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Compliance

15 Top of the Line Higher Education Products for 2015

Higher education end users and integrators nominated the products that made their jobs easier and more efficient this past year.

December 28, 2015 Jessica Kennedy 4 Comments

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Alcatel-Lucent - Enterprise Intelligent Fabric

“The cost and time to adopt applications and new services to support today’s business needs is too high, yet to progress businesses need to invest in evolving and effective technologies. This new Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Intelligent Fabric eases the pain points of IT departments as they can now add new services in minutes, rather than hours, bringing significant improvement in time, resources and spending while demonstrating how IT can rapidly accommodate the business needs. The Intelligent Fabric is the network of the future.”

- Zeus Kerravala, Founder, ZK Research

Awareity - MOAT (online security awareness training system)

“As an Information Security Officer for a community college, managing security awareness training compliance was a major hassle, and MOAT has reduced my workload by 30%.  It eliminated many manual processes, streamlined reporting, and delivered a simple, self-paced end-user experience that quickly paid for itself.  Also, their support was phenomenal before, during, and after implementation.”

- Daniel L. Ferrell, IT Security & Network Analyst, Computing Services, Paul D. Camp Community College

BrightSign – 4K Digital Signage Media Player

“BrightSign’s players integrate seamlessly in virtually any setting, and deliver an affordable, reliable solution that exceeds our customers’ expectations. In addition, BrightSign offers the only purpose-built OS for digital signage that gives technical integration specialists an industry-leading API for custom application development.”

- Marc Rosenberg, CEO, OSM Solutions

Haivision - Makito X with Storage and Recording

“While the Makito X has been out on the market for some time, the addition of storage and recording makes this the perfect product for a town hall or multipurpose space. Clients can have best-in-class streaming technology and integration with networks at the same time as generating a high-quality file of an event for later editing. This reduces number of devices in a system while not sacrificing quality. In addition, the option to have a built-in hard drive meets many clients’ restrictions that any media not be removable.”

—Derek Holbrook, principal sales engineer, Verrex

Marshall Furniture – ELCO-32

“Marshall Furniture has been instrumental in helping us to design a cost effective solution for a local community college here in the New Orleans area.  The high-quality construction combined with easily customizable cutouts for various manufacturers’ devices has made their design (based on Marshall’s ELCO-32) ideal for this higher education application.  The low cost of the lecterns and short turnaround time has enabled us to implement classroom technology in classrooms throughout their multiple campuses.”

- Nick P. Folse, Sales & Design Manager, Interstate Electronic Systems, LLC

Matrox Video – Monarch HD

“With its video recording and streaming capabilities, stability, and competitive price, I am pleased with the Matrox Monarch HD. For us, the biggest criteria were reliability and simplicity – and the Matrox Monarch HD fit both of those very nicely. Monarch HD does such a nice job of capturing content at higher compress rates, giving us smaller files, that it really makes our turnaround process for recordings faster, smoother, and that’s why we have gone that way.”

- Mark Fowles, AV and Technology Support Specialist, David Eccles School of Business (University of Utah)

Pexip

“[Multipoint Technology] also complements modern IT strategies with the use of virtual machine compute resources, allowing video to simply be just another application of the network and fit into existing IT efficiencies and at scale. The scale of the software platforms and relative application intelligence also complement the scale and ability to deliver.

Ultimately, the platforms address a set of features culminating in an affordable, easy-to-use platform for the masses.”

—Lou Chiorazzi, VP of UC practice, AVI-SPL

Prysm Cascade 190 Collaboration Video Wall

“This year, Prysm took their collaboration offerings to the next level by releasing a new version of synthesis software. The Prysm Cascade 190 Collaboration Video Wall is revolutionary in the collaboration space because it offers users the ability to freely manipulate data in real-time from multiple locations around the world.

The large digital canvas created by the 190-inch diagonal screen, 75-square-foot display allows multiple people to work on the wall at the same time and easily send data across the display. The “follow me” feature is particularly innovative because it solves the challenge of sharing data on multiple display resolutions for dispersed work forces. Prysm is now a collaboration software company, not just an innovative display manufacturer. It is really transforming the market with their new range of Cascade products.”

—David Weatherhead, president, Advanced

Samsung Smart Signage Platform Displays

“Throughout 2015 the Samsung SSP range of commercial displays has completely revolutionized the way Ping HD builds digital signage networks. The significance is the integrated SoC (System on a Chip) that is embedded into the display. This eliminates the need for external digital signage media players, cabling, video distribution and reduces installation costs. Furthermore, we’ve found support issues dropped by 90 percent and the customer saves between 30 and 40 percent on the project.”

—Kevin Goldsmith, chief technology officer, PingHD

Schlage - NDE Series Wireless lock

“Our company has installed quite a few NDE locks since its introduction. Customers find it as an easy and inexpensive solution to enhance their existing access system without “breaking the bank.” One large advantage is that we can use almost any credential and install the hardware without the need to disrupt the customers’ existing systems.”

