Ed Tech Blog
Guest post written by Mario Maltese. Reposted with permission from AQAV at aqav.org.
What is “Third Party Commissioning?”
In legal terms, the word “party” refers to a person taking part in a transaction or contract. An AV Company engaging in a contract with an AV Buyer forms two parties in the contract. When the AV Company completes a battery of tests themselves (using the AV 9000 Commissioning Checklist) intending to certify what they just installed as being compliant with that contract, we call that “First Party” commissioning. It is similar to an internal audit. Personnel specifically trained in the tests, with the required instrumentation, should perform the tests and that personnel should not be the same personnel who installed the system.
When the AV Buyer uses its own trained and equipped personnel to perform the AV9000 Commissioning tests that is called “Second Party” commissioning. Many organizations that have the specialized personnel and instrumentation resources to do this have done so.
When the AV Buyer brings in a disinterested party, one not part of the Project Team who designed or installed the AV system, one who simply applies the AV9000 Standard to gather the evidence of compliance (or non-compliance), that is called “Third Party” commissioning.
Third Party AV9000 commissioning is by far the best practice for today’s complex audiovisual technology for catching all the defects in an economic fashion and improving the vendor pool. Remember that each system is a one-of-a-kind application of technology from the perspective of a design or the environment itself, with many variables. Experience has shown it is best for both the AV Company, who will be paid faster when the system is certified by an outside party and for the AV Buyer as well, who saves in man-hours of staff time and putting the room to good use...
Read more: Third Party AV9000 Commissioning – The Obvious and the Not-So-Obvious Rationale
Four well known audiovisual and classroom technologies manufacturers, FSR, Inc, Biamp Systems, Christie Digital and Quam Nichols, have partnered to put on the second Higher Education Technology Summit (HETS). Created specifically for college and university managers of educational technology, HETS is designed to combine a day of product training, networking and peer-to-peer discussions in a fast moving format. The first HETS took place in Burlington, MA. Due to demand and feedback, the second HETS will take place in Philadelphia’s center city, convenient for eastern PA attendees and an easy train ride from NYC, NJ, DE and MD/ Washington DC.
Gina Sansivero, Director of Business Development, Education at FSR, Inc tells why an event like HETS was created. “As industry leading manufacturers, we understand that educational technology managers are technically educated and experienced and are increasingly taking on more design and installation responsibilities in house. They are also developing technology standards and specifying products for the AV systems campus-wide.”
Michael Frank, Sales Development Director, Eastern North America at Biamp Systems notes, “Technology managers typically have limited budgets for professional development, training and travel. A regional, cost- free, single day event provides the training they are asking for as well as...
Read more: AV Manufacturers partner for The SECOND Higher Education Technology Summit- Philadelphia
Residence halls are a big profit center for colleges and universities. Typically educational technologists have had little to no technology responsibility in dorms. But when student expectations drive projects and priorities, as they often do in order for schools to stay competitive and meet enrollment goals, traditional environments seem to get turned on their heads.
The idea of a multi-use or mixed-used building is not new. In many downtown areas, retail, commercial and residential space commonly inhabit the same structure. Now, the idea of multi-use buildings are becoming common on college campuses. Often, we find that residence halls also contain classroom space, public gathering/ study areas and possibly retail, gym or food components; a sort of “feed your mind, body and soul” all-in-one building.
As the definition of a residence hall morphs to mixed use, AV and IT teams are being called into these projects more frequently. The classroom spaces will still fall under their umbrella of responsibility. Therefore planning for the technology infrastructure necessary to support the rooms will bring them to the table (hopefully earlier, rather than later). Sometimes these buildings will be in a location on campus that is easy to access, allowing for a smoother...
Have you been to a conference with an opening keynote that just didn’t seem relevant to the attendees, their jobs or the trends and topics that they wanted to learn about? Probably. That’s why I like to share when I attend a conference at which the keynote speaker is spot on- knowing his audience, tailoring his content and providing takeaways that make sense and are usable.
At the DET/CHE (directors of educational technology/ California higher ed) conference this year, Adam Finkelstein from McGill University took the stage on the first full day of sessions. He had a difficult task; he had to engage and education a room of about 170 attendees with clearly varied jobs. DET/CHE pulls in AV and IT department heads, instructional designers, directors of distance education programs, and even some tech-inspired faculty. They all want to learn about learning technologies, but will understand use the new concepts in diverse ways that fit their position. No matter what their focus was, he grabbed the attendees immediately by proposing that “Higher Ed is under siege. It is neither affordable nor is it a great value.” Yipes! That’s a pretty strong statement, considering just about everyone in the room makes...
This was originally posted in the winter edition of SouthEast Education Network (SEEN) magazine:
I was fortunate enough to be able to discuss technology specific concerns for schools with multiple campuses with two experts. Jahn Westbrook, Technical Manager, Campus Media, Classroom Support Services from New York University (NYU) and Tim Cichos, Senior Audio Video Engineer from University of Notre Dame were kind enough to share some insight into the challenges and successes of managing technology and teams worldwide. In an effort to preserve the context and the authenticity of their responses, here are the Q&As from our session: http://www.seenmagazine.us/Articles/Article-Detail/ArticleId/5947/Going-Global
This information was provided by Jim Spencer and Nick Page from the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame:
I mentioned that we’ve been playing with the 1 button studio concept a little bit, so I wanted to share our work with you:
The first one that we did was a rolling recording cart. The concept was to invest in one deluxe mobile system that can be used anywhere, instead of installing multiple smaller systems in some rooms and not others. It’s got a camera, a PZM whole room mic, a handheld/lav pair, and 8 wireless RevoLabs ‘pucks’ that we can throw around the room for full microphone coverage. The cart has an audio DSP to handle all of the mics, and it also has a video to USB bridge and a recording appliance. We can record, and/or connect to a classroom lectern via USB for a Zoom call. Since it’s a Rolling Recording cart that can Zoom too, we call it R2-Z2. Here’s what our rolling cart looks like: http://imgur.com/a/i6MRX (I’ll try to get nicer pictures that aren’t in a storage closet tomorrow, and I’ll add some captions to the album as well)
The other system that...
Read more: The One Button Studio: A Real-Life “Roll” Out at Notre Dame