Technological Enhancement of QA Ltd’s New Birmingham City Centre Campus
ISDM delivered a robust network infrastructure and classroom AV system for QA Ltd’s new campus in Birmingham City Centre at Louisa Ryland House. As a leader in tech training, QA Ltd empowers clients to acquire essential tech skills through a variety of innovative learning solutions, ranging from live and self-paced digital training to degree apprenticeships. Serving an impressive roster, including 96% of the FTSE 100 companies, QA Ltd is a top provider of Microsoft training in the UK and collaborates with seven UK universities to offer more than 100 degree programs in critical skill areas to over 10,000 students.
10,000 students and counting study with QAHE and our university partners through routes including:
- Embedded Pathway Colleges
- Branch Campuses
- Pre-Sessional English Programmes
- Home and International Student Recruitment Services
The Challenge
To support the expansion of services provided for QA a new Birmingham City Centre Campus, Louisa Ryland House was identified as a new facility. This building was to go through a complete fit out & refurbishment programme and would comprise of several bespoke teaching spaces across four floors.
The key deliverable is an environment to promote learning and easy-to-use technology for the lecturers.
“The academic delivery team using the technology has expressed their concerns with older equipment and previous buildings for a while now, often becoming a little frustrated. The technology introduced by ISDM has offered solutions to all staff concerns, resulting in a much improved and easy-to-use learning and teaching environment”. — Martin Gilbert – Dean of Faculty (LMSR) London Metropolitan, Middlesex, Solent and Roehampton University partnerships.
The Solution
ISDM initially engaged in designing the corporate network and wireless configuration for the new campus. This scope was quickly expanded to include comprehensive audio-visual solutions to enhance the educational experience. Collaborating closely with QA’s IT and facilities teams, ISDM conducted thorough design work off plans for wireless and network switching, ensuring robust backbone connectivity. Insights were gained through consultations with existing lecturers at other QAHE sites to understand their current use and potential technological enhancements. Following these consultations, ISDM developed a preliminary design methodology, which was demonstrated to QA stakeholders to confirm the solution’s efficacy before final implementation. The solution implemented included:
- Corporate LAN with Cisco switch technology.
- Comprehensive site-wide wireless access for both corporate and student use, utilising Cisco technology.
- Interactive displays in each classroom, with repeater displays based on room size.
- Presenter tracking cameras to facilitate remote learning.
- Auto-switching capabilities for seamless transitions between trainer laptops and classroom PCs.
- Enhanced audio setups including desk-positioned audio programming and mobile lapel microphones for both in-room sound reinforcement and remote participation.
- A comprehensive ongoing support contract to ensure reliability and performance.
“We were looking for a professional but simplified AV solution that is as user-friendly as possible, ideally reducing the amount of desktop tech that our tutors and support staff need to interact with. With ISDM already engaged for our wider networking needs, they were the ideal partner to design and implement a new classroom solution. Throughout the entire project, the ISDM team have understood and supported our requirements and have helped us deliver a modern solution on time that our staff can be proud of and which our customers will benefit from”. — Martin Pain, Technical Delivery Manager QA
