Illinois State University classrooms go digital with a seamless user-interface from Kramer

Background

Illinois State University, located in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, was the state’s first public university.  Founded in 1857, the school has approximately 18,000 undergraduate students, 2,300 graduate students and 3,560 employees, including 1,224 departmental faculty. Illinois State University has received numerous awards.

For 2017, U.S News & World Report ranked the school 78^th among America’s best public universities for academic quality and excellence. Illinois State received a rank of 22^nd from College Factual among the best colleges for the money out of 1,200 schools and was included among the country’s best universities for veterans. Illinois State is also listed among the best schools for military and veteran education by Military Advanced Education & Transition and was named a “Gold Medal-level Military Friendly School” by Victory Media. 

Goals

Illinois University wanted to find a digital audio-video solution for its classrooms that would allow faculty to easily switch between different video sources in 320 classrooms. In 2009, the university began to add more AV technology in its classrooms, but incident rates reflected the fact that faculty members had trouble using it. To reduce the number of incidents and service calls, the customer wanted to switch all classrooms to digital while ensuring ease of use.

Kramer was tasked to convert all 320 classrooms with the appropriate scaler/switcher to make sure the faculty’s user experience was seamless no matter where a class was being held.

Solution

The Kramer custom integrator recommended the VP-728* and VP-730* and a 9-input ProScale™ presentation scaler/switchers for analog and digital video with picture-in-picture, picture-and-picture, and split-screen capability. In addition, the VP-773A, an 8-input HDMI & HDBaseT ProScale™ presentation switcher/scaler with 2K support and an audio power amplifier was installed in each of the classrooms. In so doing, Illinois State was able to convert all 320 classrooms to digital capabilities with easy-to-use interfaces.

Value

Kramer presentation switchers have allowed Illinois State AV specialists to provide faculty with a standard setup for each classroom. “They can go from room to room and know what’s going to be there such as a computer, document camera, and the likes; and Kramer has the switching core. We put in a standard user interface and they know that if they press ‘computer’, the magic happens and the computer shows up on their projector, and they don’t have to think about it,” says Doug Smith, Director, Learning Spaces and Audio-Visual Technologies at Illinois State University.

Doug further explains that despite there being more technology now, the incident rate has plummeted. “As we ramped up our responsibilities, the number of times we had to go in and revisit rooms just kept dropping. The impact has been staggering.”

In addition, through reduced service calls and incidents, among other things, Doug adds that the Kramer solution has saved the university money. “The product is rock-solid, Kramer support is rock-solid and the solution saves me money every time I turn around”.

* The VP-732 is Kramer’s most current product for this specific use (recommended).