- Lee Whitford, President, L.E. Whitford Co., Inc.

Smart - Interactive display

“Typically when we think about recommending new products we look for ones that will wow our customers. New products that will improve the way they currently teach, present, collaborate, communicate and so forth.

Sometimes there are more important reasons to recommend digital solutions. In this case it is sustainability. This has become a very important topic with many corporations and the people that work there.

We have been capturing the notes written on whiteboards for years. Many products throughout the years have scanned, photographed or otherwise captured and saved this information. Smart Kapp does this as well. It improves the process with a user-friendly application and a unique URL that allows remote participants to view the notes live. Many end users have not embraced electronic whiteboards and the sometimes complicated software that is required to drive it. This causes end users to fall back to putting marker to paper and then paste those notes around the room, photographed and tossed into the recycle bin. Using 10-20 sheets per meeting at just under $1 per sheet there is an opportunity here.

At a cost of $899 we determined the customer will save enough for each unit to pay for itself in well under six months, while improving their sustainability program.”

—Tom Taylor, senior VP, PMO, Unified AV Systems

SVSi – N Series encoders, decoders and control system

“Two words “Game Changer” or “Future Proof”.  Current AV technology lives in an isolated rack in every room and only connects to the world via an installed PC, BYOD or portable media.  The current pedagogy in the university sector is shifting to online learning with MOOCs, flipped and blended classrooms, all of which rely on digital media.  By moving to converged AV infrastructure, connectivity to the virtual world and hence digital media is native by design and will meet the requirements in the future.”

- Dean McFadden, Technical Architect Av Design and Strategy, RMIT University

Alertus – Alert Beacon

“The Alert Beacons sound, flash, and display a message when an emergency notification is dispatched, which has established better communication and coordination between the Boston University and Boston Medical Center.”

- Steve Morash, Director of Emergency Response Planning, Boston University

FacilityDude – CrisisManager

“As Warren Wilson College is committed to supporting the welfare of our students, faculty, staff, and visitors, CrisisManager helps us further prepare our emergency response team by putting safety plans on their mobile devices. Previous to using CrisisManager, protocols were not as easily accessible. Now, we can make plans available to people at their fingertips.”

- Ryan Haylock, Chief Technology Officer, Warren Wilson College

Campus Management – Campus Management CRM

“A key advantage to Campus Management’s CRM is that it’s designed specifically for higher education, yet the solution adapts to unique configurations, campaigns, and workflows across departments and campuses, while centralizing the history of interactions for access by all recruitment staff. Campus Management helped us evolve to an institution-wide system that we’re confident will continue to support our prospects, students, and growth initiatives.”

- Kate Tornatore, Project Manager, Penn State World Campus

After reading through 2015’s list of helpful products, we won’t be surprised if end users’ and integrators’ Christmas lists will already be written for 2016.

This year, higher education end users and integrators nominated 15 top products that helped their jobs flow more easily and efficiently in 2015.

The products – from switchers to digital signage, apps to podiums – enabled each user to strengthen their security tactics, revamp the ways college students collaborate, and helped keep some money in the bank. As a result, campuses have become safer, classrooms are more engaging, learning strategies are up to date, and the chances of potentially lowering tuition have increased.

Some end users, like Kate Tornatore, have seen improvements in her department’s workflow.

Tornatore, the project manager at the Penn State World Campus, says that Campus Management ‘s CRM adapted to her department’s workflow, and created uniformity across campus.

“A key advantage to Campus Management’s CRM is that it’s designed specifically for higher education, yet the solution adapts to unique configurations, campaigns, and workflows across departments and campuses, while centralizing the history of interactions for access by all recruitment staff,” she says. “Campus Management helped us evolve to an institution-wide system that we’re confident will continue to support our prospects, students, and growth initiatives.”

Other end users, like Ryan Haylock, prefer solutions on-the-go, such as FacilityDude‘s CrisisManager app.

With the app, Haylock, Chief Technology Officer at Warren Wilson College, says campus safety can increase with a touch of a button. Plus, faculty, students and staff are given quicker response times and can escape emergencies with the app’s pre-coordinated evacuation routes.

“As Warren Wilson College is committed to supporting the welfare of our students, faculty, staff, and visitors, CrisisManager helps us further prepare our emergency response team by putting safety plans on their mobile devices,” Haylock says. “Previous to using CrisisManager, protocols were not as easily accessible. Now, we can make plans available to people at their fingertips.”

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Jessica Kennedy
Jessica Kennedy

Jessica Kennedy is an editor at TechDecisions Media, targeting the higher education market. Jessica joined the TechDecisions team in 2014 and covers technologies that improve teaching and learning.

Tagged With: EdTech, Higher Ed

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