click the Mute icon.

To use mute on your mobile device app:

  • To mute yourself, tap the Mute icon.
  • To mute someone else, tap the People icon, then next to that person’s image, tap the right arrow then tap the Mute icon.
     

Live captions

You can make it easier to follow what’s being said in meetings by turning on captions, which display text of the live conversation.

To turn on live captions on your computer:

1. On the lower-right corner, click More (three dots icon).

2. Click Turn on captions or Turn off captions.

To learn how to turn on captions from your conference room hardware, check out this post from the Google Workspace Updates blog.

Note: Captions are currently available for English only. They are not currently supported on mobile devices.
 

Changing the layout

Meet automatically switches between screen layouts depending on the state of your meeting. You can also switch to a different layout anytime. Meet’s layout options are featured in this blogpost.

To change the layout from your computer:

1. In the lower-right corner, click More (three dots icon) and select Change layout.

2. In the Change layout box, select the layout you want to use.

Tip: Hovering the mouse over a video feed will show a menu with the option to pin that participant so that you can keep them visible or mute them.