Background
Indian Hills Community College was founded in 1966 and spans 10 counties in southeast Iowa. These counties make up the college’s primary service area, but Indian Hills students come from all over the state, the country, and even the globe. The college has been ranked in the top 10% of all community colleges in the United States by The Aspen Institute. Currently, more than 5,500 students attend Indian Hills Community College each year.
Customer Needs
To manage its campus-wide VoIP system, Indian Hills Community College was initially working with an organization based in Minnesota. But community college staff members wanted a partner that would not only help address a variety of technology challenges and upgrades, but also be closer to campus. As a result, Indian Hills Community College chose to partner with CEC’s team of dedicated engineers, who have extensive VoIP and digital signage experience.
Solution
To help Indian Hills Community College further its mission of using technology as a way to expand educational reach, CEC helped the institution complete several campus-wide projects. CEC also provides service and maintenance to keep these systems up and running. The two organizations partnered to:
- Migrate and upgrade the campus-wide VoIP system to a newer version that can now scale and grow across many sites as the college expands.
- Integrate a business phone system that streamlines processes, eliminates dropped calls, and allows for increased communication.
- Research possible digital signage solutions and select a system that matched the college’s requirements – without the extra bells and whistles that the staff didn’t want to manage.
- Implement a cost-effective distribution system that works with the college’s existing digital signage screens and allows staff to efficiently manage the information being shared across campus.
- Create, schedule, and deliver unique content to digital signage players.
- Stream real-time Internet content, such as weather and news, to digital signage displays via new software and players.
The biggest benefit to working with CEC is the knowledge of their engineers, and the multiple products available for a single solution – you have more than one option. I also attend their annual Business Technology Conference to get ideas for moving the college forward in technology.