Getting Started 4

Exploring eProv

If you haven't gone through the first 3 "Getting Started" pages, you should do that now.

If you have gone through those pages, you're probably logged onto the eProv portal (https://eprov.nefsis.com/) and are in the eProv Seminar Hub—the room at Providence that’s been modified to enable us to make eProv possible. If you're not, you should log on now.

The eProv Seminar Hub is usually on and available for use.

• It won't always be up over the summer but, once the semester gets closer, it will be up most of the time.

Changing what you see and hear

The default view for the eProv Seminar Hub is on full screen.

• Click on the "exit full screen" button on the top right corner to access your control options.
• Click on the large round Nefsis button on the top right corner and look through the “Settings” options. This will allow you to customize your video (and your sound).

You have lots of options to customize eProv. The whole point of eProv is to put you as completely as possible into the classroom experience, so feel free to play with and change the settings in whatever way gives you the strongest sense that you are in the classroom with everyone else.

• There's nothing you can do to wreck it--or at least nothing that can't be easily fixed.
   
• One of the less obvious ways you can change what you see is by right-clicking on your image to adjust your screen resolution and frames-per-second settings. (You probably shouldn’t use the “crisp” setting here. Our experience is that it increases the lag time quite a bit, which makes it harder to participate in discussions in real time.)

Break-Out Rooms

In addition to the Seminar Hub and the Lecture Hub, there are break-out rooms available for you to use. We’ve set up a sample called “eProvBreakoutRoom1” on the eProv portal, and we'll add more as the semster gets closer.

Clicking on the "join" beside a Breakout Room will take you to a meeting room on the internet where you can meet with others in your class and talk. You'll need a password but, not to worry, the one you got from Stephanie to get you into the Seminar Hub takes you everywhere--it's like a universal passkey.

• These rooms are open 24/7 and are available for you to use because you're part of eProv.
• And, unlike phone conference calls, there’s no need to set up a meeting with an operator ahead of time. Just log on to the eProv portal and join.

We ask you to respect the purpose of these rooms. They are a like study rooms in the library—intended for studying and working together. Anyone with access to eProv can access them, and Nefsis sends us reports of how much they’re used.

• The biggest limitation to the use of the rooms is the total number of “seats” we’ve licensed with Nefsis. (A “seat” is counted as any computer currently logged onto eProv.)

Remember, your tech fee pays part of the cost of the rental of these seats. The more efficiently they are used, the more bang you will get for your buck as a student.

Because of this limitation, during class time, most (if not all) of the seats are likely to be used by people taking part in classes. If you are using a breakout room, someone may occasionally drop by and tell you we need the seats.

And that’s really all there is to it. There’s no need for you to register with Nefsis. Once you're registered for a course and given the password, you will have complete access.

Have fun, and we’ll see you in class!