Classrooms get tech upgrades

Students and faculty will enjoy improved technology inside 15 classrooms in Giedt, Olson and Everson halls starting this fall, thanks to upgrades made over the summer.

The changes include a much better sound system, improved wireless coverage, high-def projection, room clocks connected to the internet, and adjustable ADA-compliant desks for the instructor. They meet a new standard for technology in UC Davis’ 131 general assignment classrooms adopted in January 2017; in time, every GA classroom will receive the upgrade. The changes also improve the ability to remotely check equipment when an instructor reports a problem during class.

Because the work takes the rooms temporarily out of service, it can be done only in summer, when most students and faculty are away from campus. Some classrooms, like those in 10-year-old Giedt, require only the tech improvements. Information & Educational Technology and Facilities does all the work in those rooms. Locations in older buildings like Olson and Everson receive complete classroom renovations funded by Design and Construction Management. DCM uses subcontractors to do some of that work (including the tech improvements), in collaboration with IET.

Classrooms are chosen according to priorities set by the Office of the Registrar, said Steve Edington, who oversees the work for Information and Educational Technology as supervisor of network services and engineering for Communications Resources. And basically, the cycle never ends. Once the campus finishes all of the classrooms, enough years have passed that the campus starts a new round of upgrades on the rooms they did first.

The work draws on a lot of talent and effort, he says: engineers, installation technicians, audio-visual technicians, students who build equipment racks, the storehouse, data system experts, customer service representatives, line assigners, Network Operations Center programmers, and computer-assisted-design folks doing the drawing.

“It’s an army,” Edington says.