Middlesex County College - Internet Connections

Internet Connections

In order to participate in an online class you will need access to:

a computer,
an Internet connection to log onto the Internet, and
have a personal email address for communications.

On-Campus:

Open Labs
There are more than 50 computer labs available on campus, containing over 1,100 PCs, including 66 systems in the IRC Open Lab. The Open Lab is a place for students to go for unscheduled access to the Internet and Microsoft Explorer, Word, Excel, and Power Point. Check with the library for current operating hours.

Departmental Labs
Many of the departmental labs are available for student use when the lab is not being used as a scheduled classroom. Available open hours for labs are commonly posted within the lab.

Many academic departments have PC Lab Coordinators available to assist in scheduling and using the PC labs. Check with the PC Lab Coordinator for specific procedures related to departmental labs.

Most departments also have Student Technical Assistants (STAs). STAs are available to assist with general software questions as well as to report equipment and network related problems. It is the responsability of the student to learn the software.

Click here for a PC Lab Summary

At Home:
You can access your courses from home through an Internet browser and an internet connection. How fast WebCT loads onto your computer depends mostly on your Internet connection speed. WebCT operates best when used on computers with: a high-speed, wide-bandwidth connection (cable modem, DSL, or LAN).

If you connect to the Internet through a modem (dial up), it is recommended that the connection be at a minimum level of 28 Kbps to 56 Kbps. If your course includes high-quality image material or other large files, a modem connection will be more time consuming to download for viewing.

AOL Users
There are some known issues to accessing WebCT with AOL. AOL may cause your system to lock up and/or crash while working in WebCT. Please review the section of Configuration for web browser compatibility for complete instructions.

Because the browser AOL provides may cause your system to lock up and/or crash while working in WebCT, the best solution is to use one of the browsers we recommend.
Netscape and Internet Explorer is available in all free labs and the library.
After you log on to AOL, open up the browser you have selected, and use it to access WebCT.
Be aware there are some additional steps you need to take. To keep your AOL session from shutting down due to lack of perceived activity, you'll need to do something to fool AOL's idle timer; for example, create a "private" chat room and leave the room open.
From time to time, you also will need to respond to the message asking whether you want to stay online. To do this you must make AOL the active window and check for this message.

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