Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

NASA employees with active Launchpad credentials can click the Sign-in button in the upper-right hand corner of the site to access additional features.

No. The NESC Academy offers hundreds of publicly available videos. NASA & NASA Contractors can login to view additional features.

NESC Academy videos are organized into catalogs grouped into four areas.

1. Videos (All & Latest Videos)

   All Videos contains every video in the NESC Academy Online catalog. Latest Videos contains videos released within the last two months.

2. Disciplines

   NESC Academy videos are grouped into catalogs by discipline.

   The NASA Technical Fellows program consists of Technical Discipline Teams (TDTs), which are led by NASA Technical Fellows. These TDTs are NASA stewards for their technical disciplines and generate discipline-specific content that can be found in each of the NESC Academy discipline catalogs listed under "Disciplines". If you are a NASA Civil Servant or Contractor and wish to collaborate with a NASA Technical Fellow and his technical discipline team further, please visit your discipline's NASA Engineering Network Community of Practice. NESC Academy videos are grouped into catalogs by discipline.

3. Other Subjects

   Any video that doesn't fall under a discipline can be found here. Additional content that is not sponsored by the NESC Academy may also be found in this section.

4. Webcasts

   This section contains live, upcoming, and previous webcasts. Workshops, courses, and webcast series can be accessed in addition to any associated documentation.

You can use the search bar to search across every video in the NESC Academy.

You can also search a specific catalog by using the dropdown next to the search bar.

• Presenters
• Presentation Titles
• Descriptions and Abstracts
• Slide Text
• Closed Captions

• Operators
  • Use the AND operator to find results with both terms.
    Example: NESC AND Academy would return the titles "NESC Academy" and "Academy presentation made for the NESC".
  • Use the OR operator to find either term.
    Example: NESC OR Academy would return "Academy recording" and "NESC presentation".
  • Use the NOT operator to exclude terms from a search.
    Example: "Academy training" NOT "training session" would return any presentations where the title contains "Academy training" and omit results for "training session"
    Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with only one term e.g. NOT "training session" would return no results.
  • Use the + operator to make it so that a word is required.
    Example: +Academy presentation would only return results containing the word Academy.
    Note: The default operator is AND when searching on multiple terms without quotes and without an operator defined.
• Using Quotation Marks
  • When you search using quotes, any results will contain the exact quoted phrase you entered. Word order is taken into account when using quotes, and the full quoted phrase must be present within a single field, e.g., title or description.
    Example: "Academy Training" would return "Day 1 Academy Training" or "Academy Training Day 1"
    Note: If a title contains multiple special characters, the search string can be entered without the special characters, or the special characters can be escaped. - a character that invokes an alternative interpretation on subsequent characters in a character sequence
• Grouping
  • Use parentheses ( ) to group terms into sub-queries.
    Example: (Academy OR training) AND session would return "Academy session" or "Training session"
• Wildcard search
  • Use the asterisk (*) to do a wildcard search on multiple characters.
    Example: A*emy or Acade*y would return "Academy"
  • Use a question mark (?) to perform a wildcard search for a single character.
    Example: Aca?emy would return "Academy"
    Note: Wildcard characters cannot be used as the first character in a search string.
• Fuzzy search
  • Append a tilde "~" character to the end of a search term to find similar terms.
    Example: rocket~ would also return words like "locket" or "pocket"
• Special Characters
  • In order to search for a special character it must be escaped. This means using a character that invokes an alternative interpretation on subsequent characters in a character sequence. To escape a character use \ before the character. The special characters that need to be escaped are as follows:
    + - & | ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \
    Example: To search for (1+1):2 use \(1\+1\)\:2

Please contact the NESC Academy team at larc-dl-nescacademy@mail.nasa.gov.

The NESC Academy sends out a list of recently released videos on a monthly basis. You can subscribe to that mailing list here.

1. Click the button to resume playback after pausing the presentation. Presentations automatically start playing when launched. Click the button to suspend playback.
2. Click the button to go back 3 seconds in the presentation.
3. Click the button to cycle through available playback speeds.
4. Toggle the button to turn the audio off and on.
5. Adjust the volume by moving the slider left or right.
6. Click the button to view closed captions in the primary content area. Click it again to hide the captions. The button only appears if closed captions are available in the presentation.
7. Click the button to view a presentation's details:
   • Presenter(s) - Click a presenter to view his or her biography
   • Description - When available, and abstract will be posted here
   • Record date and time - For on-demand content, this date may reflect the date/time of release.
   • Chapters - Chapters are a listing of a presentation's key parts. Each chapter has a title and includes the time it appears in the presentation. Click a chapter to view the presentation at the specified time.
   • Links - Click a link to view the associated web page in a separate browser tab, or to download a file such as the slides, confirmation of attendance, or any course materials that may be attached.

Interact with the presenter using these buttons, if they are available:

1. Click the button to see the presentation's polls.
2. Click the button to send questions to your presenter. When the Ask Question form appears, enter your name, email address (optional), the subject your question is addressing, and your question. If you do not want to include the time in the presentation where you had a question, clear the Time check box. To send your question, click Ask Question
3. Click the button to send an e-mail invitation with a link to view the presentation. If you want your invitees to begin watching the presentation at specific time, check the Start Time check box in the email form and enter the time.
4. Click the button to search a presentation's slides and closed captions. Enter the word or phrase you are seeking and click Search. Scroll down the search results list and click on a search result to go to the time it appears in the presentation.
5. Use the seek bar to navigate through the presentation quickly. When you hold your mouse over a specific time using the seek bar button, the slide image for that time is displayed over the presentation.
6. Yellow hash marks on the seek bar represent chapters in the video. Click one to go directly to that point in the presentation. Hover over a chapter to see the chapter's name.
7. Click the button to change the stream displayed in the larger window. Clicking this button will cycle through each stream. When you click on a stream additional display options become available.

