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According to Rich Whitney, CIO and Vice Provost for Information Technology at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), his IT organization provides enterprise-class services internally as well as to external partner organizations. So when the University of Fairbanks (UAF) contacted him to collaborate on a plan to create a hosted Elluminate Live! service to support the entire University of Alaska system, he was immediately onboard with the idea of moving from individual campus deployment to a single enterprise infrastructure.
From the Beginning
"Four years ago, I asked our UAA eLearning working group to investigate and make recommendations on synchronous learning tools," explained Whitney. "Their investigation reduced options to two products, Elluminate Live! and what was then Macromedia Breeze (now Adobe Connect). After careful deliberation and pilot testing of both products, the working group recommended Elluminate Live! for its tool set, easy-to-use intuitive interface, and integration with our Blackboard course management system, a key part of our eLearning strategy."
"In addition, a lot of our students are in low bandwidth areas with dial-up connections, so we needed a product that would operate with good voice quality and good functionality at relatively low bandwidth," Whitney said. "Elluminate Live! was the preferred tool. We also looked at the extent to which we would be able to operate it as enterprise service. When we adopt a particular technology, we build it for high availability 24/7/365. Our basic philosophy is that if faculty can’t count on a technology, they won’t use it."
Spreading the Word
According to Whitney, once the "bake-off" between the two products was done and the recommendation was made and approved, Elluminate Live! was up and running within two months, integrated into Blackboard and fully supported by UAA’s Call Center.
"We recognize that technology adoption is not just a matter of doing a technical release," he commented. "What’s more important is how you market, launch, and support the product. Leveraging interest that was generated by the Elluminate Live! pilot, our eMedia Services group and UAA’s Center for Advanced Faculty Excellence (CAFÉ), which is our faculty development office, worked together on notification, promotion, and training."
Meet NOW with Elluminate Live!
"While the Blackboard/Elluminate integration was key, we knew that there would be more than academic uses for the product," said Whitney. "Blackboard is not the only venue for delivering Elluminate. We also permit people to create sessions as needed.
"We have a very large state with geographically separated campuses, so we do a lot of virtual meetings and project management for IT and facilities projects, collaboration between institutions, research," he added. "Elluminate Live! is a basic collaboration tool that’s used as an alternative to separate audio and video conferencing. For example, Facility and Campus Services used it for construction project management, enabling design teams in Seattle and Anchorage to communicate, present plans, and do mark ups."
Support is Key
Once Elluminate Live! was implemented at UAA, it was only a matter of time until the opportunity for system-wide deployment presented itself. Vendor support remains critical to the success of the project. "Elluminate does a great job of providing support," concluded Whitney. "In a recent major engagement, we upgraded Elluminate Live! in one week. Elluminate even had an engineer on site to facilitate the process and make sure everything went smoothly. We are very positive about our use of Elluminate Live! as well as how Elluminate the company has been for us."
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