Case Study: How Kent State University Keeps Its Campus Connected

Nearly 40,000 students call Kent State University home. Their alumni include Pulitzer Prize winners, bestselling authors, award-winning actors, and MVP athletes. They’re regularly ranked highly among the top universities in the world. Don’t let the size fool you, however; they have many of the same challenges that nearly every school in the country faces: how do you make digital signage easier?

The Challenge

Mark Meszar, a Sr. Applications Support Analyst at Kent State, has a lot to manage; in addition to the university's Kent Campus, there are almost a dozen regional locations and over 70 digital signage displays. Finding the best technology solutions that fit the needs of all of them can be challenging. With something like digital signage, there’s the extra layer of complexity to make sure the solution is easy enough for non-tech staff to learn with minimal instruction. As with most schools, any solution also has to fit into a very tight budget.

The Solution

Meszar looked and tried many solutions, but found they required too much of his time. What attracted him to Rise Vision was the cloud-based software’s clean UI that was easy to understand and difficult to make mistakes with; the low-cost subscription model of the platform also made it easy to grow as their university expanded the number of digital displays they have.

Kent State began using Rise Vision in early 2017, and is still growing their network and adding displays. The software has helped streamline their digital signage on a budget that pleased administrators.

As with any new technology, there were reservations from staff who feared they’d have to take hours out of their already busy duties to learning something new; they were impressed by how much they could with little or no training at all. In a short time they were connecting with students in a new and innovative way. The university looks forward to Rise Vision’s continual updates that will help wow its students with compelling designs.

Because of its size, Kent State has created 40+ different sub-companies for its many departments. The parent and sub-company account structure combined with granular user roles enable each department to independently create and manage their content. End-users and administrators don’t have to worry about toes being stepped on, settings changed, or content wrongly deleted. The university can stay organized and share responsibilities at scale.

Mark Meszar says:

"We're really happy with it! It's only taking up 1% of my time, not because it's less important, it's because there's no problems. The best thing about Rise Vision is ease of use for the end user. I don't have time to assist everyone personally and help them with their presentations, so it has to be easy for the Non-IT person, which it is"

You can see more of Kent State’s displays below:

School of Sociology Display

School of Nursing Display

Do More With Your Digital Signage

You've read how Kent State is using Rise Vision. How are you using yours? Drop us an email and tell us! If you need more inspiration for what you can do with your Digital Signage, check out these posts:

• How to Stream Live Events to Your Digital Signage
• 50+ Ways Schools Can Use Digital Signage
• Top 10 Display Widgets Used By Schools