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About e-Rooms New! ACCC e-Rooms (aka Centra) Real-time Web Conferencing for Macs
ACCC e-Rooms is the new web-based collaboration server that allows for real-time communication amongst several remote locations. This seamless application has an intuitive user interface and supports a wide range of different communication modalities including audio chat (VoIP), text chat, application sharing, real-time polling, video, and websafaris. The system can be accessed with a standard PC based web browser (Mac support coming soon). In addition to allowing for collaboration the system also supports the recording of e-Rooms events for later posting on our Helix streaming server. The system can also be used to create "knowledge objects" such as narrated powerpoint and screen capture demonstrations. For more details please check out the links for the Recording Guide and Narrating Powerpoint. After an initial login to a conference the e-Rooms system will perform a series of brief diagnostic tests to ensure that a user has the hardware and settings adjusted properly for participation. The system supports connection speeds as low as 56kbps. F or users who wish to participate in audio chat their system must have a sound card, speakers, and a microphone. For users that want to share video they must have a webcam installed on thier system. Users who wish to participate in conferences who do not have these peripherals installed on their systems can still communicate during a collaboration session through the use of the text chat tool. For more information on using the e-Rooms system please review the rest of the e-Rooms support pages, or e-mail us at erooms@uic.edu. The Tools e-Rooms supports a wide range of different communication modalities including audio chat (VoIP), text chat, application sharing, real-time polling, video, and websafaris. The system can be accessed with a standard PC based web browser (Mac support coming soon). In addition to allowing for collaboration the system also support the recording of e-Rooms events for later posting on our Helix streaming server. The system can also be used to create "knowledge objects" such as narrated powerpoint and screen capture demonstrations. For more details please check out the links for the Recording Guide and Narrating Powerpoint. How Does It Work? The server supports two main roles for collaboration sessions - leaders and participants. Leaders have the ability to use all tools within the collaboration framework, set tools as "available or unavailable" for participants, set up agendas within events prior to the actual start date, and promote any participants to "co-presenters" at any time during a session. Participants have the ability to log in to events and participate using any of the tools that the leader has enabled. In addition they have a subset of tools that will allow them to perform different actions including raising their hands to indicate that they have something they would like to say, stating yes or no to questions, indicating applause or laughter, and stepping out of an event briefly. The e -Rooms application can be likened to a "virtual classroom" in many ways. e-Rooms sessions are set up on an "event-by-event" basis, meaning that if you would like to use the system you must pre-arrange a date and time for the event. The system is currently limited to the number of user licenses for our campus; we currently have licenses for 32 concurrent users. Despite the fact that we are limited to 32 concurrent connections a participant can easily hook up a projector to the machine they are using to participate in the event and then project the session to a small group of additional participants. To use the system you must first get an account, and then login at the main event server located at http://e-rooms.uic.edu. After logging in you will see a list of the events that you have been enrolled in. You also have the ability to enroll yourself in an event if it has been set up for "self enrollment" by browsing through the list of upcoming events on the server. Getting an Account To get an account on the e-Rooms system please visit the main login page at You will be presented with a user registration form. If you are a UIC affiliate please use your UIC netid as your username. If you have already set up an account on the server using your UIC netid as you username, but can not remember your password please e-mail us at erooms@uic.edu to have your password reset. If you are not affiliated with UIC or do not have a UIC netid please select and append a "-ext" (ie. jsmith-ext) onto the end of it so that we can readily identify you as an external user. Users that do not comply with this policy run the risk of having their accounts removed from the system. Scheduling Events To get an event scheduled please click on the link labeled "Request a Session". Events are scheduled on a first come first served basis. We are limited to 32 concurrent users, so please keep this in mind when submitting your event request. itlTV On-Demand Streaming Videos
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