j10 1145 bb power links stories
TRANSCRIPT
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Audience Poll
• How many in the audience:– Have heard of Wimba Live Classroom?– Use Live Classroom without Power Link?– Use Live Classroom Power Link?
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Agenda
• About CSU, Chico• About our relationship with HW• About the setup of our delivery system• Where did we start?
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Agenda (cont.)
• Issues with the old system• The Power Link
– What we like– What we want to change
• Issues that affect the Power Link deployment
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About CSU, Chico
• One of 23 CSU campusesOne of 23 CSU campuses• Located in Chico, CA -- 90 miles north of Located in Chico, CA -- 90 miles north of
SacramentoSacramento• Residential CampusResidential Campus• Serves 12 countiesServes 12 counties• 15000 FTEs15000 FTEs
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About our relationship with HW
• Started in 2000 • Result of a transition from satellite service• Deliver at least 30 hours of content a week• Variety of faculty skill levels
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About the setup of our delivery system
• Up to 24 in-class students• 2 computers, one for instructor, one for
assistant
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About the setup of our delivery system (cont)
• 3 streams originating from each classroom– Real Video @ 20 kbps– Real Audio Only– High bandwidth QuickTime @90 kbps
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About the setup for our delivery system (cont.)
• Multiple video (VHS and DVD) and audio formats can be piped into the class
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About the setup for our delivery system (cont.)
• Triple redundancy built in to the process– Live Classroom Archive– RM file stored on encoder– Tape archive of the class kept until the next
session
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Where did we start?
• Homegrown System– Eliminates the need to log in twice– Eliminates anonymity
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Where did we start? (Cont)
• Logs users as guest but uses their name from Campus Edition– To those in the room all users appear with first
name and last name
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Issues With The Old System
• Forced Guest Access– Server is wide open as a result– Privacy– No real access control and security is an
issue
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Issues With The Old System (Cont)
• Consent for people not in the class to view archives?
• Link from each CE course has to be manually edited to point to the correct room
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What we like
• People still login only once but now it’s not anonymous
• All users coming through Vista get an account created in Live Classroom
• Security and ACLs can be enforced – Access Control List (ACL): Who has access to
what
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What we like (cont.)
• We are considering disabling guest access altogether once all our courses are moved over to Vista and the Power Link
• Most of the administration can be done directly through the Power Link
• Tidies things up
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What we like (cont.)
• We can trust our power users to do more without breaking things :-)
• The integration with Vista is very tight• Upload material from my files in Vista to
Live Classroom directly
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What we like (cont.)
• Publish archives directly from Vista • User Accounts and Rooms use different
IDs than our rooms created manually– Easier to identify
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What we want to change
• User Accounts and Rooms use different IDs than our rooms created manually– We can’t choose the ID for the rooms or users– This is good but causes problems for our
assistants and staff when setting up encoders
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What we want to change (cont.)
• The room name is the same as the name of the proxy tool in the Vista section
• The Room ID is fixed and can not be selected or created manually– Naming is difficult and this complicates
management
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What we want to change (cont.)
• There is still stuff that needs to be done through the LC administration– Setting up the video on the branding frame– Any additional access has to be configured
through LC Admin
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Issues that affect deployment of the Power Link
• Level of administrative work having to be done– We centralize the creation of all our LC
channels for a given semester.
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Issues that affect deployment of t he Power link
• For the Power Link this means adding my Vista admin account to each course adding the Power Link and creating the room– We do not want faculty to do it
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Issues that affect deployment of the Power Link (cont.)
• Vista accounts solely for HW access– Rather than complicating things for our
assistant we add an assistant account to all Vista courses
• Everyone logs in through Vista.
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Issues that affect deployment of the Power Link (cont.)
– Assistant account must be instructor in Vista• This introduces a potential risk unless the assistant
are trained in Vista• Not likely to change, have to rely on our assistants
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What we have learned
• It can be disconcerting and scary– Most of our pilot faculty were worried about
how it would change the way they use LC• This was not the case
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What we have learned
• It makes us dependent on Vista for access to channels – Even more of priority to have a stable system– System had to be rebooted 20 minutes before
a Power Link – enabled class started. Scary thought
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What we have learned (cont.)
• Additional Training is needed– For faculty at least to show them how things
are different and how they are the same– For staff to know how to assist faculty– For administrators to effectively manage the
system
• Look on the admin interface when things are not working
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What we have learned (cont.)
• Some things are not intuitive– Prefix for the classes was not shown when the
channel was created– Had to look in the LC admin interface to get
the full channel ID in order to encode video to it
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Where to next
• Moving all our Fall 2007 classes to use the Power Link– Consideration for our Modem Users
• How far in advance do we need to set everything up?
• How much does Live Classroom 5.0 changes the way we do things?
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Where to next (cont.)
• Working with HW to improve the Power Link and our internal processes– Making product suggestions based on
experience
• Rinse and repeat
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Credits
• Staff (Ann, Bill, Buzz and Stephen)• Assistants (Jared, Gene and Dylan)• Pilot faculty using Power Link (Cris
Guenter, Tony Waters, Sally Parker, Steve Kooch and Graham Thurgood)
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Thank you
Carlos ArayaInformation Technology ConsultantCalifornia State University, [email protected]