hurdle

Frequently asked questions.

Using hurdle...

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General

What is hurdle?

hurdle is an online, live training platform built to mimic the classroom and is designed by professional system trainers. Offering inclusivity regardless of location, all learners can experience the same learning experience they would in a classroom, remotely. As trainers ourselves we understand the need for students to be confident in what they have learnt, and hurdle gives the ability for them to be demonstrated to and practice with the trainer being able to support by seeing exactly what the entire class is doing on their screen in real time. 

How is hurdle licenced?

We use a concurrent user licence, so each employee does not require a licence, simply those who attend a session. Once the session ends the licences are released for others to use.

 

Please see a scenario below:

An organisation has 20 concurrent user licences, and a training session is scheduled for 8 students to attend and will be delivered by 1 instructor

  • 9 concurrent user licences will be required (8 students + 1 instructor = 9 concurrent user licences)
  • The organisation will have 11 concurrent user licences remaining for use by other instructors during the time the session is running
  • At the end of the session the 9 licences used by the session will be returned to the licence pool resulting in the organisation having 20 available concurrent user licences to run any future sessions with

If you hold a 12-month contract and you require additional licences for a specific rollout happening, you can increase your licences for a set period of time, and they will be charged at the same rate. 

How a training session is managed

Does hurdle support assistants / multiple trainers per session?

Yes, this is a very powerful feature within hurdle and allows a session to be facilitated based on your training team’s needs. This can also be useful for onboarding new trainers within the training team.

Can I see what ALL my learners are doing in real time (desktop and webcam)?

Yes, unlike online meeting tools that are limited to the sharing of a single desktop screen at a time, the trainer(s) can view the desktop screens and webcam feeds of all learners at the same time. This is laid out in a grid format that is called the back of the room view. The back of the room view is a real time view and constantly refreshes.

Is the trainer able to re size the learner desktops in the back of the room view to fit their group size better?

Yes, you can have 2, 3, 4 and 6 screens across and multiple rows below dependent on the trainers monitor size.

How does hurdle allow the trainer to demonstrate to the learners in a more impactful way?

To improve the flow of a lesson, within hurdle, learners do not need to manage switching between applications as the trainer does this on their behalf ensuring the group are either practicing or watching the trainers demonstration.

The trainer also has enhanced presentation abilities over and above a meeting tools standard screen share option: 

FULL SCREEN – takes the full focus of the learner and means learners will not be distracted. 

PICTURE in PICTURE – Allows the learners to continue practicing whilst the trainer demonstrates. 

Additionally, whilst the trainer is focused on demonstrating examples to learners, the trainer is given a summary display showing key metrics, such as do learners need assistance or are they engaged. 

What engagement tools are available to help with learner engagement?

Beyond being built specifically to allow learners the ability to practice skills, hurdle also provides tools such as Polls, whiteboard / annotation, emoji reactions, raise hands and attention tracking amongst many other useful tools. 

As an instructor can I tell if my learners not engaged?

Yes, hurdle will show the trainer what the learner is doing on their desktop in real time, and also notify them of any learner that is not engaged within the lesson (E.g. the learner may have clicked away from the hurdle training session). This enables the trainer to be able to target efforts more effectively within the session and make sure people are on track. 

 

Additionally, the instructor is notified clearly within hurdle if a student leaves the lesson or if they join.  

Can a trainer easily assist a learner by taking control?

Yes, the trainer can easily select any learner within the back of the room view to shadow and take control of their desktop.  This requires minimal input from the learner, so the flow of the lesson is not hindered by learners not understanding how to give control or share their screen. 

Focus on learning

How do learners join a hurdle session, and do they need any prior knowledge?

They will receive either a join link or code (dependent on your preference) that can be issued from an LMS, email etc. When they access the link/code they will be onboarded into hurdle using a guided tutorial where they set up their speakers, webcam and audio and watch a short demo of what hurdle is and how to use it, this results in them knowing what to expect when they arrive within hurdle and there is no confusion, they are simply ready to learn. 

Does hurdle allow learners to practice within a training session?

Yes, practice within a lesson is the primary purpose hurdle was created for. hurdle is a very small and simple interface for the learners, this guides their focus to practicing with the software application and learning from the trainers demonstrating within the session. 

 

One of our core beliefs is that students should be focused on the application they are in a training session to learn, and not the tool being used to deliver training session with. 

Can course attendees join training courses from anywhere in the world?

Yes, provided the user has a computer with a stable internet connection, the session may be accessed easily from anywhere in the world. 

Can trainers and learners see and talk to each other?

Yes,  but importantly the trainer has more control over how this happens vs a traditional meeting tool.  This allows the trainer to keep the session on track for the learning objective.

Technical

What is a hurdle lab?

“hurdle with labs” gives the training team the ability to setup a pre-configured desktop that includes their applications and can be embedded within any hurdle training session.  This means when a learner joins rather than using their own desktop, they will be provided with a templated desktop to use during the training that is ready for the course.  

 

Labs can be setup in many ways ranging from on premise or using a cloud provider, using virtualisation technology or multi-session platforms such as RDS.  At hurdle we believe you should be able to make the choice for how you want to setup your lab, so our platform is very flexible in this regard.  If you opt for this solution our implementation team will work with you and your technical teams to configure your lab.

How often do we release updates?

We aim to release quarterly, however for any urgent bugs/security updates these will be deployed as soon as they can be with our clients being informed via email.  

How many people can attend a training session and is there any performance impacts?

It is possible to run multiple concurrent training sessions each with 50 learners without impact. Our infrastructure has been designed to auto scale based on user demand to maintain performance.

Where are your data centres?

hurdle data centres are on AWS in the UK.

Is this an installed application or browser based?

Installed application that doesn’t need any admin rights. It can be delivered self-service to the users or via an MSI so pushed out on mass ahead of the training.

What activity reports are available within hurdle?

You can run administrative reports that show attendees, dates, times, duration etc.

Have we missed anything?