Awarding of a remote and hybrid teaching project for more than 300 USC classrooms
Sistemas Audiovisuales Itelsis S.L. has been awarded the contract for the provision of an audiovisual and computer system that allows the celebration of teaching (both in person and remotely or in any "hybrid" combination of the above) in the 290 classrooms, auditoriums and magna classrooms throughout the 25 faculties and 4 campuses (located in Santiago and Lugo) of the University of Santiago de Compostela.
The solution offered by ITELSIS provides extraordinary image quality through professional PTZ cameras with Full HD resolution and 12x optical zoom that allow the broadcasting of any relevant detail of the class, from the writing on the blackboard to any small object displayed from the teacher's table. In terms of sound, digital micro-speaker devices have been deployed equipped with the latest generation "Beamforming" technology and thanks to their 12 high-sensitivity microphones allow sound to be captured with magnificent clarity from any corner of the classroom, even in large spaces such as auditoriums or magnificent classrooms. Likewise, the solution is already prepared to be able to carry out a transmission of the signal in live "streaming" even to large audiences when the situation or needs demand it.
In addition to the PTZ cameras and micro-speaker devices already mentioned, the functionality of the solution has been complemented with other additional devices such as digitizing graphic tablets, dock station devices, as well as other elements of more personal use (high quality web cameras and microphone headphones). In total and during the two phases of the project, more than 300 units of PTZ cameras and micro-speakers have been supplied, as well as more than 200 web cameras and digitizing tablets, and the scope of action has been global at USC since it has included all the faculties both in the 3 campuses of Santiago and in the Campus of Lugo.
With the deployed solution, four main requirements have been achieved:
- Remote students not only participate in the content of each training session, but also with a user experience that is as close as possible to face-to-face (and in some cases even higher than this), including their interaction with the teacher and the rest of the attending students.
- The technology deployed is as least invasive as possible for teachers and their teaching can be taught in the same way, regardless of whether there are face-to-face, remote students or a combination of both types.
- The new technological elements deployed are integrated in a natural and simple way with those already existing (PC or teacher's laptop, projector, etc.) so that they can complement each other.
- The deployment of the entire project has been carried out in the shortest time in order to put the systems into production immediately given the critical situation of pandemic and confinement that we are suffering.
Regarding this last point, it should be noted that ITELSIS already began with the deployment during the past month of November 2020, with more than 85% of the locations currently in production and with a forecast of completing the whole project (with almost 300 classrooms installed finally) before the end of February 2021, which constitutes a new reference of success for ITELSIS in audiovisual communication projects "new media" for university centers and training classrooms, thanks to the combination of advanced technologies with our high capacity to execution and level of service, as well as extensive experience in relevant projects in the ICT sector in Galicia.