The University of Warwick was founded in 1965, and is located on the outskirts of Coventry, in the United Kingdom. With around 26,500 full-time students, together with approximately 2,500 academic and research staff, Warwick is consistently ranked as one of the top ten British universities. Currently working with WolfVision partner GV Multimedia, the University of Warwick has been using WolfVision Visualizers for more than 15 years, with many of the first installed VZ-9 Visualizers still in daily use. In total, over 200 Visualizers are installed across multiple campuses, including VZ-8, VZ-9, VZ-3neo, VZ-8neo Desktop Visualizers, VZ-C6 and VZ-C32 Ceiling Visualizers, plus additional Eye-12, and Eye-14 Live Image Cameras.
All teaching spaces accommodating between 30 – 500 students are provided with WolfVision systems. Jonathan Owen, Service Owner – Learning Spaces and Collaborative Environments at the University of Warwick commented: “Our teaching and meeting spaces need to be extremely intuitive, as it’s often difficult to encourage users to attend scheduled training sessions. Our users have the confidence to use any WolfVsion Visualizer on campus, be it new or up to 15 years old, which is a testament to the design and intuitive controls which are consistent across all WolfVision products”.
Several standard AV design templates have been developed for the Warwick teaching spaces, the purpose of which is to provide students and teaching staff with a consistent experience, whichever room they are using on campus. All new AV installations in seminar rooms are equipped with a VZ-3neo, and the larger rooms and lecture theatres are provided with a VZ-8neo Visualizer. WolfVision Ceiling-mounted units are used in some of the bigger rooms where the increased capture surface area enables the display of larger materials. Visualizers have always been popular with users, in particular for the detailed display of handwriting and a wide variety of physical objects.
I believe WolfVision is unrivalled in terms of the quality and intuitive design of its products, but just as important is the relationship they maintain with their customers, long after the initial purchase. Over the past 15 years, we’ve only needed to contact WolfVision for support on a handful of occasions and have always received a fast response and the highest possible levels of support.
Jonathan Owen Service Owner – Learning Spaces and Collaborative Environments - University of WarwickJonathan Owen added,: "My team and I believe WolfVision products offer unrivalled quality, both in terms of their construction and the quality of the optics. Our teaching spaces are in constant use for ten hours each day, which means we need extremely reliable hardware which is easy to maintain”. Students at Warwick are also able to watch recorded lecture content from Visualizers via the Echo 360 lecture capture platform. Since launching the lecture capture service in 2013, the Visualizer has proved to be one of the most popular capture sources, especially when combined with an actual presentation.
Furthermore, WolfVision Visualizers have been instrumental in helping to encourage otherwise potentially nervous lecturers to start using the lecture capture service, by enabling them to simply write onto the Visualizer working surface, or to easily share a book or object with their students. Warwick currently records over 20,000 lectures per year, and the success of this service underlines the great popularity of Visualizers in teaching spaces.
In summary, commenting on the value of WolfVision systems, Jonathan Owen said: “WolfVision continues to refine and enhance its products after purchase, and all firmware updates and feature enhancements are free of charge. We always consider any WolfVision purchase to be a long term investment and remain impressed by the company’s appetite to improve their products, long after the initial purchase. I believe WolfVision is unrivalled in terms of the quality and intuitive design of its products, but just as important is the relationship they maintain with their customers, long after the initial purchase.
Over the past 15 years, we’ve only needed to contact WolfVision for support on a handful of occasions and have always received a fast response and the highest possible levels of support. I can’t think of another AV or IT manufacturer I’ve worked in the past 20 years who offers anywhere near this level of service”. WolfVision is extremely proud to play an important supporting role in student education at the University of Warwick, and looks forward to providing support and advice to this leading educational institution for many years to come.
I can’t think of another AV or IT manufacturer I’ve worked in the past 20 years who offers anywhere near this level of service.
Jonathan Owen Service Owner – Learning Spaces and Collaborative Environments - University of Warwick