Application update


Collaboration in action: Avocor and Generation Digital at Guildhall School


The Guildhall School recently completed a £90 million project to ex- pand its facilities, providing state-of-the-art performance and teach- ing spaces including: a 608-seat concert hall, a 223-seat theatre, a studio theatre, three major rehearsal rooms, a TV studio suite and numerous teaching rooms, meeting spaces and conferencing facili- ties to attract the very best teaching faculty and student community. One of the challenges faced by the deployment team at the School centred around how to create cloud-based, collaborative environ- ments.


Chart 2: Looking forward to 2025, which areas of education and learn- ing delivery do you believe academic institutions will be investing in order of priority or importance?


[Source: Polycom - Education in 2025. Education Technology Inno- vation Survey]


The Guildhall School of Mu- sic & Drama is a world-class higher education institution which offers aspiring musi- cians, actors, stage manag- ers and theatre technicians a creative and stimulating envi- ronment in which to develop as artists and professionals. Widely considered a bastion of creative and professional practice, the Guildhall School actively promotes innovation, experiment and research. The refurbishment is de- signed to enhance teaching and learning and to attract the best students and fac- ulty members. To help them address this challenge, the School engaged digital trans- formation consultants, Gen- eration Digital, to provide


• Create new revenue streams for the


School by building


an online learning platform - meeting the increased demand from international students


• Enhance meeting and teach- ing spaces with the best collab- oration tools in the market


• Build a solution that both teachers and students will find easy and enjoyable to use


• Limit the need for on-going capital hardware expenditure by facilitating cloud based stor- age.


Meeting the challenge


Guildhall School’s Head of IT, Richard Antonel, was charged


dent and teacher within every department. These new digital/ cloud systems need human fo- cused user experience allowing true global cloud collaboration without the burden of learning new and complex systems. Also they wanted to increase reve- nue by offering on-line courses or a mix of physical and virtual content courses.”


Specifying the solution


To help make the right tech- nology investments and ensure the project was a success, the Guildhall School engaged Gen- eration Digital to define the strategy and consult on the best technology solution to meet the requirements and tight times- cales for deployment, whilst


Hangouts straight from the display. The Windows 10 op- erating system also ensured that users were presented with a familiar interface rath- er than propriety software platforms that required exten- sive adoption training. Conferencing


The wealth of connectivity allows for video conferencing cameras to be added to the solution whilst cloud based web conferencing software enables immersive meeting experiences, virtual online course


delivery and large


scale webinars, all providing a transformation learning envi- ronment to deliver world class digital collaboration.


The Avocor 84” Ultra High-Definition 4K F touch screen includes a built-in Intel quad core processor running Windows 10 operating system. This allows users to access, manage and create content, use familiar software packages, browse the Internet and gain access to the Win- dows store, all in a safe and familiar environment.


Chart 3: Driven by technology, which of the following scenarios are likely in 2025?


[Source: Polycom - Education in 2025. Education Technology Inno- vation Survey]


programme management and governance to help the School make the right invest- ments based on best of breed technology and progress the programme forward to com- pletion.


Project management


Leading a joint team with the School, Generation Digital provided the project man- agement, design, implemen- tation, systems integration, training and change man- agement expertise needed to support the deployment of the new technology within chal- lenging timeframes.


There were several key project success criteria, specifically:


with specifying IT facilities and infrastructure that could pro- vide the highest possible lev- els of performance and future proofing. He explains: “The scope (of the project) was to install the highest standard of teaching and learning equip- ment available at the time. The goal was to put students and teachers at the heart of the technology strategy. The School wanted to provide more students with internet-enabled learning systems, so they could learn anytime, anywhere.” “Since the School serves a wide range of students and teachers around the globe, they needed an affordable, flexible solution that would improve the learn- ing experience for every stu-


gaining the quickest return on investment.


The central core of the solution were the interactive, multi- touch,


4K deployed display from Avocor,


screens rang-


ing from 65” through to 84”. One of the core principles of the Avocor solution is the fact that the solution is based on an open platform. This enabled Generation Digital to build a bespoke solution that met the needs of the School. Powered by Windows 10, the Avocor displays were perfect for the cloud based elements of the project, allowing users to access collaboration packages such as Microsoft Office 365, Skype for Business, Skype, Adobe Connect and Google


AV News April 2017 P17


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