Notes:

1. If the video for the presentation does not appear, verify the presentation is not an audio-only presentation and that your computer meets the requirements listed here
2. When you are viewing a live presentation, you cannot pause, skip back, or seek within the presentation.
3. When a presentation is live, the live presentation indicator is shown.

Please watch the video Tour the Player for more information.

In most current browsers, no plugin is required to view recorded content.

For live webcasts, you can visit this page ahead of time to ensure your browser is properly configured. If it is not, you will be prompted to install any necessary software.

iPhone users should install the "Mediasite Mobile App" from the iTunes Store for the best viewing experience.

For a complete overview of the player please refer to section 2 of this FAQ.

As of October, 2015, the following browsers have been confirmed to work with the NESC Academy Online

Windows 10 or 11

• Firefox
• Google Chrome™
• Microsoft Edge

MacOS Mojave (version 10.14) and higher

• Apple Safari
• Firefox
• Google Chrome™

You can also visit this links for up-to-date information: Requirements

The NESC Academy team is also available for support: larc-dl-nescacademy@mail.nasa.gov.

Yes. The NESC Academy supports iOS and Android playback provided the following requirements are satisfied.

iPadOS

• Apple iPadOS 13 and higher
• Apple Mobile Safari
• Wi-Fi or cellular data connection

iOS

• Apple iOS 12 and higher
• Apple Mobile Safari
• Wi-Fi or cellular data connection
• Mediasite Mobile App (free download available from the Apple app store)

Android

• Android 9 or later (on-demand)
• Wi-Fi or cellular data connection
• Chrome browser

Please refer to this article for additional mobile information.

The iPhone and iPod Touch require the "Mediasite Mobile App" in order to view the video and slide feeds simultaneously.

When using a cellular data connection, you will have to press play to start the video. This is by design to avoid potential impact to data plans due to the large size of some content. Presentations should start automatically when connected to a Wi-Fi network.

Please consult this article for more information on viewing NESC Academy content on Linux.

• If you are unable to view a presentation, please visit this site to confirm your system meets the minimum requirements. If any of the requirements are in an error state, please follow the instructions provided.
• If all requirements are satisfied, and you are still unable to view the content, please try viewing the video with a different Web Browser.
• If you are experiencing audio that is not in sync with the video, it is likely the result of bandwidth or network congestion but could also be related to a proxy server or other network filtering. If you are connected to a Wi-Fi network, and a hardwired network is available, try switching to the hardwired network.
• Ensure that your system and/or speaker volumes are adjusted properly.
• If you continue to experience trouble, there is likely an issue unique to your location, network or configuration. Please contact your local IT support staff, or visit the following page where a list of common technical issues can be found.
• The NESC Academy team is also available at larc-dl-nescacademy@mail.nasa.gov.

You may contact the NESC Academy team at larc-dl-nescacademy@mail.nasa.gov.

The best way to stay informed of upcoming webcasts is to subscribe to the NESC Academy mailing list. We send email notifications about upcoming webcasts and a monthly digest of recently released videos.

The NESC Academy website also features up-to-date information on upcoming webcasts as well as recorded webcasts.

While watching a video you can click on the icon located toward the bottom right of the player window. This will provide links to presentation slides or additional material related to the presentation, if available.

Following a live webcast, we will email all registered participants a simple online feedback questionnaire. Fill out the questionnaire to provide feedback; a comments section is also available.

You can also email comments or feedback to the NESC Academy team at larc-dl-nescacademy@mail.nasa.gov

All webcasts will be recorded and made available on the NESC Academy website some time after the recorded event.

If you would like to view the webcast, but will not be available, please register anyway so that we can notify you when the recorded version is becomes available online

These are the minimum requirements as of October 2015:

Windows

• Windows 10 or 11
• Firefox, Google Chrome, or Microsoft Edge
• Broadband Internet or Wi-Fi connection

Mac

• Apple MacOS Mojave (version 10.14) and higher
• Apple Safari, Firefox, or Google Chrome
• Broadband Internet or Wi-Fi connection

Please consult this website for regularly updated information on supported operating systems and browsers.

Yes. All NESC Academy webcasts require registration. We will use this information to provide the webcast link, send reminders, and notify you if unexpected changes occur that might impact the date or time of the webcast. We will also send an optional survey following the webcast so that you can provide feedback to help us improve upon the experience. Registration is not required to view recorded webcasts.

In the webcasts section of the NESC Academy home page, you will see a list of upcoming webcasts. If a webcast is open for registration, you will see a Register for Webcast button next to the webcast. You will then be taken to the NASA Engineering Network (NEN) to register. Note that registration is only available for NASA Civil Servants and Contractors with internal network access or a VPN, and an active Launchpad account.

Questions may be submitted during the live webcast or while viewing the recorded version. Questions submitted during the live webcast will be answered on air by the presenter, usually at the end of a presentation. Please note that time may prohibit the number of questions that can be answered on air. In most cases, the presenter will respond to unanswered questions via email when time permits.

To submit a question, click the button at the bottom right of the player and the Ask a Question dialogue box will appear. Please be sure to include your name and email address so that we can contact you if follow up is necessary.