University of Chicago Booth School of Business in Hong Kong

• Case Studies

A closer look at the AV installation deployed at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business’ Hong Kong facility.

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business is the second-oldest school in the US—and second to none when it comes to influencing business education and business practices. After 13 years of successful run of the school's Executive MBA Program in Singapore, Chicago Booth confirmed to relocate the program to Hong Kong in order to expand and strengthen the school's presence and influence across the region.

Keeping the excellence

Since the Program and curriculum in Hong Kong follows the same structure as Booth's other Executive MBA programs, Chicago Booth main idea was to ensure the setup of Hong Kong campus is similar to the campuses in Chicago and London.

Chicago Booth made it a priority to make the classrooms in all campuses as similar as possible to make faculty members “feel like home” and expect the identical AV experience when walking into any classroom.

Besides, of all the modules required for graduation from the program, some are spent studying with an international cohort of students from all three campuses, therefore, a stable and reliable communication system is required.

Choosing the best

To implement the project with the highest standards Vega Global has been chosen as the AV solution provider, partnering with HKT - leading IT solution provider.

Partner companies have been responsible for the installation and integration of various audio/visual equipment, riding on the IT network.

Journey to the knowledge

The entrance, as an informative and welcoming area, requires all the main information to be presented in a convenient and useful way – 3 LCD monitors, connected to Scala digital signage software, are there to deliver the important information.

The study rooms remind more a style of business meeting rooms; 16 similar rooms provided with all necessary equipment for classmates to connect, share notes and work in project groups.

The tired classroom with seating for up to 100 guests is ideal for seminar or training meeting. The finest technology is used to provide the highest level of information sharing and easy for interaction between professor and the students. It includes 3 ceiling mounted projectors Christie LWU-501i which will display content on automated projection screens Da-Lite Advantage Electrol 13-inch at the front of the classroom, behind the professor’s lectern.

Dynamic learning

A Crestron 15-inch V-Panel is used to control all the lights and the equipment, to make it easy for professor to switch attention of students from one thought to another and motivate students to learn in a memorable way. Using Crestron DigitalMedia Switcher DM-MD8x8 gives the room ultra-fast digital video and audio switching, and lossless HD multi-room signal distribution, for all types of AV sources.

To interact with the students a document camera Wolfvision VZ-8light4 + FP is used. It allows display of books, unique documents, content from your iPad and share files with the whole classroom in a dynamic way.

Professor’s voice is delivered via Shure gooseneck microphone or lavalier omnidirectional lapel microphone. Other omnidirectional microphones are used to pick-up students audio and are mounted in classroom’s ceiling evenly.

The Listen Technologies system LS-80-01-WH is deployed, which is designed for use where the audio signal needs to be isolated for security or other reasons, such as assistive listening, soundfields, language interpreting, live theater, houses of worship, courtrooms, and for auditory description.

To record the unique lectures, Vaddio WallView HD-20 camera and Mediasite ML portable recorder were deployed.

Vaddio WallView HD-20 camera features a motorized 20x optical zoom lens with 11 glass elements, a 3.27 Megapixel 1/2.8-type Sony Exmor CMOS sensor, and a slip-clutch robotics system, all for capturing clear, high-definition images with precise, wide-ranging movements. With powerful imaging and pan/tilt/zoom systems, the HD-20 is perfect for live-event recording in houses of worship and other venues.

Remote professor

The other room, which can hold also up to 100 people is called “The Large Meeting Room”. It performs multiple functions, including: a traditional meeting room, a classroom, a remote teaching room and a video conferencing room. The classroom provides students with the ability to work in small groups and to be able to project their work via cables in their work tables with their laptop on projector screens.

Three Da-Lite Advantage Electrol 130-inch projection screens are mounted into the ceiling to display the information using three Christie LWU-501i projectors.

When there is a necessity of remote teaching, Cisco video conferencing technology can be exploited and connects students with a professor in Chicago.It allows the professor in Chicago to see the students in Hong Kong and the students in Hong Kong to see the professor and the content that they are teaching.

Vaddio HD back wall mounted camera works in conjunction with a portable Mediasite ML recorder, which records and streams live events with a go-anywhere appliance. For the best sound to be achieved, 16 JBL ceiling mounted speakers being used plus wireless omnidirectional microphones exploited to gather students’ audio. For the professor, Revolabs lavalier omnidirectional microphones and wireless omnidirectional microphones are being used, to ensure mobility together with high definition audio.

The room equally can be used for more basic point to point video conferencing to other University of Chicago locations. The Listen Technologies LS-80-01-WH assistive system is deployed in this room too.

The Creston 8.4-inch wireless touchscreen is provided for professor to control lights and all possible equipment, also able to show any student connected laptop via Crestron AirMedia and is able to show any source in any combination on the projection screens.

Using Crestron AirMedia you can walk into any meeting space and wirelessly present PowerPoint, Excel, Word and PDF documents, as well as photos, from your personal iOS or Android mobile device on the room display. It makes presentations from almost any device fast and easy.

Middle Atlantic rack has been deployed to meet client’s global standards.

This article was written and supplied by Vega.