Where programming goes

NOTE: The lease for the satellite system will expire June 30, 2006. IHETS will not support the system after that time and is offering a new service, IHETS Interactive, to replace it. This information is presented for historical purposes only.

Receive sites include college and university campuses, hospitals, businesses, industries, Cooperative Extension Service offices, public and vocational schools, libraries, state government agencies, and public television stations.

Recognizing this variety in types of locations and the ways in which they receive service, IHETS refers to them in one of four ways. The two terms most often used are “open” and “closed” sites. This is in keeping with one of IHETS’ guiding principles: local autonomy. What this means, in practice, is that no location is obligated to take any particular program. Some locations, especially hospitals and businesses, obtain connection so that their employees can watch programming at the workplace, but they are seldom able to open their facilities to the public. In other cases, the faculty at a campus may prefer that the campus not accept a program; for example, the campus may already offer a similar course of its own. There is no stigma attached to being a closed site; likewise, any site is within its rights to be selective about the programming it uses.

The other two terms used to identify receive site operation are “limited” and “inactive.” A limited site has restricted hours for public use, i.e., a high school that will permit distance education students only during its normal school day. Inactive refers to a site that is not available for any student because the site is under construction or not in service.

Thus, one of the first responsibilities of the coordinator at an originating campus is to determine which locations will be authorized to receive a program and which want to receive it. That information becomes part of the request for network time submitted to IHETS.

For campuses and some other sites, the originating coordinator then prepares a usage agreement and a program information sheet. (This step is often omitted for closed sites.) The IHETS member institutions have established specific responsibilities for coordination of IHETS-delivered programming at receiving campuses to assure originators that certain minimum levels of service will be provided to their students by the host campuses.