Open Labs

Open Lab sessions have been scheduled throughout the week. The Open Lab sessions are a new addition to TFAWS. They were created to more fairly divide the computer labs amongst the vendors. 32 hours of open labs will be available to vendors. Of these 32 hours, vendors can choose to post their own hours during which they want to host an open lab session or they can run the open labs on an "as needed basis."

In the past, some vendor training classes ran too long with attendees independently running through tutorials for hours. This effectively "tied up" an entire lab for the benefit of only a few participants. The intent of the open lab sessions is to allow vendors to meet with people who are interested in running through tutorials of their software or are interested in troubleshooting an existing model they have outside of class hours. Open lab is available throughout the week to any vendor who attends. They are not required to be there all day every day, but rather they may set their own hours.

Throughout the week 4 computer labs - two with 24 machines, one with 28 machines, and one with 16 - will be available for the open lab sessions on most days with the exception of those days that 4-hour classes are held. The number of vendors who participate divided by the number of machines available will be the number of machines each vendor has at their disposal throughout the week. The company's software will be loaded onto these machines. NASA reserves the right to redistribute the machines equally among vendors should some vendors indicate that they require a lesser number of machines.