General Recommendations

• Chrome is the best browser to use with Collaborate with Firefox as a secondary recommendation.  Other browsers such as Safari and Edge will work with Collaborate but they don’t support all of the WebRTC features that are utilized in Collaborate. Whatever your browser, we recommend updating the most recently released version.

• The strength of your connection is key to a good experience in Collaborate. A hard-wired connection is preferred, but a strong wireless connection will work as well. Good positioning close to a strong, consistent wireless connection is key. Many of the negative experience that we see with students (and faculty members) is caused by a week or intermittent wireless connection.

• Users should close all other applications on their computer except Collaborate. This is especially true of other streaming services (Spotify, Netflix, Pandora, YouTube Etc.) Streaming these while in Collaborate or having multiple applications open can degrade the experience dramatically.

• Open video and audio channels for multiple users will dramatically increase the bandwidth requirements and can degrade the experience. Users should only use open video and audio when required for the experience. Text chat takes next to no bandwidth.

• Presenters are advised to share files rather than sharing screens. Additionally, application sharing uses fewer resources than sharing your full screen, where possible. Screen sharing dramatically increases the required bandwidth for all users; if PowerPoint files can be uploaded to Collaborate before presenting, users will have a much better experience overall.

• If presenting a file or application, turn off your video camera. Participants will be focused on on the shared window and turning off the video can dramatically reduce the bandwidth used by the application.

Temporary System Changes

To help increase stability of the system and increase performance, the following features are temporarily disabled by the vendor:

• Countdown timer
• The indicator that someone is actively typing in the chat
• The connection strength indicator