Case Study: IVCi Designs Virtual Lecture Hall for Duke University's Fuqua School of Business

This first-of-its kind classroom utilizes Cisco TelePresence technology to connect students and faculty across the campus and the globe.

By Nina Parker

The Challenge

Each year, students from across the world enroll in Duke University's Fuqua School of Business to become better equipped at succeeding in the increasingly competitive corporate world. Fuqua is an elite business school located in Durham, North Carolina, with several international campuses and university alliances. To prepare students for today's global business environment, the school's curriculum includes material and lectures by subject matter experts who include distinguished professors, business leaders, and guest lecturers.

However, arranging for these subject matter experts to speak to classes was often challenging; it could sometimes take two to three business days for a guest speaker to travel to the campus and deliver a presentation, resulting in scheduling conflicts and the loss of valuable time in transit. "We needed a more efficient way to provide students with the opportunity to interact with some of the world's leading business decision makers," said Duke's technical project manager Tom Freeland.

The Solution

The Fuqua School of Business turned to advanced technology to address this challenge; Fuqua chose to pioneer the use of Cisco TelePresence in higher education by installing a system in one of its lecture halls. Cisco TelePresence uses high-definition video and other immersive features to create virtual meetings. TelePresence is a natural choice for the classroom environment, where live interaction between lecturer and student is critical to successful learning. "This technology was chosen because of the extreme high quality of the calls," Mr. Freeland said. "There is very little latency with the Cisco system, and its performance is far superior to traditional video conferencing." In addition, Duke has a large infrastructure that is based on Cisco technology.

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W H I T E   P A P E R

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Over the past few years, collaboration technologies, like audio, video, and web conferencing, have played an ever-increasing role in national security and defense. Videoconferencing, in particular, has undergone a dramatic transformation from a "nice-to-have" leading-edge technology into a mission critical requirement. This whitepaper provides insight and information and also acts as a model for any organization seeking to deploy a secure visual collaboration environment that meets the DoD strict security requirements.

Click here for the white paper >>

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