Hi Sheenagh

Not heard of any problems but there are only a few students using ENT. I'll get in touch with our techies and get back to you.

Regards

Margaret Burke
Deaf Service Team Manager
Student and Learning Services
Sheffield Hallam University
Tel: 0114 225 4778 (voice/text)
Fax: 0114 225 2161

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion list for CHESS [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sheenagh Hull
Sent: 05 March 2010 16:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Electronic note-taking

Hi,

Any of you (eg Margaret at SHU) using electronic note-taking, especially using Stereotype but maybe any system including speech-to-text...?

We have two laptops set up for Stereotype, ie there is wireless peer-to-peer connection, so notes get typed on one, the student can see the notes on the other.

I want our note-takers the students to be able to connect to the note-taking laptop AND the University network (at a different time, not simultaneously)- to download lecture notes, check e-mails, etc.

Our technical support person says that it is not easy to set up a system where the user can easily move between a) connecting with the University's wireless network, and b) connected to the other laptop ('peer-to-peer' connection). 

How do you get round this?

Techie bit below, for those of you who understand these things...

(We are also contacting Stereotype, but they originally just said they didn't think anyone had found it a problem, but did not know much about individual HEIs set ups.)

Sheenagh

Sheenagh Hull
Disability Co-ordinator: Deaf & Hard of Hearing Students, Note-taking Scheme
Equality Service
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT

[log in to unmask]
0113 343 3927 (Reception)
07781472713 (SMS mobile text messages only - include full name) 
0113 343 2616 (minicom textphone calls only)
0113 343 3944 (fax)
www.equality.leeds.ac.uk




"The problem is essentially this:-

There are 2 types of wireless network :-

infrastructure ( eg the eduroam network at the University of Leeds) and peer to peer ( eg the notetaker network for Stereotype)

In order to make Stereotype machines connect they have to be set to accept peer to peer networks on an ad hoc network called notetaker. Additionally the machines are assigned a fixed IP address which is manually set on each machine and  identifies them uniquely on a network

I have found previously that to reliably connect to the notetaker network, you have to tell machines to reject infrastructure networks.

When you attempt to change networks to infrastructure mode , the notetaker network and all its settings disapear and to reinstate them requires extensive resetting of both machines. Infrastructure networks use a dynamically configured IP address. This won't be set if machines are configured for a fixed IP address

This much we know from previous experience

Yesterday I found out that the software I tested will only remember either infastructure network settings or peer to peer ones depending on which network type the machines are configured to deal with. I.E. the software does not enhance improve or supplant the configuration methods that are supplied with windows"

AND

"The Equality Services operate a pair of XP laptops and software to support notetaking in lectures for deaf students. The laptops are configured to use a peer to peer connection with fixed ip addresses on each machine. This allows for one user to type a transcription of a lecture on one machine and have it relayed to a receiver machine that displays the text.

They now want to be able to allow these same machines to also use the infrastructure wifi networks here to pick up email , use the www etc . I am looking for a simple bit of software that will allow the preconfiguration and storage of network settings so that end users can simply select the notetaker peer to peer network or infrastructure networks from a list without having to configure anything at all.

The software that I have tried so far ( Connection Manager Lite) allows only one type of network settings to be stored ( ie peer to peer or infrastructure but not both). DO you know of anything that would be useful for me ?"