Web Conferencing Meetings Best Practices

It is recommended to record meetings for the following use cases:

• Meeting recording for ADA reasons.
• Recording for individuals not present.
• Recording to generate notes for official minutes or action items.

It is not recommended to record or only do so after making a risk informed decision for the following meetings:

• Personnel or disciplinary meetings
• Closed governance discussions
• Meetings involving confidential student or employee information
• Research discussions involving unpublished data or intellectual property

 A risk-informed decision respects the intersection of applicable policies and laws governing privacy, records retention, and data security for the meeting being conducted.

• The meeting organizer may have default authority, especially if acting in an administrative or supervisory role.
• Unit leadership (e.g., department chairs, associate deans) may set policy or delegate authority.
• Shared governance groups may set standards for their meetings.
• Context-specific authority: For example, HR-led investigations or compliance-related meetings may have different standards.
• Student Service Meeting: Student services or advising sessions with permission from the student.

• Official Meeting Minutes and Governance Documents: Video recordings and AI generated transcripts must not serve as official meeting minutes and other governance documents.

• Unanimous consent is not required: All participants must be notified that the meeting will be recorded and how the recording will be used. If a conflict exists, the matter should be referred to the meeting organizers management for proper escalation. 
• You should never maintain more personal information than necessary to perform your official duties.

All recorded meetings must meet UW-System Privacy Policy requirements, including:

• Prior to collection of personal data, data subjects must be notified how data will be collected, processed, and shared.
• Data subjects must have the ability for a data subject to opt out if the data collected does not serve the institution’s academic, research, administrative functions, or other legally required purposes.
• You must provide means for data subjects to review their own personal data collected and/or processed by the institution, and a means to request corrections of the data if inaccuracies are found.

• Session attendees must notify the host of their intent to record, transcribe, or summarize the session, or cause an approved AI meeting assistant to join the web conferencing session.
• UW-Stout session attendees must not share sensitive or restricted UW-Stout data with another institution or entity without appropriate authority or institutional approval.
• If an in-person meeting has a recording device, the person recording must inform attendees in the room when a recording is in progress and begins/pauses/ends and the recording must be created and stored on an approved platform..

• Audio or video recordings of official meetings can be destroyed after official minutes are approved, if they were only used for producing the minutes.
• Closed session materials may be confidential, but they may be subject to a Public Records Law request unless the need to restrict access that allowed for the closed session still exists at the time the request is made.
• Employees utilizing features to record video, audio, or text transcripts of a meeting, or to generate notes and tasks, may be creating a record that is discoverable if requested in certain public records, FERPA, or other discovery requests.
• Employees intending to create a convenience copy/ personal notes of a Microsoft Teams Meeting must go into their OneDrive at the end of the meeting and remove permission to access the file from other individuals.

• Determine if it is a meeting that should be recorded. Should the full audio/video be recorded, or just a transcription (a transcript is a form of recording)? Would participants be less comfortable based on the nature of the meeting (ex: privacy, legal or sensitive topics)?
• It is encouraged to add a note to the calendar invite stating:

This meeting will be recorded. Audio/video, transcript, and chat may be captured for the limited purpose of drafting official minutes. Draft artifacts will be deleted once the official meeting record is approved. Please do not share sensitive or restricted information unless this meeting has been cleared for that data type.

• Ensure any AI assistant or other tool has been approved for data processing and storage

• Record the meeting
• Machine generated transcription at in person meetings may not be accurate. It is recommended for written notes in addition to transcription.

To help content appear accuracy in transcripts, participants should use language like:

🔹 For Action Items:

• “Let’s assign this to [Name].”
• “[Name], can you take care of this by [date]?”
• “Action item: [Task description].”
• “Next step is to [task].”
• “We need to [task] before [deadline].”

🔹 For Decisions:

• “We’ve decided to go with option B.”
• “The final decision is to proceed with...”
• “It’s agreed that we will...”

🔹 For Highlights or Key Points:

• “The key takeaway here is...”
• “To summarize, we discussed...”
• “Important point: [summary].”

General notes

• Speak clearly and avoid overlapping conversations.
• Use names when assigning tasks (“Ian, please follow up on…”).
• Repeat or rephrase important points for clarity.
• Avoid vague language like “someone should do this” — be specific.

• Review any machine generated files alongside any agendas, or notes taken.
• All AI generated content must be cited or noted.
• Create official meeting minutes for the meeting and action items that meet the spirit of the meeting.
• Utilize CoPilot Prompts for clearer meeting minutes.
• Publish the meeting minutes to those who need it.
• Delete the draft recordings once the official meeting record is approved.