Pure AV aids specialist work at Christie School of Oncology

UbiCast lecture capture system provided by Pure AV helps to open up access to facilities at leading cancer centre.

As part of the largest single-site cancer centre in Europe, the facilities within the education centre at Christie are always in high demand. The introduction of the UbiCast lecture capture system has helped the team at Christie extend the reach of the training and consultancy delivered at the venue.

In the period January to July 2014 the School of Oncology hosted over 2,600 meetings and demand for courses and conferences at the centre continues to grow. A big challenge for the management team at the centre is how to manage space and resources to meet the increasing demand.

“We cater for an array of education requirements, from the fulfilment of mandatory training through to international conferences featuring some of the world’s leading oncology specialists,” said Jane Bennett, operations manager. “We needed to find a way to increase access to our services without having to resort to the use of external venues.”

Additional challenges faced by the team include increasing demand without a corresponding increase in resources, difficulties in the sharing of content post event due to lengthy post production processes and the distribution of content on DVD.

As soon as Pure AV demonstrated the system the team at the education centre recognised that it offered a simple way to provide high quality, interactive content to students and delegates using a process that required a quarter of the production time of the current system.

Pure AV designed the solution using UbiCast's EasyCast Campus and MediaServer system. Following a largely automated, efficient recording of a lecture, it allows the user to download and interact with the data (PowerPoint presentations, charts etc.) presented separately from the video of the lecture.

This provides an enhanced experience (rich media) versus a video recording alone. Also, the ability to host content on different ‘channels’ on the hospital’s own network infrastructure enables access to be controlled and usage monitored.

Using the EasyCast system the AV team is able to output interactive, Rich Media content in shorter time frames and in a format that is easily accessible by both students and delegates. The result is richer content, quick production and easy sharing of content accessible at a time and place to suit the delegate.

For the team at the education centre the benefits outlined above are just the starting point. Initiatives currently under development include: the use of live streaming to increase capacity of training programmes; online delivery of mandatory and internal training courses and generation of new revenue streams though a bank of online recordings of high profile conferences and training events. Jane Bennett said, “We are very pleased with the solution that Pure AV has provided; the ability to output content in Rich Media and the capacity for live streaming present new opportunities for online course delivery and remote participation, both of which are appealing as we look for new revenue streams to support the continued development of the centre.