Trends in Higher Education AV: Building a Smart Campus
Written by Kieron Seth, Product Marketing Director at Lumens
December 24, 2025 52
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Technology has evolved far beyond "classroom equipment" such as projectors, smart boards and document cameras. ProAV has become a strategic bridge that connects the campus, faculty, students and the world. Leading universities around the globe are using ProAV solutions to enable greater access to online teaching, improve operational efficiency, and elevate their institutional brand.
- 1. The New Normal in Education: Hybrid Learning and Global Connectivity
- 2. Centralized Management: From Single Classroom to Campus-Wide Integration
- 3. AI and Automation: Enhancing Teaching and Administrative Efficiency
- 4. Sustainability & Brand Value: Building a Modern Smart Campus
- 5. Conclusion: From Equipment Upgrade to Campus Strategy
1. The New Normal in Education: Hybrid Learning and Global Connectivity
The Covid outbreak lead to long periods of social isolation, and the shift of education from classroom-based teaching to a variety of online models. Post-pandemic, hybrid classrooms have become mainstream. Students are no longer necessarily limited to attending in-person, and instructors can teach using a variety of flexible methods.
For higher education, this means:
- Greater course flexibility: Support for both in-person and remote students simultaneously.
- Expanded global programs: Connect with international students and guest lecturers
- Consistent teaching quality: All sessions can be recorded, replayed, and analyzed
- A requirement to invest in new AV equipment and the skills required to operate and support the technology.
Lumens is a manufacturer that has always understood the need to deliver quality audio and visual results without placing demands on the user to acquire new creative skills and gain new technical knowledge. Lumens CamConnect combines voice tracking with auto-director capabilities, enabling multiple cameras to switch automatically based on the active speaker and creating a natural, interactive learning experience. In short, CamConnect turns a classroom or lecture theater into a fully automated video production space.
2. Centralized Management: From Single Classroom to Campus-Wide Integration
Traditional AV management across classrooms is fragmented and can be difficult to maintain. This is because it has always relied on technologies such as HDMI, DVI and HDBaseT to transmit signals campus-wide. Although high-quality and trusted, they make it difficult to scale installations beyond the initial design, and remote management can be very complex.
With AV over IP infrastructures, universities can integrate hundreds of rooms into a unified management platform, using the local area (LAN) or wide area network (WAN) for AV signal transmission, system management and control.
This enhances operational efficiency with:
- Remote monitoring
- Faster troubleshooting
- Low-cost architecture scaling
- Central management
- Reduced maintenance labor and travel costs
The Lumens OIP-N Series supports encoding, decoding, and matrix switching, giving IT teams full visibility and control over the campus AV ecosystem. Units can be added to any network port, enabling the roll-out of connected displays, Teams-ready conferencing rooms and hybrid teaching spaces.
▶ 3. AI and Automation: Enhancing Teaching and Administrative Efficiency
AI is reshaping how AV is used in higher education. Examples include:
- AI auto-tracking cameras (such as Lumens VC-TR60A) that precisely follow presenters, delivering dynamic video capture and reducing the need for manual operators.
- Automatic lecture capture systems like LC300, which integrate multiple video sources, audio, and presentation content for streamlined recording and streaming.
4. Sustainability & