Uttaradit Rajabhat University of Thailand

Project Background

As one of the prestigious universities under the Rajabhat system, Uttaradit Rajabhat University (URU) is located in a large town north of Bangkok, Thailand. Established in 1936 as Uttaradit Teacher College, it’s previously known as the training institute for teachers. It has been through a long history until upgraded with all the other Rajabhat institutes by the King to universities in 2004, expanding course offerings so as to grant bachelor’s degrees in non-teaching as well as teaching fields.

With the continuous development of the university and growing number of students and faculty members, URU has built a new 5-storey teaching building in 2021 with over 50 classrooms, seminar rooms and computer labs for expanding teaching and learning spaces.

The Challenge

The current campus generally do not have comprehensive technical strategy. However as a well-know higher education institute, it’s expected to adopt seamless and interconnected new technologies to create a smart campus where students can learn and experiment with the latest and greatest things in all fields. Although there are certain basic teaching equipment used in the campus, the lack of an integrated IoT platform brings rarely automation experience, which makes IT admins stressful as well. For the new building, the campus management wants to change the situation and to create a better teaching environment that not only benefits students, but also facilitates faculty and IT administrators.

Q-NEX Solution

The overall goal is to design an AV solution that can be easily deployed to each classroom and teaching space. To start with, every classroom is equipped with an IQTouch interactive flat panel as the classroom display, convenient for the lecturer’s presentation and annotation during class. A visualizer is also provided for document or 3D object demonstration. For teachers who prefer to bring their laptops to class, there’s a desktop control panel by Q-NEX to switch between different input sources, so that the laptop screen or visualizer image could be displayed on the interactive flat panel within one touch.

Q-NEX solution

Management

The biggest secret under the teacher’s table for each room is Q-NEX Networked Media Processor (NMP)- the centerpiece that connects all the classroom devices together: lights, air conditioner, interactive flat panel, visualizer, teacher’s laptop, speakers and microphone. Power control, volume control, audio and video matrix switch can not only be operated locally through the control panel by teachers, but also remotely managed through web-based Q-NEX Console by IT admins. Without running up and down the building, IT admins of URU can enjoy centralized management in their office.

Unified

Data management used to be another headache for IT admins. Now with the help of the dashboard of Q-NEX Console, IT admins will get a clear view on the overall status of each device, including device running time, frequency of use, number of users, power consumption and maintenance record. It’s easy to export the data and generate statistic reports for informed decisions on device purchasing plans.

Integrity

Another highlight of Q-NEX solution is AV broadcasting throughout the campus. As most of the new classrooms, seminar rooms, computer labs are all equipped with Q-NEX NMP, which is capable of decoding video and audio over a standard IP network, whenever there is audio announcement, class-related videos or live lecture seminar, it can be broadcasted to each room for students to watch. Pre-scheduled broadcast tasks are supported as well as real-time live streaming campus-wide.

The new building is just a start for transforming URU into a smart campus. Tasted the sweetness of digital integration and automation experience, the school management is determined to continue the ICT infrastructure upgrade and bring the university to a greater level, both academically and technologically.