New technology is at the heart of an ambitious £72m education initiative, which will revolutionise the learning experience for students in Doncaster.
The launch of Doncaster Education City will dramatically improve access to training and education services, and provide pupils with a safer and more efficient learning environment.
As part of the scheme, Doncaster College is moving to a new site, which is being equipped with state-of-the-art IT systems by Computacenter.
David Gates, principal at Doncaster College, commented: “Technology will help us open up education to a much wider audience. We will be able to provide a Digital Knowledge Exchange, which will pioneer radical learning applications and link to a network of 200 learning gateways across the city.”
Doncaster College’s plans are underpinned by a robust and scalable IT infrastructure.
“This will enable us to deliver remote and online learning capabilities to thousands of new students every year,” said Graeme Tizard, director of IT for Doncaster College. “Multimedia content will be streamed via an IPbased network, which will carry 99% of our voice and data traffic.”
The high-speed converged network has been designed and implemented by Computacenter, which is also sourcing, configuring, testing and installing a range of other core systems — from storage area networks and servers to CCTV and audio-visual devices.
As well as using IT to enhance the educational experience, Doncaster College also wanted to ensure it minimised both its ongoing running costs and the impact on the environment.
“Operational efficiency was a key driver behind our technology choices,” comments Tizard. “By deploying a standardised IP backbone, we will be able to simplify IT management and reduce costs. We are also re-using our migration environment to create a disaster recovery provision.”
