Virtual Collaboration Made Easier with Capital Funding

University IT will equip conference rooms across the Stanford main campus with audiovisual (AV) systems that will enhance the way we work and collaborate. In particular, equipping these rooms will support the significant virtual collaboration expected between Stanford’s main campus and Stanford’s Redwood City Campus (SRWC), which will be ready for occupancy next spring.

AV Strategy Team leads the charge

To select the rooms for AV upgrades, University IT (UIT) partnered with 25 business units to build a conference room inventory, and assembled a 20-member AV Strategy Team with cross-campus representation. The AV Strategy Team will review the inventory, prioritize rooms and develop the AV deployment schedule, which will span the next three years.

The AV Strategy Team is co-chaired by Maria Maravilla, director of strategy and services for UIT’s communications services, and Mark Trenchard, School of Medicine director of academic and interactive technology. Members include:

• Business Affairs: Alex Chirov, Blake Gentner, Brad Immanuel, Matthew Ricks
• Dean of Research/Graduate Policy: Keith Iverson, Bruce Young
• Office of Development: Matthew Williams
• Residential and Dining Enterprises: Nestor Panganiban
• School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences: John Freshwaters
• School of Engineering: Darrel Bayani
• School of Humanities and Sciences: Jon Pilat
• Stanford Libraries: Robert Schwarzwalder
• VP for Student Affairs: Noyd Cooper, Jeanette Smith-Laws
• VP for Land and Buildings: Paarth Shukla
• VP for Teaching and Learning: Wes Chew
• VP for University Human Resources: Jaime Martinez
• School of Law: Bao Tran
• School of Medicine: Tain Barzso
• Graduate School of Business: Tim Colvin

For more about the initiative and how it will affect your local area, contact your business unit representative or AV Strategy Team member.

A better video conferencing experience

Besides equipping more conference rooms with AV technology, UIT is also focused on  improving the current video conferencing experience at Stanford and making it more consistent across campus. In May, UIT deployed the Zoom “add-in” feature within the Office 365 web calendar as one step towards that.

In August, UIT will introduce a new user interface for Cisco control panels in about 130 existing UIT-supported video conference rooms. This new panel design was prototyped and tested to improve the in-room meeting setup and overall experience with simplified controls. Some new features you’ll experience from the control panel include the ability to:

• View the room’s meeting schedule for the day
• Join a scheduled meeting with one tap
• Easily launch ad hoc meetings

The next steps for enhancing this service will involve partnering with the hospitals to build on the panel experience in a WebEx environment.