What are the Technology Requirements for receiving a Webinar broadcast?

What can we do on our campus to maximize our viewing experience?

What are the Technology Requirements for receiving a Webinar broadcast?

NACADA uses the Wimba platform, provided by Kansas State University / Axio Learning, to host our webcasts. Wimba allows our presenters to share their presentations with our viewers in a live format. You will watch and listen to both sound and visual images that will be sent over the Internet. NOTE: Visual images will NOT include streaming video (sometimes referred to as "talking heads"), which requires more bandwidth than is currently available on many campuses.

Our Webinars are designed to be viewed on any recent model Microsoft Windows or Macintosh based computer with an adequate Internet connection. 

MINIMUM  requirements are:

• PC System Requirements

  • Desktop with 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor or Laptop with 1.4 GHz Centrino processor Windows XP Professional operating system
  • Sound card and speakers that are appropriate to your reception set-up (if you are going to broadcast to a group in a conference room setting, laptop speakers will probably not provide adequate projection)
  • 512MB RAM
  • keyboard/touchpad and mouse (necessary for interaction with the presenter)
  • Screen-saver must be turned off.

   

• Macintosh System Requirements

• Desktop or Laptop with 800 MHz processor
• Macintosh OS X operating system
• Sound card and speakers that are appropriate to your reception set-up (if you are going to broadcast to a group in a conference room setting, laptop speakers will probably not provide adequate projection)
• 512MB RAM
• keyboard/touchpad and mouse (necessary for interaction with the presenter)
• Screen-saver must be turned off.

• Supported Web Browsers
  • Internet Explorer version 6.0 or above
  • Mozilla Foxfire version 1.0 or above (supported but not recommended - some problems have been reported)
  • Mozilla Suite version 1.0 or above (supported but not recommended - some problems have been reported)
  • Netscape Navigator version 7.1 or above (Some webcast service provides have found that Netscape tends to be problematic for viewing webcasts, but we have not had any reports of problems )
  • Safari version 1.1 or above (recommended for Mac)

(Axio Learning technologists recommend that you keep your computer up-to-date with the latest versions of these browsers. Find links to downloads at http://public.online.ksu.edu/support/downloads.php.)

• Browser Configuration
  • ALL pop-up blockers must be disabled (including Google toolbar) or have http://129.130.12.226 added to the blocker's whitelist (list of accepted addresses).
  • Your system must be Java and JavaScript (Cookies) enabled -- with only the most recent version of JAVA.
    • Make certain that all previous versions have been uninstalled. **Conflicts caused by older versions of JAVA, or having multiple versions of JAVA installed, are among the most common causes of problems with broadcast reception. (Find links to download the latest version of Java at http://public.online.ksu.edu/support/downloads.php.

• Internet access

  • at 56k or above - Broadband strongly recommended. (NOTE: Internet connectivity issues are the most common problem encountered by participants.  We have monitored our previous webinars and found that the out-going signal is relatively small, usually only about 13 kilobits per second. However, bottlenecks can occur anywhere between our servers and your computer and occasional dropouts of the signal are frequently the results of these conditions and not a problem with the signal leaving our campus. If bandwidth on your campus is not sufficient to handle the broadcast in addition to all the other Internet interactions taking place there at the given time, the audio and visual portions of the event may not play "in sync" or may even not be receivable. Since this is strictly a campus or intermediary issue, the K-State IT HelpDesk will not be able to assist you with connectivity problems. "State of the art" computer equipment will not ensure good reception if bandwidth is not sufficient!)

• Port Requirements
  • Generally, the port requirements necessary for entering the Wimba room are the same as those needed to access web pages: Standard Web Access (Port 80/tcp). Our webinar room can be accessed through a direct connection or web proxy, through Port 80/tcp. Components (features) of Wimba will upgrade to use more efficient transport methods, when possible. In these instances, the user will seamlessly upgrade by trying multiple alternate/raw ports for connectivity.
    • For TCP, and alternate HTTP: 5998, 443 and port 5190.
    • For UDP: port 5998, 33434, 5190, and 16384.

• Institutional requirements
  • Your Institution's firewall set-up must allow internet broadcast reception. If you are behind a firewall, there is a chance that you will not be able to receive the broadcast, even if you ARE able to enter the presentation room.  PLEASE check with your institution's IT support staff well before the event to determine if this may be an issue for you. (The K-State IT HelpDesk will not be able to assist you with firewall blockage.)
    

   

• What you will not need:
  • a microphone - audio communication will be one-way from the presenters to you.
  • a telephone - audio is presented via the Internet (VoIP)

• If you have any additional questions about Technology Requirements, please call the K-State IT Helpdesk at 785-532-7722 or 800-865-6143. Please tell the technologist that your question relates to viewing a NACADA webinar on the Wimba platform.

What can we do on our campus to maximize our viewing experience?

Here are some hints and comments from participants at previous events:

Related to 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!  In the hour immediately preceeding and during our first broadcast in September 2006, the HelpDesk handled phone calls from 40 participants - and 90% of those calls were related to pop-up blockers or Java installation!  That means more than 1/3 of our registrants for that event did not run the set-up Wizard ahead of time, as requested in our instructional communications - which in turn meant that some registrants who really needed the HelpDesk service in those final moments were not able to get through, and thus some were not able to access the broadcast. Please don't keep someone else from being able to attend the event because you did not prepare ahead of time!
  • The computer we used had the "Google Toolbar" which kept blocking the seminar. Had to uninstall the toolbar to get presentation to work.
  • I had to uninstall old versions of Java and install the latest version.
  • 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.
  • Probably at my end, but some real problems with our software that stops pop-ups. Lost the first 20 minutes trying to deal with this.
  • I had to install some upgrades to my system; after I did that, everything was fine.
  • We had to update some software. Helpful assistance was given by KSU tech to ID problem and find solution quickly.
  • 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.
  • All instructions were very clear and helpful.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Thank goodness we have a smashing web guy who hooked us up. It does take some expertise, especially as we were projecting for a group.
  • 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.
  • Since we have numerous firewalls to overcome, our AV staff has asked for a 2 hour prep time for the next Webinar.
  • Our volumne was not high enough. We had you cranked all the way up, but had to strain to hear. Next time we may need more powerful speakers for our situation.
  • We needed to add additional speakers to hear it from the laptop.
  • We forgot to turn off our screen saver, so it popped up during the session.

• 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, I don't know if it was our problem our the source, 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.

72% of registrants at our April 2007 event reported no difficulties whatsoever at any time either prior to or during the event!

Related to Group Viewing

• Think through the various aspects of facilitation and set-up well in advance of the event.
  • We did not adequately anticipate that we would want to have a group discussion at the end. Our room was not well-designed for that; next time we will have a different room set-up.
  • Next time, I will reserve the room for a longer time period and plan for discussion prior to and immediately following the program .
  • We had a just small group, and it was effective. I would imagine that it might be even more effective with a larger group with a facilitator for a discussion following.
  • We got distracted at times, but we were also to make comments to each other that we wouldn't have done in a live setting. We held a discussion/brain-storming session at the conclusion of the webinar.
  • Because we had people from across campus attending, we were able to start a conversation about the importance of mission and learning outcomes for campus advising (not just in our units).

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;.