Conferencing
Campus connects ‘face to face’
Hosted videoconferencing system brings experts to the classroom and the boardroom.
Business experts can now be brought into the classroom live via videoconferencing, and both
students and speakers learn from the lively interactive discussions.
The Lyles Center at
California State University-Fresno often
taps into the breadth and depth of business
and entrepreneurial experts and faculty
across the university system to bring
meaningful, real-life experiences into the
classroom or into consulting projects.
Maintaining close ties with these experts,
as well as school administrators had been a
communications challenge, according to
Timothy Stearns, executive director of the
Lyles Center.
"While we did a good job
at utilizing e-mail, phone and occasional
in-person meetings, we were not in the same
physical space, where impromptu and
instantaneous conversations happen
naturally," Stearns explains. "In addition,
inviting a guest speaker to address a class,
conduct a meeting or advise an
entrepreneurial firm meant the inconvenience
of travel time and cost to experts already
pressed for time. We envisioned this
challenge growing as the center took on more
students, entrepreneurs, innovators and
companies."
Located at the foot of
the Sierra Nevada mountain range, Fresno is
one of the 23 campuses of California State
University. More than 1,100 faculty members
serve in excess of 22,000 students on the
388-acre main campus and its 1,011-acre
University Farm. The Lyles Center is
nationally recognized as a leader in
entrepreneurship education.
More than 100 inventors
and entrepreneurs come to the Lyles Center
annually to gain assistance in bringing
their products to market. The center also
facilitates courses in innovation for tens
of thousands of students –from kindergarten
through college.
At the urging of an
advisory board member, Stearns and his team
began investigating
videoconferencing as a potential solution to
the school’s collaboration problems. "We
knew there had to be a better way, and as
leaders and role models in innovation and
entrepreneurship we were open to ideas,"
Stearns says. "Academic administrators,
faculty and staff, by nature, are an
inquisitive and highly communicative group,
and we’re amenable to trying out new
solutions. We’re pretty much early adopters
of technology, as it helps us get our jobs
done more efficiently."
Videoconferencing is a fit
Videoconferencing, with
its promise of real-time sharing of ideas
and knowledge, appeared to be a good fit.
"It looked like it could address our needs,"
Stearns says, "but we had to make sure we
found a system that could reliably support
multiparty interactions at an affordable
price."
Stearns and his team
found that Avistar’s hosted system, Avistar
C3 Hosted Video Services (HVS), offered the
same robust service as Avistar’s installed
product, but allows infrastructure
management and technical support to be fully
offloaded. Crucially, the cost per seat, per
month, is no more than the cost of a
BlackBerry.
"We decided on Avistar’s
fully outsourced hosted video-collaboration
service, as we knew the university’s IT
department already had a full workload,"
Stearns offers. "By choosing the hosted
solution, the department didn’t need to
become video experts."
Avistar’s C3 HVS includes
an easy-to-deploy, turnkey solution that
includes all the necessary hardware and
software for a high-quality, user-to-user
video experience. It is subscription-based,
and so the Lyles Center’s videoconferencing
solution was up and running quickly.
"So much of communication
is body language, and once we were up and
running on Avistar instead of relying on
phone calls and e-mails, we gained a
heightened level of communication previously
only available to us in live, in-person
meetings," says Stearns.
This spring, Stearns
expanded the center’s videoconferencing
capabilities by connecting 10 community
college campuses around California to share
the center’s programming in
entrepreneurship. Business experts and
lecturers can now be brought into the
classroom live via videoconferencing, and
both students and speakers learn from the
lively interactive discussions that ensue,
Stearns contends.
The Lyles Center also
extended Avistar videoconferencing
capabilities to a number of university
programs that have operations off-campus,
such as those found in the College of
Agricultural Sciences and Technology and
Engineering. "Multipoint videoconferences
are quickly becoming the norm for fast,
efficient gatherings of colleagues involved
in entrepreneurship on-campus and off," says
Stearns.
Reduced need for meetings
"We installed a system in
South Dakota, another in Los Angeles and
another at the University of Utah, where our
advisors and board members can simply
connect to a meeting in progress with just
one click," he adds. "This allows them to
share their brainpower without having to
leave their offices. Although in-person
meetings are still important,
videoconferencing reduces the need for
frequent gatherings, and allows plans and
programs to move forward on timetables that
make sense for the program rather than
travel schedules of individuals."
Avistar is installed on a
variety of desktop and laptop systems. "I
particularly like the fact that Avistar is
installed on my laptop, so no matter if I am
on campus, across the country, in Europe or
beyond, I’m able to have a real connection
with my staff and colleagues, face to face,"
Stearns says.
