Interactive Digital Video SystemTM
Technical Support Issues
System Management Considerations
A number of local district/school policy decisions should be made, regarding media ordering, downloading, and file storage. The local site administrators of the e-Mod.com software installation may wish to make recommendations to district/school staff that will utilize the system. Listed below are two alternate methods to manage users and groups on the iDVSTM web site and at the local level. iDVSTM site administrators and local districts/schools may, of course, utilize whatever procedures meet their own local needs and requirements. The e-Mod.com technical support staff is available to provide assistance, regarding this topic.
Individual User Accounts Each local district/school staff member can be provided with a user name and password and can be designated as a member of the appropriate district/school user group, with access to the iDVSTM media catalogs. The user could then utilize any computer properly configured with the iDVSTM viewer software to order and download media. The computer must remain turned on, must have an active Internet connection, and the iDVSTM download box must remain open or minimized between the time the download is scheduled and the time it actually takes place. If the computer is turned off or the download box is closed, the media order will be cancelled. The computer does not need to be logged onto the iDVSTM website or the Internet during that entire time, but the download box must remain active or minimized and not be closed. (The Internet connection must, however, be active.) School groups may be created with access to the appropriate iDVSTM media catalogs and individual staff members may be then be assigned as a member of the appropriate group. In this configuration, the local iDVSTM site administrator will consequently manage a large number of individual user accounts and school/district groups.
Centralized User Accounts Depending on the size and organizational complexity of a school or district, a single computer or small number of computers could be utilized for ordering and downloading from the iDVSTM web site. Individual staff members could forward media orders to another person with the responsibility to log into the iDVSTM web site and schedule the orders, or all staff members could be provided access to a centralized ordering computer with a single iDVSTM user account. In either case, that account could be made a member of a district/school group that is provided access to the appropriate iDVSTM web site media catalogs.
In this configuration, the iDVSTM site administrator will manage a much smaller number of individual user accounts that are part of district/school groups. As noted in the previous configuration, the computer must remain turned on, have an active Internet connection, and the iDVSTM download box must remain open or minimized, between the time the download is scheduled and the time it actually takes place. If the computer is turned off or the download box is closed, the scheduled download order will be cancelled. The computer does not need to be logged onto the iDVSTM website or the Internet during that entire time, but the download box does need to remain active or minimized and not be closed.
Local Media Storage
A number of local school/district policies and procedures must also be established to store, manage, view, and annotate media files at the local level. Local IT staff must consider the configuration of the local area network, storage capabilities, and user requirements when establishing these procedures. The following is suggested as one implementation method.
Network Storage Once a video/media file has been downloaded to the computer from which the order was placed, it can be moved over the local area network to a central storage location designated for video/media storage. When an individual staff member needs to utilize a media file, it can be copied across the local area network from the central storage location to the hard drive on the user’s local computer. This will help reduce network load, which would result from streaming media multiple times for classroom use.
Viewer/Annotation Protocol To view/annotate a video or other media file on an individual computer (PC), create a folder called iDVS on the root folder of drive C:\ (C:\iDVS) to store all video and annotation files. (Local policy will determine the actual folder path and name.) That should be a standard practice for every computer on which the iDVSTM Viewer and videos or other media will be utilized. Using the computer on which you wish to view/annotate a video or other media file, copy the media to the C:\iDVS folder from the local area network drive, which stores the downloaded media collection. As described above, using this procedure will result in a video or media file being moved across the local area network only once, instead multiple times. Local area network resources will not be degraded every time the video will be played/annotated during the day, which may result from streaming protocols. The user can then proceed normally to view/annotate the video/media. A similar procedure can be utilized on Apple Macintosh computers. The video/media file can be copied to desktop or a folder can be created on the hard drive.
Creating a standard file/path system and teaching each staff member to always use it will ensure that media and annotations can be used on any computer, not just the one on which the annotation file was created and saved. The important element to remember in this procedure is that an identical path should be utilized on each computer that will be utilized to view and annotate video/media files.
e-Mod.com, Inc. Technical Support
The e-Mod.com, Inc. technical support staff is available to assist you. Initial training provided at the time of installation can be supplemented with additional administrator or user professional development and programs for extended technical support and software maintenance/upgrades are also available. Please contact e-Mod.com, Inc. for further information.