Recommendations for International Students attending Virtual Classes

These recommendations are based on testing conducted by CUIT, completed on August 28th, 2020.

Connecting to Zoom from Mainland China

Students in Mainland China are recommended to download the Chinese-native Zoom client for connecting to Columbia's Zoom sessions: https://zoom.com.cn/download. This has been tested and the following features and restrictions have been confirmed.

Chinese-native Zoom features
  • Audio (can hear and share own audio)
  • Video (can see and share own video)
  • Chat
  • Polling
Chinese-native Zoom restriction
  • You can only join existing Zoom sessions that others have created. You cannot schedule your own Zoom session.

Accessing Columbia's web apps using Windows Virtual Desktop

For students that need assistance accessing Courseworks (Canvas), LionMail (Gmail), Panopto and other web-based resources, CUIT has deployed Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD).

    WVD requirements
    • Stable, high-speed internet connection
    • Students must use their UNI/password credentials and Duo multifactor authentication
      • If a student does not have their phone for Duo, they can call the CUIT Service Desk and provide their physical Columbia University ID card (CUID)
      • If a student doesn't have their CUID and cannot use Duo, there may be a lag in providing access to WVD while the student's Duo account is reset.
    Request a WVD account (instructors and administrators)

    School administrators and faculty should submit a ticket following the the request process on the WVD service page.

    How to connect to WVD (students)

    The latest connection instructions are available on the WVD service page.