The Lyles Center now
operates 50 Avistar seats, enabling
university staff to collaborate through
multiparty calls that are connected with a
single click. This has created new
efficiencies: shorter meeting times to get
an agenda accomplished and increased
productivity from faculty and staff who do
not have to leave their desks to attend.
More videoconferences
also mean less travel and reduced travel
expenditures. "We now use it at least once a
day, often more," Stearns says, "As more
people learn about it and become comfortable
with it, the more interest we see across
campus. And any time we can save money in
one area and funnel it back into our
curriculum, that’s a win-win."
Stearns adds that
videoconferencing is an essential tool in
building a community ecosystem that supports
entrepreneurship. "Effective communication
is fundamental to delivering quality in
education, and this technology successfully
closes the gap between instant, yet
inadequate, e-mail or phone interaction, and
desirable, yet time-consuming, in-person
meetings that usually require travel. The
social network that it facilitates goes back
to one of the original purposes of the
Internet–a tool for educators to improve
their effectiveness."
For more information
(click here)
Hosted PBX service an option
by Steve Adams
In many small businesses
today, the choice for callers is to talk to
a general answering machine or to leave a
name and number with someone else at the
company. Voice mail is not included, because
often the private branch exchange (PBX)
phone equipment that enables options such as
auto-attendants, multiple extensions off a
single phone number and voice mail is so
cost-prohibitive that small businesses
cannot afford it.
A new option has emerged
that provides the benefits of not only PBX
systems but also voice over IP (VoIP),
without having to invest in new equipment. A
hosted PBX service follows the principles of
software as a service (SaaS). The equipment
and software required to operate it is kept
at the hosting company’s site. Small
businesses sign up for the service and are
given a new phone number–either a local or
toll-free number, depending on their
preference. They are also given an Internet
login they can use to manage functions, such
as assigning extensions off that phone
number to employees, scheduling which phone
to ring at what time, and setting up the
auto-attendant message.
Hosted PBX systems are
not just replacements for traditional PBX
systems. They are not limited, for example,
to assigning extensions only to employees
who work in the building where the equipment
is housed. With a hosted PBX system, users
can assign extensions to anyone, anywhere in
the world, allowing the use of a single
phone number as the starting point to
contact every employee.
The same applies to voice
mail. Traditional PBX systems only work for
employees in the building, but hosted
systems work for an entire distributed (or
virtual) company since messages are recorded
and stored at the hosting company. Managing
a hosted system is simpler, as well, since
the management software can be accessed
anywhere there is an Internet connection.
A hosted system can also
provide find-me/follow-me features. Small
businesses can have voice mails forwarded to
their
e-mail-enabled mobile phones or PDAs. The
hosted system can be scheduled to always try
a particular phone number at a particular
time first, or go directly to voice mail
with an e-mail forward if the person does
not want to be disturbed at that time.
Steve Adams is vice president of marketing for
Protus, Ottawa, Canada.
For more information
(click here)
Tips for a UC plan
For many organizations,
the challenge of migrating to
enterprise-wide UC can be daunting. Verizon
Business offers the following tips when
planning a UC deployment:
Invest in advanced IP
networks. Networks
should be equipped to accommodate increased
traffic loads and support a high-quality,
consistent end-user experience.
Inventory technology and
personnel resources. Identify potential network, equipment and
application gaps. Assess the skills of
technical staff to identify training
requirements.
Align technology with
business objectives. Make purchasing decisions with a focus on
meeting specific business goals. Verify that
vendor platforms meet the organization’s
unique technical and financial requirements.
Evaluate network, hardware and software
options to ensure the ability to meet
current and future enterprise objectives.
Establish a benchmark for
success. Know the
ultimate objectives for a UC deployment.
Survey end-users to understand their current
and future requirements.
Create a comprehensive
roadmap. Develop a
roadmap that covers areas such as technology
and finances, as well as detailed deployment
and implementation plans. Develop a multi-
phased plan, beginning with a single process
or function that will benefit from UC.
Tackle security at the
onset. The UC
platform should integrate seamlessly with
the current network and leverage existing
technology investments, supporting
quality-of-service capabilities and sound
security measures.
Determine capabilities
for ongoing management. Determine if in-house staff has the skills
and time to manage and troubleshoot
performance issues.
Develop support systems
and processes. Development of automated processes to
support password resets and other day-to-day
maintenance activities can help reduce
demands on help-desk personnel and improve
response times and end-user satisfaction.
Train end-users. Develop online training modules to help
users adopt and embrace UC tools and
capabilities.