System-Wide Control & Automation

CHALLENGE

University Malaysia Pahang (UMP) adopts Outcome-based education (OBE) as their method of teaching. As a teaching philosophy OBE puts students at its center. Students are given the freedom to choose what and how to learn. To accomplish OBE, UMP created a student centered learning (SCL) environment, that focuses on resources available to the students such as ICT and mobile devices. The challenges in implementing SCL are in building the infrastructure, facility and the environment. In a typical Lecture type classroom automation, UMP has had to allocate additional manpower to help manage equipment (projector, projection screen, audio system, switcher etc.) in more than 300 classrooms, as well as to avoid theft and loss of equipment. Due to space limitations UMP has had to resort to classroom combining to accommodate larger number of students. Hence, the need for innovative and durable video sharing and switching solutions. UMP wanted to implement a campus wide technical help desk to ensure that user gets the appropriate level of support while providing an active equipment status monitoring system. This requirement was critical as UMP operates in two campuses, which are 60km apart.

SOLUTION

Remote Monitoring System (RMS) and NOVARA have helped UMP achieve classroom automation. Over 300 classrooms in UMP have been installed with NOVARA 3008 keypad, allowing users to easily control multiple AV devices with just a single touch. Connectivity and mobility are crucial in implementing SCL. With AMX’s matrix switcher, students can present from their own laptop, and project what is on their mobile devices to the display screen. In a lecture classroom, NOVARA 3008 has helped professors easily operate AV equipment, by switching the projector on/off, selecting input, and manipulating the projection screen. For cost savings, the rooms leverage one matrix switcher for two of these classrooms. Resource Management Suite is leveraged to monitor as well as generate reports on the power status, input status, lamp hours, as well as the filter hours of equipme nt helping the ICT team maintain equipment and receive immediate notification when a device goes offline.

IMPACT

"With this system in place, the ICT team has improved their response times in managing both campuses. This reduces the amount of lost productivity while waiting for the equipment to function. At the same, UMP has man aged to reduce the maintenance cost and it helps them to plan for future expenditure, such as parts replacement, and total replacement. In addition, Scheduler enables us to preset rooms for start and end of events, and extend the projector lifespan."

– Roslan Awang Abdul Rahman, Deputy Director