Hi there,

We currently have several online courses available to our employees through our LMS.

I have just learned our IT dept is deploying a Citrix server environment. Rumors I have heard are that the Citrix server strongly limits audio and video components of online courses.

Does anyone have experience with delivering online courses in a Citrix server environment? Any shared experiences (good and/or bad) would be appreciated.

Thank you!

There are some challenges with Citrix environments.

Because the audio and images are delivered via separate channels, video often appears with mismatched audio. Also, because the processing power is consolidated on a server that's not really made for multimedia, you have concurrency challenges (too many users at once).

With one client, we had to deploy a designated "Learning PC" to each field location, and with multimedia courses we detected what network they were on (Corporate was ok), and if the user was on a Citrix/thin-client device, we pulled the multimedia material from the harddrive of the Learning PC.

I can explain more if you want to PM me.

Sheldon Murphy
Solid State Learning
www.sslearn.com

Set up a meeting to discuss your concerns with your IT group sooner rather than later. The new Xen technology that Citrix has deployed is much better than previous versions.

In our case Citrix has been deployed for a number of years, and eLearning is the new kid on the block within the last 1.5 years. We expressed to our IT group that we wanted to use audio and some (limited) video and they are working with us to tweak Citrix do what we want it to do.

The type of quality and user experience you have in your environment will depend on many factors, so getting into the details with your IT group is imperative.

Did IT not consult their clients (you) before moving ahead with such a far-reaching infrastructure decision?

Thanks very much for both of your responses - this is very helpful. We are working closely with our IT dept to figure out how this will work. Luckily, they are not deploying Citrix for a year so we have a bit of time to consider our options.

Our big issue is we have 130 locations, and we introduce new course material every few months on average. It would be difficult and costly for us to distribute updated content to each of our location servers on a regular basis. This is why we went to an online LMS in the first place. We are also not willing to compromise on the video/audio if we can help it - this is a huge part of what makes our courses engaging! Hmmmm, lots to figure out.

Thanks again for your insights!

Our client's IT dept "pushed" it to the learning PC's when an update was necessary. The process did not take long, and was scheduled for 3am. Something for your IT dept to consider. Amy made a good point to really work with your IT dept.

Best of luck to you.

Sheldon Murphy
Solid State Learning
www.sslearn.com