Notes from:
Nuts and Bolts, Successes and Failures. The factors that made a difference.
Facilitators: Jennifer Oxenford and Monica Cougan
Participants: Denise Atkinson-Shorey, Guy Jones, Andrew Wright, Larry Gallery, Anne Zimmerman, Luis Wong, Brady Kraft, Patrick Clemins, Natasha Angell, Tom Rolfes
Initial Ideas from Intros – What drew you to this group?
Scale – What Works
Building Netwrok
More In-state higher ed and K12
BTOP into K12
Have connectivity, increase usage
Productivity ? Scale, model across terrain, financial scale
Landscape last mile
Wireless mobility
Infrastructure
Success models in contact
Outreach model, what do you do with schools who are not in the program, not tech savvy.
Passion for design and omplementation. How to make conferences work in video.
What technology models do we use for different venues?
Usage. Enhancing, grow user base and membership to add value.
Lighting those with passon or all?
Focus Areas
Scaling and Sustainability
Bridging – Price has come down considerably in hardware for room systems but is still an issue for schools. Not all states have bridging systems. There are resources available for people who need help with MCU. There are central resources for Internet 2. There are partner otions
Desktop/Mobile Revolution –
What are we all using? MOVI, Polycomm CMA, Cisco, Jabber, Vidyo, Bluegene, Conference Me, EVO. Two underlying technologies create interoperability issues.
Potential users need answers about cost, interoperability, access, success, etc.
What we need for both of these issues is a way to share best practices. We keep doing one-offs and re-inventing the wheel. Current systems are not scaling to share-ability.
What’s missing for future participants is how do you do it?
Possible action: a document to help new users?
Scheduling
Some need or are planning to upgrade. Some have developed their own. Some have adopted Renovo. SIP gateway. Develop global, free licenses.
How do you do your testing? In advance, maybe as much as a month in advance for very important things. Others plan a half hour before for final testing but may have tested more exhaustively before. Others a few days before.
Provide open test windows for users to dial in and test and encourage as early as possible. Part of the problem is the variety of systems encountered at participating institutions.
Questions: authentication needs? Do we envision a time when testing will be eliminated (systems work as easy as turning on a TV). A: Probably not soon. Problem is currently less likely to be the tool and more likely related systems. How can we change perceptions around tech support? Can we develop protocols for testing and scheduling?
Possible Solutions: For share-ability, what if we had something like a testers’ bill of rights? Tips and tricks for testers. High-level CIO version “behind the curtains”. “Testing Manifesto”. Best practices guide that addresses the basics of video conferencing. Example librarians at research instituions tryng to provide content from their institutions called “Online with Libraries”. There are support systems for this process; it doesn’t have to be just one person.
Action Item: Can we join forces – GCI, Alaska, CILC, Internet 2, and libraries (Monica and James)?
Funding: Public Computing Center (PCC) grants. Shelby Center.
Marketing and Content
Ideas: Turn it back to the participants. Do some metrics to help justify costs. How is this impacting students’ learning? How do you get into a mode of showing how it is impacting students? ProjectRed is an example of this, comparing 9 attributes to student achievement scores. Has been that implementing all 9 has a payback of reducing education costs.