University of Southampton (Support)

Southampton, UK

The University of Southampton is one of the top 15 research universities in the UK, consistently achieving high scores for its teaching and learning activities. The university has over 20 academic schools covering a diverse range of subject areas and six campuses set in locations around the city, including one in Winchester.

The University of Southampton is a member of the Russell Group of research-led universities with approximately 25,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, including 2000 international students. It is renowned as a centre for excellence and ranks nationally as a top 20 university and regularly rates in the top 10 of the National Student Survey.

A fast, efficient and effective AV in-house support and maintenance service

proAV was asked to provide a managed AV support service to work in partnership with the technical team at University of Southampton's iSolutions Department. The Department comprises 300 personnel and is responsible for providing and supporting the extensive network infrastructure that gives access to computing facilities, data communications and telephone services that support all university activities.

A fast, efficient and effective AV in-house support and maintenance service from technicians with experience of the site's technical scale and complexity was demanded for the supported systems which occupy the university's Common Learning Spaces and university schools.

A fast, efficient and effective AV in-house support and maintenance service from technicians with experience of the site's technical scale and complexity was demanded for the supported systems which occupy the university's Common Learning Spaces and university schools. 

A large number of Common Learning Spaces and areas with the university's schools, including auditoria, presentation rooms and meeting rooms are equipped with video conferencing facilities, projection systems, display systems and lighting systems, all of which are covered within proAV's extensive package of AV managed services.

proAV supports the University of Southampton's extensive audio visual, video conferencing and presentation facilities that are located across 184 Common Learning Spaces and university schools.

proAV's onsite engineering team of three is permanently based at the university and supports its iSolutions team of seven by providing a rapid-response managed service, with daily responsibilities to: 

• Fix incidents with the agreed SLTs
• Provide workarounds to reduce business impact
• Meet and greet service for lecturers and public speakers 
• Provide support and supervision for video conferencing facilities
• Delivery and collection of equipment
• Setup and configuration of various equipment, including OHP, Smart boards, PA systems, data projectors etc.
• Provide technical advice

Key objectives for this managed service include:

• To work within declared service targets agreed with the university
• Proactively perform regular checks of the learning spaces  to minimise business impact
• To support and maintain equipment deployed to an agreed service schedule
• To provide management information for service provided for
• Maintain the Configuration Database related to audio visual equipment

proAV"s managed service includes a number of regular maintenance tasks to enable the equipment to continue to function at the optimum level. The service includes the cleaning of projector filters, regular inspections of equipment band basic repairs including changing lamps and fixing hardware faults.