speechinaction
Online delivery for computer clusters
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Leave advanced pronunciation and listening to us

Streaming Speech courses were bought by individuals or institutions. Institutions chose between class mode and virtual cluster mode of delivery. All modes required access to the internet. If you are interested in seeing what the prices were, you can see them at the link above, and here (pdf).

Virtual clusters
A virtual cluster was a set of 'virtual desks', computers at which students could study Streaming Speech courses online.

Virtual desks
Institutions rented from us a fixed number of virtual desks, with access to one, two, or all four of our publications. Renting 30 virtual desks, meant that you could have 30 concurrent sessions, 30 students simultaneously logged in, working on our publications. As students entered the web-site, they were told (a) how many concurrent sessions were open ('how many desks are occupied'), and (b) how many concurrent sessions were available for use ('how many desks are free'). If there were desks free, then a student turns their computer into a virtual desk by logging in.

Numbers of users
Institutions could have a large number of students registered to use the virtual cluster during the period of your agreement. With a thirty deck cluster, then they had up to 300 students registered. These students' time online, and progress on the exercises, was logged. Each student had their own individual virtual workspace. Students' could access their accounts from any compatible computer which is attached to the internet.

Pricing
Agreements were for twelve months. Agreements were subject to a minimum fee of £500 per year, for which you got up to 20 virtual desks, and access to two publications. The price list is here.