The project involved the refurbishment of a number of teaching spaces and simulation labs in the School of Nursing & Midwifery and the School of Health Sciences at the University of Galway.

The vision is to provide educational programmes that prepare safe, skilled, competent and confident practitioners; and conduct research that improves care, quality of life or health and well-being. Undergraduate students will engage in practical learning in our labs and facilities. Our postgraduate students benefit from Blended Learning – a combination of online and face-to-face learning.

Drama by Design were engaged by the University to carry out the detailed design, co-ordination project management, testing and commissioning of both teaching AV systems and the Simulation Management system which incorporated a video capture/playback/de-brief system for monitoring student work.

In the School of Health Sciences three teaching spares were refurbished with all new AV systems for teaching. These each consisted of a new lectern, large format display, new sound system with lectern microphone and overhead beamforming microphone and two PTZ cameras for lecture capture and to facilitate hybrid teaching and learning.

Five observation labs, with three separate control rooms, were each equipped with two PTZ cameras, mounted low down on the walls to capture faces. A beamforming microphone was installed in each room to capture the audio and each room was also equipped with a speaker for talkback from the control room into the room and a wireless personal monitor system for talkback from the control room directly to the person controlling the experiment.

The School of Nursing & Midwifery featured three large hospital wards and one single bed hospital style room. These were all equipped with monitors over the beds for displaying patient vital signs. They were mounted on adjustable arms allowing them to be pulled down to the side of the bed so they could be used with local PCs and as repeater screens from the main lectern in the room.

All rooms are equipped with IP cameras, microphones and video capture devices. With cameras above each bed bay and around the rooms, simulations and scenarios can now be streamed live for debrief and reflection. They can also be saved to Cloud servers for review and reusable content either on or off site.

The AV systems and recording systems were supplied and installed by separate companies, the systems were fully coordinated to ensure easy integration and to avoid the additional cost of installing two separate systems.