[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] What software do you use for Evergreen training?

[Elizabeth B. Thomsen]

NOBLE has been using Jing for a few years to make screenshots and 
screencasts.  We found that the five minute limit and fact that you 
couldn't edit the screencasts was a plus for us -- it made us break 
things up into short, manageable pieces, and work quickly without trying 
to make to make things perfect.  We post screencasts as documentation, 
and use them to show new features, etc.  We also often send people 
custom screencasts when we're answering their support questions -- it's 
sometimes easier for us to just show them how to do something rather 
than write out the step-by-step directions. Sometimes this helps us 
discover that what we're seeing is not what they're seeing for some 
reason, which is helpful.

Some library staff use Jing to send us screenshots with their support 
questions and development ideas -- they like adding big red arrows 
pointing to whatever they don't like!  Some people have started making 
their own quick screencasts to report a problem because, like us, they 
find it easier to show something than to explain it in writing.  Being 
able to instantly upload to screencast.com (part of the service) and 
send a URL makes this a simple process.

We recently upgraded to Camtasia to be able to do some other kinds of 
screencasts, but as a simple utility, it's hard to beat Jing.

Jing, Camtasia and Screencast.com are all products of Techsmith:
http://www.techsmith.com

We also have used GoToMeeting for a few years.  We don't really use it 
for meetings the way we thought we would, we usually use it one-on-one 
with someone in a library who needs individual training/consulting on a
process.  We also use it for support issues when we can't quite figure 
out what's going on and want to watch them perform a process on their 
own computer.

More recently we added GoToTraining which adds more structure for 
training sessions, including registration, polls, quizzes, etc.

Here's a comparison chart of GoToMeeting and GoToTraining:
http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/web_conferencing_comparison

-- 
Elizabeth Thomsen, Member Services Manager
NOBLE: North of Boston Library Exchange
26 Cherry Hill Drive
Danvers MA 01923
E-mail: et at noblenet.org