Technical Support

All of our courses require familiarity with standard computer operations (e.g. browsing, email attachments, cut & paste, etc). Broadband internet access (e.g. cable, DSL, or better) is required; online lessons operate poorly on slow connections.

CTY Online courses use many web technologies. The majority of lessons use the Flash plugin, which runs on most computers but not the iPad. Several courses use MP4 video, while a few also use Java applets. Most course documents are in PDF format.

More specific hardware and software requirements are detailed under the "System Requirements" tab on each of our course description pages; please refer to them before applying.

Note for international students: most of our courses require the US-English character set.

Email Account

1. Students in our online courses must be able to communicate with their instructor via email.
2. Filtering software (such as parental controls or spam blockers) must allow connections with jhu.edu and other domains as specified by the course.
3. Frequent changing of student screen name or email address is inversely proportional to success. If your email address changes during the course, contact your instructor and the registrar right away.

If you use Microsoft Windows...

In addition to Microsoft Automatic Updates, we recommend that you install one utility from each of the following categories and keep them updated. Warning: if the installer offers to bundle any toolbars or other extras, do not install those.

1. Antivirus protection, such as Avast, AVG, McAfee, Norton, or MSE.
2. Spyware removal, such as MalwareBytes free.
3. Windows tuneup, such as CCleaner free.

If your PC has internet security software that goes beyond this (particularly Norton or McAfee "suites") you may need to reconfigure it to allow our courses. Security software must not block access to jhu.edu, ctyjhu.org, and other domains as specified by the course.

Descartes Cove

The Descartes Cove CDs run on Microsoft Windows. They do not work on Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) or higher.

General Technical Support

If you have technical problems of any sort, please contact your instructor and fill out the Tech Support Request Form.