Some days you can't watch a YouTube video about a unicorn from Brooklyn. Other days the male-bashing bumper sticker on Facebook your friend sent you just won't come through (no matter how many times you click that little button). In other words, there are students and faculty on campus unhappy with aspects of OC technology. "My Internet is so slow in the dorms," says sophomore nursing major Lindsey Curry. "I realize it may not be Otterbein's fault, maybe it's just my computer." Curry has a brand new Dell laptop. The problem seemed to be emanating from the fact that Otterbein had subscribed to a basic bandwidth package, which wasn't adequate for educational video use let alone recreational use by students. Tammy Birk, English Department professor, fought a losing bandwidth battle and was rescued by Tom Wilcox of the Information and Technology (IT) department. "Supposedly Ohio Link has films available. Everyone's like 'It's no problem.' First, we couldn't actually screen it, and second, we had no technology in our room anyway," she explained. After going through the hassle of video streaming, Birk decided that this was a "ridiculous" situation and that people needed to become aware that this is an issue. "It was shocking to me. I wrote a letter," she said. In talking to students and faculty, Birk learned that this was an issue other people were aware of but had no idea how to go about fixing. Among students polled from three classes, the majority said they experienced significant delays because of streaming issues and agreed that lesson plans had been affected by delays. "I thought it was embarrasing and shameful," said Birk of her experience with technological classroom delays. The IT staff got involved and took care of the problem. The system was upgraded to include more bandwidth. "We recently upgraded our campus internet bandwidth from 20Mg to 45Mg. It seems to have improved overall performance quite dramatically," said Jeff Kasson, director of Networking and PC Support. "Video and audio streams are much more consistent and free of errors." "That's great, because loading videos takes time away from class, and time when we could be talking about critiquing speeches," said assistant communication professor, Nichelle McNabb. Allen Reichert, Electronic Access Librarian, had also noticed the bandwidth problem and is glad for the adjustment. "It has improved. Previously you had to start the download the night before to get the video on your home drive. Now you can do it in an hour or less," he said. The library received complaints about situations like Birk's and issues with video quality and timeliness. "Complaints are sometimes about the quality of the videos, either sound or image. Also, I heard general complaints about the system crashing or being unable to get video to play, but frequently these complaints are not direct. There can occasionally be software compatibility issues," said Reichert. Although the upgrade has helped, it still takes 11 minutes to download a 20-minute YouTube video in a classroom compared to a campus computer lab where it takes about one minute. "Simply give yourself enough time to download the video. However, it also includes previewing the video in the classroom and if necessary, saving the video to another format, such as DVD," Reichert said about videos in the classroom. Birk's "bandwidth crusade" has dwindled with the increase, but she still feels improvements in the quality of technology at Otterbein are needed. "I wish I knew more about what it would take to make us state-of-the-art. I can't think of another higher educational institution that would've accepted that as a matter of course," she said. t&c;
Troubling technology
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