How do you support CourseCast on your campus???

Pete et al,

Not to be the proverbial Cheshire cat on this, but we have been asked about this in different forms. Our thinking, given our business model, is to provide a Solutions Account as a load balancing mechanism. A Solutions Account, much like a cellular minute plan, would allow for xx number of support incidents for faculty (they could call us directly) and once the account has been used up, you would purchase additional units. We haven't put together the effective per "solution unit" pricing but we're close. Also, this is not intended to replace having dedicated points of contact at the IT level, but more, again, as a load balancing vehicle until internal resources can be allocated.

Let me us know your thoughts,

Brad

Thanks, Brad.
My concern is for the number of start-up, face-to-face minutes required so far, per newbie Creator, for tasks like:
// New account administration;
// Software installation on their workstations;
// Training on the growing CourseCast feature set, plus file maintenance and naming conventions; proper microphone usage;
// In some cases assist with installation and troubleshooting of external devices, etc. prior to even the user's first recording session.
I can not envision this occurring at phones length. But these are the tasks which prompted me to ask the support question.

The actual support time required after the folks have been using the system for a while has been comparatively small, but usually requires on-site assistance. Say, if users were to call Panopto Tech Support at the start of a class (as they have me) with an urgent "no audio" support call, and the symptoms point to a dead battery in the microphone, how would you then appropriately handle the call and what was the benefit received?

Pointing users to some type of 'quick-start' website, FAQ or video does not seem workable either, although those are good tools to augment face-to-face training. But no, I don't read FAQ's either. If we decide to expand CourseCast into a production mode, I am anticipating a not-insignificant 'push-back' from other Department technicians if we desire to delegate start-up and training tasks to those technicians. This does not even include consideration of editing of sessions.

But now that I think about it, perhaps Panopto could indeed provide live, Webex-type training for new users in order to introduce the product and features. I'll have to consider this a bit more...

Just my observations. Thanks. -Pete-

For our schools that follow a lock-step curriculum, we train student technology assistants to setup the recording sessions. These students are paid a small stipend and get everything ready, so the instructors only need to worry about teaching. In addition to supporting Panopto, these students are also familiar with our audience response system, our a/v systems, classroom lighting controls, etc. This arrangement has worked very well for us.

You could also ask for student volunteers. It is in the students’ best interest to ensure successful recordings.

Can anyone who is running Panopto tell me how much staff time it took to set up the server - and how much maintenance time is required to support it? I'm only asking about staff time for server saetup and maintenance, as I have to make a pitch to our IT staff to set up a Panopto server and I need some idea of what their time commitment will be. Thanks!