Many medium to large postsecondary institutions are challenged with numerous administrative and faculty meetings, typically requiring the on-site attendance of multiple parties. Today's multipoint videoconferencing technologies and solutions have addressed past limitations and are now helping many organizations regularly conduct effective and valuable virtual meetings. Academic institutions should explore the technology as a viable solution for connecting distributed staff.
Multipoint Video: An Increasingly Effective Meeting Option
Videoconferencing has long been regarded as a technology with specific value for educational environments, in terms of both distance education and distributing learning applications and also collaborative research work. However, in the past, solutions have largely under delivered from a price-performance perspective, requiring substantial upfront and ongoing expenditure, with only limited effectiveness. Today, while the cost of implementing solutions is still relatively high (multipoint systems typically start at $40-50,000), two key technical developments have made videoconferencing a much more viable and valuable tool to organizations:
1. Broader IP connectivity. Solution providers and organizations have moved away from traditional, site-based ISDN connectivity for videoconferencing and towards IP, a much more scalable and flexible platform for real-time communications. Combined with significantly improved bandwidth availability and reduced costs, using IP better allows organizations to deliver services to distributed individuals, independent of their physical location.
2. Advances in multipoint technology. In addition to the migration to IP-based platforms, improvements to processing hardware, codecs, and techniques have resulted in systems that are more capable of supporting multiple concurrent users. Rather than point-to-point systems, multipoint bridge platforms, or Multipoint Conferencing Units (MCUs), are the most effective solution for the multiple-user requirements of most postsecondary institutions. Similar to a conventional audio conference bridge, MCUs allow multiple distributed parties to connect to a video bridge, whether joining from a dedicated conference room or via a desktop client.
Multipoint videoconferencing offers many benefits in postsecondary environments. By enabling distributed staff, even those scattered across only a relatively small geographical area, to engage in more frequent interaction, videoconferencing can boost collaboration and aid overall productivity. The benefits of multipoint videoconferencing extend across greater distances as well, allowing colleagues and collaborators within faculty research groups to stay in regular communications.
Indiana University serves as a representative example of a large institution that is benefiting from multipoint capabilities. The school is currently using videoconferencing for approximately 2,000 meetings per year, as detailed in a case study, "Multi-Point Videoconferencing at Indiana University," from Campus Technology. Based on the success of this initiative, the institution plans to expand into other video applications, including session recording and live streaming.
Recommendations
1. Explore multipoint videoconferencing solutions. Solutions that can bring together multiple distributed staff and faculty members depend on multipoint IP capabilities. Institutions should limit their investigation to standards-based, multipoint videoconferencing platforms since a solution consisting of infrastructure equipment, and endpoint solutions from multiple vendors, is a likely scenario within campus environments.
2. Seek educational discounts. The enterprise videoconferencing space is increasingly competitive, and top vendors are actively jockeying for position within key markets and verticals, including the education sector. Postsecondary institutions evaluating solutions should actively seek educational pricing discounts from the leading vendors.
3. Don't get caught up in today's High Definition (HD) hype. Because of its steep bandwidth requirements, HD video is not currently a realistic or justifiable option for most organizations with basic meeting requirements. Using standard definition video streams is a perfectly viable and a much more cost effective option for the majority of applications.
4. Plan to invest in the network resources to support the solution. Like IP telephony, IP videoconferencing is an application that is highly dependent on network performance. Organizations in the early stages of planning a videoconferencing solution need to allocate sufficient attention towards network design, monitoring, and performance management. Institutions lacking expertise in this area should initiate plans to provide training for the appropriate network management staff and possibly explore the use of a third party service provider.
Bottom Line
Advances in videoconferencing technology have made it an essential tool for postsecondary institutions with distributed staff, offering a viable alternative to actual travel. Institutions with frequent meeting and collaboration needs should evaluate the benefits of multipoint videoconferencing technologies today.
