CoSpaces EDU - extremely slow!

[dennis...@concordiashanghai.org]

I'm trying cospaces EDU for the first time with a class of 20 students.  Students have made a copy of the "Welcome to CoSpaces" so they can practice and become familiar with the interface.  Some students scenes load within a few moments, others have had to wait more than 15 minutes for the scene to load.  This is not practical for use with a class.  Any suggestions?  We have tried multiple browsers, restarting computers, and it just takes forever! 

Dennis Grice

Technology Coach

Concordia International School Shanghai

[Benjamin Singh]

Hello Dennis,

thanks for reaching out. CoSpaces requires indeed a quick and stable internet connection in order to work correctly. Just from what you described I don't think that there were issues with our servers because you said that the spaces did load for a few students quickly. But I also don't want to blame your internet connection because of the same reason. So here some general thoughts on how CoSpaces works and maybe we can conclude some tips for next time.

Most data is transferred when you first open a space. The bigger the space is and the more assets it has (images, 360° backgrounds etc.) the more data needs to be transferred, therefore it takes longer. If you close a space and open it again it should load quicker than the first time because most data has already been downloaded. Also, once you're in a space it should work quick as well because most work happens on your computer now and syncing with the server is mostly minimal.

The "Welcome to CoSpaces" space downloads roughly 17 MB. If you open a new empty space it's about 3 MB. So maybe because all 20 students tried to open the "Welcome to CoSpaces" space (which is relatively big in comparison to an empty space) at the same time, it was too much for the internet connection in your classroom and everything slowed down.

What you can try next time is to make sure that not every student is open a new space at the same time. Only first five students, if everything has downloaded the next five students and so on. Once all students have successfully opened the space it should run smooth from there on, assuming you have a stable internet connection.

I'm not one hundred percent sure if this was the problem but we can try. Please let us know if it worked.

Thanks,

Benjamin

[dennis...@concordiashanghai.org]

Thanks Benjamin.

That's what I suspected.  I was just concerned about the large discrepancy between load times. I hope there's not a huge issue with concurrent users.  Once this class uses CoSpaces successfully, I have other teachers would would like to sign up and use it too.  Thankfully, today's students were really patient.  I made them aware that they were like "beta testers" and their job was to see how well this product will work here at school for other classes.

I will try your strategy of  "Only first five students, if everything has downloaded the next five students and so on."  (We actually use a similar strategy every Fall and Spring for our online MAP Testing.)

I also have several students who volunteered to try logging in from home tonight to see if there are any issues using it here in China. Hopefully the "great firewall" doesn't block it.

Thanks for your help.

-Dennis

[Benjamin Singh]

Yes, please let us know if it works. This was just my first "remote analysis" and it would be also helpful for us to understand it better. If there is some issue with the local network, this is of course something which isn't in our hands. But if you say it only happens with CoSpaces then we need to investigate further.

Thanks for your feedback,

Benjamin