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Education
USC Viterbi School of
Engineering: Making Sure They Get the Message
The University of Southern California Viterbi School of
Engineering in Los Angeles has approximately 3800 graduate and 1800
undergraduate students pursuing degrees. USC’s graduate program in
engineering is consistently ranked in the top 10 in the U. S. News
and World Report rankings.
The school has come a long way since the first classes in
engineering disciplines were offered in 1906. Jason Dziegielewski,
Digital Communications Manager took time out to discuss their AxisTV
system.
“One of our overriding communications philosophies is:
How can we re-distribute our existing content in multiple places and
through multiple delivery channels?” explains Dziegielewski. “I
inherited a brand new building with displays and an A/V distribution
system, but no way to get our content to these screens and manage it.
AxisTV matched our needs. We’ve been running the system for a little
over a year now. It’s one of many distribution channels we’re leveraging
to deliver as much information as possible, to as many people as
possible, in as many ways as possible, in the environment they’re most
comfortable with.”
Ronald Tutor Hall, Viterbi’s newest building, has
fourteen 42-inch NEC LCD panels displaying AxisTV. There are four more
panels with interactive SMART Board™ capabilities that revert to AxisTV
bulletin screen savers, ensuring no messaging opportunities are missed.
“Student services is the main focus of this building's first two floors,
so it’s a high traffic area. Faculty, staff, students and visitors all
get their first impression from the digital signage,” comments Dziegielewski.
Two channel players drive content to café and common
building feeds which broadcast to screens throughout the facility.
Displays are mounted in hallways, lounges, offices and outside of
classrooms. Olin Hall of Engineering, which houses graduate student
affairs on the first floor, is also running AxisTV on a 50-inch plasma.
Message saturation and reinforcement is the focus. “The
more times someone is exposed to a message, the odds of retention are
greater,” continues Dziegielewski. “Our various methods of delivery
allow us to reach audiences with different preferences and viewing
patterns. For example, our event calendar is on the Web, on AxisTV screens,
sent in weekly emails and delivered via an RSS feed. People are bound to
get the message.”
Over eighty percent of the school’s AxisTV content is
sourced from automated feeds. Bulletins are primarily event related,
with schedules being pulled from PerlCal® – a system the school has used
for over ten years. They adapted the legacy software to the newer
technology by importing data with AxisTV’s schedule bulletin feature.
“The flexibility of AxisTV allowed us to add on versus replace,” says
Dziegielewski.
 The
school has published their procedures for requesting, creating and
scheduling ads. Departments generally create graphics in PhotoShop® and
then import them into AxisTV. Student groups create their own content
and submit it to umbrella organizations for authorization. There are six
administrators who can approve and publish content. “We’re always
getting calls from people asking ‘Why isn’t my event up there?’ From
word of mouth and experience, I can tell you that people are definitely
paying attention to the screens,” comments Dziegielewski.
USC and Viterbi promotional ads also run on the screens
for the benefit of campus visitors. “In the case of visitors, the system
is a PR tool in addition to a communications tool.” Dziegielewski
expands, “It gives that wow factor that we want to project to
prospective students and visitors. It shows that we’re technologically
advanced, and that we don’t just advertise what we do. We do it.”
Future plans focus on both expanding the capabilities of
the AxisTV system, as well as the overall digital signage presence.
“We’re looking for ways to incorporate more content and different
content. We’re investigating the best ways to automate our processes,”
explains Dziegielewski.
Dziegielewski is considering delivering the screen saver
function to classrooms so students can see bulletins while they are
waiting for class to begin. He’s also looking into running self-produced
videos as well as video feeds.
Other USC schools come to the Viterbi School of
Engineering to research digital signage solutions. Most of them are
currently running PowerPoint® or television feeds, so they are
investigating more sophisticated visual communications systems.
A “Me, too!” attitude has also developed within the
school. With the Viterbi School encompassing more than twenty buildings,
the desire for digital signage has caught on with other departments –
who now want their own systems. The Electrical Engineering building is
currently running a system demo in their lobby and is working to
purchase their own AxisTV channel player in the near future. The Denney
Research Center is coming online this year with AxisTV and expansion
into other Engineering buildings will happen as need and budget dictate.
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