Unified Communications Featured Article

Avaya Brings Unified Communications to McMaster University

By Alicia Young
Web Editor

College campuses have gone through some major changes in the past few years. As technology continues to advance, universities around the world have to race to keep up. Prospective students expect the latest technology when applying to schools, and universities that are more advanced and promoting the “next best thing” for learning are likely to get chosen over others.

That’s why it is critical to stay up to date on the latest communications and collaboration technologies. With online classes and homework being assigned through Internet portals, it’s essential that universities have reliable software and unified communications in place.

McMaster University, one of the world’s top 100 post-secondary educational institutions, located in Ontario, Canada, has made a move towards better communications by choosing Avaya (News - Alert). By choosing to implement Avaya’s unified communications technology, McMaster University will be providing more modern, mobile communications and collaboration capabilities to its staff, faculty and students.

The purpose of this conversion is to enable seamless unified communications and collaboration through various devices. Students and faculty alike have several different devices on which they choose to do their work or check assignments—smartphones, tablets, and laptops are all popular choices among the student body. Even conference room video systems are a critical part of college campuses, especially one that holds many online sessions for remote students.

With Avaya, the platforms and systems available for these technologies will be simplified and improved. The old system at McMaster University will be blended in with the new system, enabling the school to save money where possible. This migration will also limit the disruptions faculty and students face when using the new platform, because it won’t be a completely new, foreign platform.

The university has chosen to implement the Avaya platform in a multi-phase process. The Avaya Aura Platform was immediately installed in the two newest buildings, and the rest of the buildings will follow suit over the next few years. This will help with user adoption because it’s a gradual process, rather than just dropping a new system in everyone’s laps and hoping they figure it out.

People on campus who have already migrated to the new platform are happy with the results so far. Faculty and staff have found it easier to work from anywhere and still be easily accessible to their colleagues and students. Mobility is becoming increasingly popular, and now McMaster University can add that to its list of attributes to attract prospective students.