University Business - May 2012 - (Page 22)

sponsored web seminar digest The Connected Campus: A University Business Web Seminar Digest • Originally Presented on March 27, 2012 Campuses today face a challenge in providing seamless delivery and display of media to classrooms, lecture halls, conference rooms and auditoriums. With different devices and media formats all requiring access to network resources, the need for a centralized solution is greater than ever. John Owen talks about how this was accomplished at Wake Forest University’s new business school facility. John owen Director of Information Technology Wake Forest University, Schools of Business I’ve been at Wake FOrest FOr 16 years and manage a wide array of technologies. but in all that time, I’ve never been charged with outfitting a building—until this project. the business school’s Charlotte Center is actually a move from a residential location to a new uptown Charlotte location. Uptown Charlotte is growing fast and we wanted to be a part of that. the facility, where we have evening and weekend mba programs, is 25,000 square feet and features four enhanced classrooms, faculty and staff offices, 12 breakout/study rooms, and a technologyenhanced boardroom. there is one hybrid It/av support person who does a terrific job of supporting the facility. but given the hours that the facility is in use, staffing does present a challenge. at the start of the project, I had two mandates. One was to connect the location for distance-learning opportunities. typically, we would have one professor who taught a class in Winston-salem and then drove to Charlotte the next evening to teach that exact same class. With distance learning, we still want the professor to teach at Charlotte, but we want him to teach a different lesson so both locations do some distance learning, and both get the benefit of in-person time with the professor. We also wanted to establish a Wake Forest feel in the new facility. We want students to feel a part of the main campus through using the Wake Forest Id and also through digital signage throughout the facility to connect them with information from Winston-salem. With only one staff person on site, we needed to minimize the location dependency of a single person to operate or repair technology in the new facility. the technology we deployed, such as the amX digital signage—the XPert Player—can be accessed over the IP network, but server level controls allow us to control what content goes to what player and set permissions. the amX resource management suite gives us realtime access to resources in all our Charlotte classrooms. We receive notifications on low-lamp hours and semesterand year-end reports on room usage and technology utilization. I can look at some of the underutilized technologies and make decisions on future deployments. the amX av rack equipment offered the same simplified connectivity and manageability. It allowed us to effectively zone the facility with signage, cable tv, blu-ray, PC output and audio. so at any given LCd location, I can decide and dictate what I want on at any time. remote access lets us take control remotely if we need to, potentially to guide a user who may be unfamiliar with the technology. the amX enova dvX 3150 was important, simplifying the overall connectivity of the classrooms. because we felt this all-in-one presentation solution was perfect for our needs, we went ahead and designed our Charlotte facility around it. With our deadline to open pressing on us, we received the first enova dvX right off the assembly line delivered to us just in time for critical building inspections. and the building opened on time on January 26, 2012.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2012

University Business - May 2012
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Human Resources
Education Gateways
Big Ideas
Reaching Higher
Admissions Goes Social
Learning Disabled Students Welcome
Who Goes There?
Computing Trends, Today and Tomorrow
Money Matters
End Note

University Business - May 2012