National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators

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National Association of Student Financial Aid
Administrators
The following is a presentation prepared for
NASFAAs 2006 Conference in Seattle, WAJuly 5-8,
2006
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Are You Synchronous? Web Conferencing
Collaboration Tools You Can Use Ellen
BlackmunFrank Valines
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Definitions

• Synchronous
• Same time (live)
• Immediate
• Real time
• Asynchronous
• Different times
• Email, discussion forums

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Definitions (more)

• Collaborative technologies
• Who uses these terms?

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Group Conferencing and Collaboration

• Online meetings
• Webinars
• Webcasts
• Interactive videoconferencing
• Whiteboard collaboration

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Decision Points

• What is the primary purpose of the group meeting?
• How many participants?
• What level of IT support do you have available?
• Is this an recurrent or one-time (infrequent)
  session?
• What sort of audio do you prefer?
• Do you want or need to be able to record the
  session?

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Decision Points (more)

• Will you require a preregistration for the
  session?
• Will this be an interactive session with audience
  involvement?
• Do you want desktop sharing?
• Do you want a simultaneous chat room or private
  messaging?

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Online Meetings

• Example
• www.gotomeeting.com
• This is an example, not an endorsement!

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Webinars

• Examples
• Conference America and WebEcho
• www.WebEcho.conferenceamerica.com
• Interwise
• www.Interwise.com
• WebEx (also small group meetings)
• www.WebEx.com

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging, Live Chat, and Text
Messaging to communicate with students, parents,
and staff

• Instant Tools
• Instant Messaging
• Live Chat
• Text Messaging

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging, Live Chat, and Text
Messaging to communicate with students, parents,
and staff

• Instant Messaging (IM), Live Chat, and Text
  Messaging are the communication tools the current
  traditional age college students, current high
  school students, and current middle school
  students use as easily as we use the telephone
  and email.
• How can we get synchronous to provide more
  avenues of contact with our clientele?

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• IM is ubiquitous.
• All PCs have many versions pre-loaded
• Your staff is probably using it to communicate
  with each other, students, parents, and their own
  families
• IM can be insecure
• Viruses, trojans, key loggers and spyware are all
  now delivered via IM

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• Secure your IM! (from SearchNetworking.com)
• Establish a corporate IM usage policy.
• Do not allow any public IM services inside the
  corporate network.
• Educate employees about the potential security
  risks involved in using public IM services.
• Configure your firewalls to block all
  non-approved IM services.

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• Secure your IM! (from SearchNetworking.com)
• Install good anti-virus software on every PC.
  This is the only way you can stop viruses,
  Trojans and worms from spreading through IM file
  transfers. Configure the anti-virus clients for
  Live/Automatic Update, so that you don't miss out
  on any new virus definitions.

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• Secure your IM! (from SearchNetworking.com)
• Not everything can be blocked at the corporate
  firewall. Desktop firewalls provide another layer
  of security by restricting users from using
  public IM services. These firewalls work on deny
  and allow rules, which are associated with
  programs installed on the PC. You can configure
  them to only allow approved programs to connect
  to the Internet.

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• Secure your IM! (from SearchNetworking.com)
• It's always better to deploy corporate IM
  servers.
• If you choose to go with an external IM service
  provider, make sure the IM clients only connect
  to the designated servers.
• Never miss out on new IM security patches and
  updates.
• Auditing is an important tool. Regular auditing
  helps ensure IM usage policy compliance.

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with staff
and students/parents
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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with staff
and students/parents

• What are your IM options?
• AOL AIM, the Grandaddy of all IM. The free
  version is completely insecure!
• Look into their AIM_at_Work product,
  http//www.aimatwork.com/
• Yahoo Messenger, yes the free is also insecure!
• Try their Enterprise partners, http//messenger.ya
  hoo.com/partners.php

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with staff
and students/parents

• What are your IM options?
• MSN Instant Messenger (now Windows Live
  Messenger). This one is vulnerable too!
• Try Live Communications Server
• http//www.microsoft.com/office/livecomm/prodinfo/
  default.mspx

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Instant Messaging to communicate with staff
and students/parents

• What are your IM options?
• POD (Professional Online Desktop)
• Secure Enterprise capable IM Client
• http//www.omnipod.com/
• Lotus Notes Secure IM built in!
• http//www-142.ibm.com/software/sw-lotus/products/
  product4.nsf/wdocs/noteshomepage

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents
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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents

• Live Chat enables one to one, one to many, and
  many to many web-based communication any time,
  any place.
• The major security issue is authentication.
• Who is that on the other end?
• Be careful about what personal/detailed info you
  share during a chat.

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents

• There are dozens of choices for implementing live
  chat on your website. Here a few of the more
  popular in Higher Ed.
• Chat University http//www.chatuniversity.com/,
  very popular with Admissions Offices
• Live Person http//www.liveperson.com/, excellent
  management tools

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents

• Live Chat choices (cont.)
• Sight Max http//www.sightmax.com/iama_edu.html
• Bold Chat http//www.boldchat.com/

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents

• A small sample of who is doing chat.
• Ohio Wesleyan University, http//admission.owu.edu
  /chat.html
• Mesa Community College, http//www.mc.maricopa.edu
  /services/finaid/chat/index.html
• BYU Idaho, http//www.byui.edu/FinancialAid/
• Cornell College, http//www.cornellcollege.edu/adm
  issions/chat.shtml

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents

• A sample (cont.)
• Central Missouri State University,
  http//www.cmsu.edu/x30676.xml
• Simpson University, http//www.simpsonuniversity.e
  du/resources_fa.htm
• Milan Institute, http//www.milaninstitute.edu/fin
  ancial.htm

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Live Chat to communicate with staff and
students/parents

• A sample (cont.)
• City University of New York, http//www1.cuny.edu/
  online/admissions/index.html
• Trinity College, http//www.trinitycollege.edu/ind
  ex.php?optioncontenttaskcategorysectionid2id
  12Itemid109

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Text Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• Text messaging is hot among teens
• We havent caught up yet.

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Are you Synchronous?
Using Text Messaging to communicate with
students, parents, and staff

• There are some pioneers.
• Wachovia can text loan status to students
• Creighton is texting admissions decisions
• Centenary is texting students
• The Wharton School at Penn is texting
• Any others?

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Are you Synchronous?
Contact us

• Ellen Blackmun
• Director of Technology Initiatives and Distance
  Learning, NASFAA. blackmune_at_nasfaa.org TXT to
  240-418-6359
• Frank Valines
• Director of Financial Aid, Florida International
  University. valinesf_at_fiu.edu TXT to 305-323-1926

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