Shure Shares Four Tips to Improve Audio for Higher Education

Higher education has been turned on its head by the pandemic and constraints on institutes’ budgets. While traditionally learning was centred around bringing students together with professors in large lecture theatres and seminar rooms, it has now become fragmented with students attending sessions online and lecturers delivering classes from their homes or remote offices. As the pandemic’s effects lessen, a hybrid mode of study is emerging in which some students attend in-person lectures while others don’t.  

Quality of education remains the priority and it’s therefore important that everyone is enabled to participate on a level playing field in an inclusive manner. Simply providing links to join best effort multi-party conferences doesn’t deliver the necessary experience. Audio quality, while adequate as the only viable option during lockdowns, isn’t good enough as a permanent solution and is identified as having a negative impact on the learning experience. 

Of course, institutions cannot ensure the audio quality of each student in every location so they must focus on capturing lectures and interactions with optimal audio quality. The system must also foster a sense of community so student-to-student interaction and debating can be enabled. 

“Having the right audio set up for hybrid learning makes a huge difference in the classroom. It creates an environment where all students can feel engaged and participative”, says Carys Green, Regional Sales Manager at Shure. “Additionally, it allows faculty to communicate effectively with those students that can’t attend in person, ensuring that there is a real conversation and discussion.”  

Bill King, a vice president at Richard Dean Associates, a firm that focuses on AV/MI technologies, says that universities and colleges recognise the value of flawless audio in ensuring a high-quality learning experience. However, it’s not a simple case of putting in the tech and hoping it all goes to plan, the students and the entire community must be involved and brought together. King has identified four areas to prioritise: 

• Acoustics – Capturing the spoken word at a distance is always a challenge but most classrooms, especially lecture spaces, were designed with a need for high-level intelligibility in mind, making products like the Shure Microflex Ecosystem or Stem Ecosystem well suited for these rooms
• Placement – All classrooms were designed to provide line of sight to the teacher from all seating positions, but AV equipment was not always part of the design considerations. Shure addresses this challenge with multiple form factors and mounting options to provide an assortment of placement solutions. This is particularly relevant when students are socially distanced
• Room Capacity – There are limits to what can be achieved with current technology for capturing speech intelligibility at a distance. The use of multiple microphone arrays with Shure IntelliMix DSP technology ensures that the best mic and lobe is activated for each talker, accommodating learning spaces of all sizes from classrooms to lecture halls to auditoriums
• Clarity – While no one expects to record a string quartet at 50 or more feet but clear vocal intelligibility at a distance that can make a group conversation using conferencing a reality in a larger space is needed. Remote students in particular need this capability and it needs to be available at a cost that fits college budgets

While the world of education has changed radically, enabling an “hyflex” audio experience that connects students with each other, and their classes is the prime consideration. Flawless audio helps students ensure the learning community and the benefits that creates is preserved.  

A clear example of how a higher education institution has enhanced its audio system for a seamless audio experience is the LSE Cities Research centre, which recently selected Microflex Complete Wireless to enable hybrid learning.  

LSE Cities runs a MSc programme that needed to dissolve the boundary between in-person and remote participation to allow natural-feeling interaction during classroom discussion. Shure’s Microflex was the ideal solution to ensure faculty and students can continue their learning while communicate and collaborate efficiently, regardless of where they are joining the classroom from.  

If you want to learn more on Shure’s solutions for Higher Education, please visit: https://effortless.shure.com/education/ or watch recent Frost & Sullivan in collaboration with Shure webinar here.