Imperial College

Unified communications – collaborative spaces for multi-modal learning

In an innovation-focused research hub, cutting-edge AV technology in two educational spaces provides a richer learning experience for postgraduate business school students.

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Harvard-style teaching room with multi-modal enhancements

Flexible and divisible space for group or whole-room learning

Intuitive, easy-to-use technology ensures focus on education

Business Challenge

Imperial College London is a world-class university with a mission to benefit society through excellence in science, engineering, medicine and business – and its Business School’s new facilities at the Scale Space building are central to this aim.

Scale Space is an impressive multidisciplinary research hub for leading scale-ups and innovative businesses across the technology, digital and life sciences sectors. Here, students get the opportunity to experience Imperial’s White City campus whilst forging connections with the scale-up companies based within the facility, as well as the wider entrepreneurial community of White City.

Having been a long-term client of Aura, Imperial’s choice of trusted partner for the design of the audiovisual systems within these teaching spaces was straightforward, bringing the best of AV technology to the Business School, supporting Imperial’s move towards flipped, collaborative and hybrid learning approaches.

Aura Solution

Aura tailored the specification to support hybrid learning as this was key to the Business School continuing to deliver its MBA and Master’s programmes.

The new spaces have not only enabled the continuation of teaching under pandemic conditions, but improved the student and staff experience, facilitating better participation, discussion and collaboration. The rooms can be set up in different modes quickly and easily, enabling lecturers to focus on the teaching itself, while remote students are able to enjoy an experience that is as close to the in-room alternative as possible.

Working with Aura’s partners, we were able to provide a Harvard-style teaching room which features dual projection with side repeater screens, and multiple connections for laptops. It is comprehensively specified with high quality visualiser, microphones, lecture capture, and Digital Media presentation switcher and control system. Multi-modal teaching enhancements include low-level confidence screens for the lecturer, ceiling microphone arrays, a Zoom Room system and additional cameras.

The collaborative learning system installed gives groups the ability to work on a display each, while the lecturer can share content between groups or to the whole room – whether the partitions are open or closed. A lecture capture option pack integrates with Panopto, meaning lectures can be recorded and viewed again later by students. When the partition is open, the space functions as a Zoom Room enabling remote participants to see and hear the collaborative work being done in the space. Aver cameras provide the video feeds, while Shure ceiling microphone arrays capture audio, ensuring excellent visual and sound quality for virtual participants.