One of the main problems that organizations and companies might find when adopting a new technology is to find ways to integrate it in their operations and business practices. To change isnt easy and if the adoption isnt followed by a period of transition and implementation there is always the risk that the new technology might be set aside and forgotten becoming a lost investment.
What is happening at the Kerala University in the south of India is only one example of bad technology implementation.
In July 27 2010 the Video Conferencing and Webcasting Centre on the Kariavattom Campus of the Kerala University was inaugurated by the then Education Minister but since that day over a year ago the system was hardly used by the universitys students and staff.
The system allows the webcasting through the university website of events at the university but of the over 100 seminars held at the university not even one was broadcasted using the system. The video conferencing system only saw the light of day in rare occasions like on two meetings between the Vice Chancellor and the departments and when students used it to talk to the VC on the aftermath of a protest.
According to Achuthsankar S Nair director of the Centre for Bioinformatics at the Kerala University the problem is that the heads of departments and students are not acquainted with this facility.
Webcasts of lectures by academics of international repute and seminars which have inter-departmental relevance would contribute positively to improving academics in the university he stated to the website IBNLive.com.
According to N. Nagarajan head of the University Service Instrumentation Centre the university is planning to expand the facility to make it a 24 hour working centre to enable the students on the campus to seek clarification on academic matters if the students get acquainted with the remote conferencing and webcast system.
This particularly relevant as video conferencing makes his way into the American school system. Last week for example it has been announced that a video conferencing room is being built in each high school in Knox County linking them to the new STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) school. This system will allow students to attend to advanced courses provided by the STEM school learning program at their own high-schools.
RHUB provides the best web conferencing and remote collaboration solutions available in the market. Their 6-in-1 appliance also includes webcasting functions for training and educational purposes. School such as University of Michigan has already deployed RHUB appliance to provide remote collaboration solutions.