The John Welch room at Lancaster University has been updated by Pure AV to give the space the look and feel of a corporate boardroom.
The John Welch room is a mid-sized meeting space able to accommodate up to 20 people. It had to be flexible enough to respond to the requirements of a variety of different room users and offer easy connectivity with minimal fuss. The rollout of Office 365 across campus also meant that the room had to support the use of Skype for Business for conferencing with remote participants.
The introduction of new furniture and integration of an 84in, 4K Philips interactive display into a bespoke surround at the front of the room has dramatically improved the look and feel of the space. The style and finish now setting it apart from the standard seminar and meeting rooms on campus.
End-user room control is straightforward; managed via an AMX control panel programmed by Pure AV with a user interface to match the style of those already deployed across campus. David Neal, teaching space technology co-ordinator, Lancaster University commented: “Working with Pure AV’s programmer we’ve ensured the panel design matches our other meeting and teaching spaces, so room users can quickly understand how to switch on, interact and manage the room environment.”
To further ease user adoption of the space, the system provides the room-user with the familiarity of wired laptop connections via HDMI recessed into the boardroom table but also enables wireless connection using Barco Clickshare, a device that the senior management team already use within their other meeting spaces. Led by David Neal, the University is also trialling the introduction of Mersive’s Solstice Pod in the meeting room to extend wireless connectivity to a wider range of devices.
The rollout of Office 365 across campus is increasing the use of videoconferencing within the University’s meeting spaces. The addition of two ceiling-based boundary mics to cover the conference table and a PTZ camera to capture video makes running a Skype for Business meeting within the John Welch room easy. Meeting attendees can log into their PCs and set the meeting up without the need to worry about audio quality and clarity.
“Room users are pleased with the ease of use and flexibility of the system, this is backed up by the lack of callouts we’ve had to the space,” said Neal. “We wanted flexibility, we wanted reliability, and with this system, I think we’ve hit the nail on the head. Our users can consistently deliver the kind of meetings that they want.”
