Pre-Event Technological Preparation and Reception

• Run the Wizard System check and be SURE all the tech requirements are taken care of well ahead of time.  While the Kansas State University IT HelpDesk personnel are happy to assist you in any way they can, they only have 5 phone lines to work with! 
  Learn from these participants:
  • The computer we used had the "Google Toolbar" which kept blocking the seminar. Had to uninstall the toolbar to get presentation to work.
  • We had an old version of Java; this delayed our reception of audio for about 20 minutes until our IT staff could correct the problem.
  • We had some problems with our software that stops pop-ups. Lost the first 20 minutes trying to deal with this.
  • We had to update some software. Helpful assistance was given by KSU tech to ID problem and find solution quickly.
  • We forgot to turn off our screen saver, so it popped up during the session.
  • We did have some set-up difficulties, but the situation was resolved in an effective manner. The K-State technician worked with me until the problem was resolved.
  • We had some issues, but they were at our end. We started well in advance and had them resolved by the day of the Webinar.
  • We ran set-up the day before the Webinar and all went smoothly. The instructions sent to us were very clear and easy to follow.
  • Pre-Webinar preparation instructions were clear, and we were able to check our systems successfull the day before--and it was a good thing! We found dead batteries and minor technical glitches that we were able to correct before the actual day of the Webinar.
  • Difficulties were campus based. We resolved them prior to the webinar, things went very smoothly during the webinar. Thanks for highlighting the importance of tech prep.

• You may need to request set-up assistance from an IT support person on your campus.  
  Learn from these participants:
  • The difficulties were based on how our network is set up. Computer services set up a special account to make sure that everything went smoothly. The systems test was very helpful . . .thus making sure that all would go well for the seminar.
  • Our IT people told us they had problems with the audio, but they were able to work it out before the webinar began.
  • I had to get help disabeling pop-ups. They are automatically blocked on our campus.
  • I couldn't quite figure out exactly what I needed to do in order to disable some functions on my browser, so one of our tech people helped me, and I was able to connect easily.
  • When logging in before the webinar I kept getting a security error. I hadto contact an IT support person to find out how to manuever through our campus security system.
  • Our volume was not high enough. We needed to add additional speakers to hear it from the laptop.

 

• Recognize that this is not a perfected medium and some aspects of reception quality will not be controllable by either your IT support staff OR by the K-State IT support staff, but will be simply the result of insufficient bandwith to handle all the activity that is occuring on your campus, or possibly a "bottleneck" somewhere between our campus and yours. All the following are common signs of insufficient bandwidth availability:

• Occasionally there was a silent lag when no voices came through for a couple of minutes and the slides did not update.
• During one slide the page didn't display, but after that one slide it went back to normal.
• We experienced some momentary delays in transmission.
• The audio cut out a couple of times. It only lasted a minute or two both times.
• We lost the ability to see and respond to the questions later in the webinar. We had access earlier in the webinar but lost it.
• We received audio at all times but the visual was very sporadic.
• My connection seemed slow. I was always a couple of slides behind.

The following results were experienced where bandwidth was sufficient:

• The technology worked great at our site. We are a very tech-savvy school. Participants seemed to be engaged in the presentation.
• We did not experience any technical difficulties. I am EAGER to participate in the next one!
• We have viewed all the NACADA webinars with no problems and the wizard was done each time with no problems.

If you have comments or suggestions about what you learned from your participation that might be helpful to future viewers, please email them to Leigh Cunningham;.