Rural Texas counties connected to world-class university through Polycom’s ClassStation, ViewStation,VS4000 and iPower.
“When Texas Tech began its migration from ISDN to IP video communications, we required that our vendor have the best IP video solution in the industry and that they act as a strategic partner with Texas Tech,” said J Stalcup, Texas Tech director of telecommunications.” Not only did Polycom meet these requirements, they’ve exceeded our expectations. Polycom’s ClassStation combines all of the features critical to distance-learning success and its ViewStation, iPower and Video MCU products are the best IP conferencing products on the market. Polycom’s video communications products have helped enable one of the most robust distance-learning programs in the state of Texas and the company continues to act as our strategic partner.”
In addition to leveraging interactive video communications to deliver distance learning across a wide range of undergraduate and graduate-level classes, Texas Tech also instituted a program called the Hill Country Initiative to reach students located in the rural Hill County near Austin. Through Polycom’s ClassStation, the Hill County Initiative give students who are not located near a Texas Tech campus access to the school’s faculty. The university also uses video extensively in its College of Education, allowing its students working on teaching credentials to observe k-12 classroom behavior before they begin student teaching, helping them enter the classroom better prepared.
“We’ve seen tremendous response to our ClassStation offering not only from the traditional K-12 and college users, but also business, tele-health, continuing education and training applications of all kinds,” said Craig Malloy, senior vice president and general manager of video communications for Polycom. “We’re extremely pleased that a distinguished university like Texas Tech is leveraging the complete, integrated video conferencing experience that the ClassStation offers as well as additional video solutions that span our product line to achieve their distance learning goals. We look forward to a continued successful partnership with Texas Tech.”
About ClassStation
The ClassStation solution is based on Polycom’s industry-leading VS4000 rack-mounted group video communications system, already widely deployed in custom-room environments. Designed with direct input from active distance-learning users, ClassStation is available in three different solutions, small, medium and large to accommodate a wide range of distance-learning classroom needs. In addition, the solutions feature CamCommand, which enables automatic switching from the instructor camera to the student camera when a student microphone is activated” a functionality that is the most automatic and transparent in the industry. The solutions also include touch-to-talk microphones that, when activated, pan, tilt, zoom and focus the student camera on the speaking student.
About Texas Tech University
Texas Tech University, the largest university system in West Texas, provides education and support to 27,500 students. Texas Tech is the only university system in the state with a comprehensive academic institution, law school and medical center located on one contiguous campus. Research, teaching and learning are the missions of the institution. Students select from 150 undergraduate, 100 master’s and 50 doctoral degrees offered by the university. Degree subjects range from the fine arts and humanities to engineering, from business to physical sciences, from law to architecture, from the health sciences to financial planning and from restaurant and hotel management to education. The Texas Tech University System prides itself on excellence in teaching and research.
About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. develops, manufactures and markets a full range of high-quality, easy-to-use and affordable voice and video communication endpoints, video management software, web collaboration software, multi-network gateways, and multi-point conferencing and network access solutions. Its fully integrated end-to-end solution, The Polycom Office is supported by the Polycom Accelerated Communications Architecture, and enables business users to immediately realize the benefits of integrated video, voice data and web collaboration over rapidly growing converged networks. For additional information, call 1-800-POLYCOM (765-9266) or +1-408-526-9000, or visit the Polycom web site at: http://www.polycom.com/.
Polycom, the Polycom logo and ViewStation are registered trademarks and ClassStation, VS4000, iPower and The Polycom Office are trademarks of Polycom in the U.S. and various countries. ©2002, Polycom, Inc. All rights reserved.
