UCSD: Tech upgrades at the School of Global Policy and Strategy

Creating BYOD Classrooms

As Chief Technology Officer for the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UCSD, Gary Hoffman’s goal is to find the best devices that are easy to use for teachers, students, and guests, and also ensure that those devices meet the heightened security needs of the School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Most of the classrooms at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UCSD rely upon technology to present information. In the past, professors used a projector with a long HDMI cable which plugs into the instructor or presenter’s laptop. If the professor wasn’t tech savvy, or if the person using the equipment before made changes to the settings and didn’t reset them, Hoffman got a phone call and would go to the classroom to help get them set up.

Cords were also an issue. With so much traffic and usage, cords were regularly replaced and switched out. Even the most well-planned presentation or class lecture came to a halt when an HDMI cord suddenly gave up. When the option of wireless technology became available for a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment, Hoffman knew it was a solution worth implementing.

Keeping Connections Secure

The School of Global Policy and Strategy at UCSD in California recently renovated all of their classrooms and meeting spaces to accommodate a richer audio-visual environment. During that renovation, Airtame was added to the mix to all of the projection systems.

Security of the connection was a major deciding factor when choosing a wireless solution. The campus needed a device that worked with the campus’s existing WPA2 network. Airtame was the only device they could find that allowed for smooth integration into their secure network.

Applauding Developments

Since Hoffman also oversees the spending of technology, he doesn’t have to worry about buying a new device for screen sharing as computers, phones, and tablets evolve, because the very same Airtame devices they purchased years ago are still receiving continual updates.

My day is good when students and teachers can have all the meetings they want, and I don’t even know they’re going on.

Gary Hoffman, CTO for School of Global Policy and Strategy at UCSD

As wireless meeting rooms become commonplace in public and professional spaces, UCSD is ahead of the curve by implementing this technology in their learning environments. Updating campus classrooms with devices that provide the flexibility to BYOD, and the benefit of self-updating without requiring an additional hardware purchase saves universities a lot of time and money. For a campus that pursues the latest developments in Global Policy and Strategy, Airtame was a good move.

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