Overview

Background

In response to discussions about future ways of working, the CMVM College Registrar summarised the initial feedback in the document “CMVM future space use – hybrid working. Summary of initial campus feedback”. This identified the need that some rooms on campus would be expected to run hybrid meetings in future, meaning those that have some participants on-campus (following appropriate government rules such as social distancing and hand hygiene), and some participants off-campus.

There are currently a limited number of rooms that can already host hybrid meetings: those with high-quality VScene abilities, E3.04 that was piloting Skype for remote meetings in QMRI and the Clinical Skills debrief room in the Medical Education Centre. These are outlined in the “Rooms for remote meetings” section on https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/ISGM/Online+Meetings

This project seeks address the gap between the expected need for more meeting rooms to run hybrid meetings and the existing technical limitations of equipment in the meeting rooms, within the limited budget available.

Scope

The scope of this project is to:

• Identify CMVM meeting rooms most likely to be used for hybrid meetings
• Estimate at a high level the cost of installing AV equipment in meeting rooms that would enable hybrid meetings, considering options including:
  • In-room microphones
  • In-room webcams (covering as much of the room as possible)
  • In-room second screens to enable those in-room to see those remote and information being presented (where feasible)
• Determine which of the CMVM meeting rooms identified will be taken forward as a priority for additional equipment within the available budget
• Follow appropriate procurement procedures to award the work to a suitable contractor
• Install the equipment into the priority rooms within budget
• Test that hybrid meetings can take place using on-campus rooms and off-campus participants
• Update the available CMVM information in “Online Meetings[1]” to reflect the increase in rooms that will then available for hybrid (remote) meetings
• Update training materials for staff on how to use AV equipment for hybrid meetings when in-room
• Ensure local IT teams understand the changes, and how to support queries as part of business as usual operations in future

[1] Online Meetings overview at https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/ISGM/Online+Meetings

Out of scope

CMVM Teaching Rooms; rooms for which there is no budget.

Objectives and Deliverables

Benefits

• Pilot a variety of options to support return to campus and hybrid meetings, and at the same time use the evaluations to feed into the wider discussion on hybrid working
• Facilitate the ability of some staff to remain at home whilst others return to campus
• Reduced travel between campus locations if all staff are required to return to campus work, as more meetings could take place with a number of participants being remote

Success Criteria

• Identified priority rooms have upgraded AV equipment that enable remote meetings to take place
• Staff able to use the upgraded rooms to chair hybrid meetings

Project Milestones

Agreement of Project Brief – 14^th May 21

Commissioning of contractor for AV installs – 28th May 21

Completion of AV installs – 31^st July 21

Completion of training materials – 31^st July 21

Completion of training of staff – 14^th August 21

Closure of project – 31^st August 21