VitalSigns 9/24 - University College Falmouth embraces new technology to expand its offering

Another shining example of how we work closely with clients to provide tailored solutions.

The Client

University College Falmouth is a vibrant and forward-thinking specialist arts college that is a key player in the national and international creative scene. It has an international reputation for excellence in Art, Design, Media, Performance and Writing and has grown over a century by nurturing original thinking, supported by highly talented and professional staff.

Falmouth's Schools of Art and Design and Media and Performance offer some of the most innovative, entrepreneurial, collaborative and transformative learning experiences available in a specialist college of art. Falmouth is a member of both the Ukadia group of specialist arts and design institutions from across the UK's higher and further education sectors, and the Cornwall Skillset Media Academy network, a UK-wide group of institutions identified as centres of excellence in creative media education and training. University College Falmouth merged with Dartington College in 2008, heralding an exciting new era for arts education in the South West and paving the way for the development of a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall that is expected to be in place by 2012.

The Solution

The college's Learning Technology department were operating on a low-end minimal setup, with support coming from a single source within the department itself. They had two servers running Ubuntu Server; one web server and one database server. There was no monitoring or support for this setup outside of core college hours, 9am to 5pm.

But as University College Falmouth moved towards expanding its offering through the department of online distance and blended learning courses, as well as the wider integration with campus based courses it was important to create a service which was more resilient, scalable and reliable. In addition the college in-house IT team had undertaken a large scale virtualization project and the Learning Technology department were keen to take advantage of the hardware resilience flowing from this work.

In addition, the college had very few formal Linux skills within the Learning Technology department, and the college in-house IT team were unable to support them either. So it was vital that they found a long term solution.

The Benefits

Commenting on the selection of LinuxIT and the project overall Ben Bull, Senior Learning Technologist said "LinuxIT were by far the most helpful company we approached, offering a complete package of design, implementation and support. Since adopting LinuxIT Vitalsigns24 service support we've experienced much less downtime due to their constant monitoring, and personally, I can sleep better knowing that someone is keeping an eye on our operations 24X7. I can't praise the service we receive enough, it really is world class. Working with LinuxIT has been a great experience so far and has enabling us to provide a truly world class level of service to our students and staff. From the very start of the project right the way through to ongoing support, I have found LinuxIT to be professional, friendly and very, very knowledgeable. We will definitely continue to use LinuxIT in the future for all our Linux support."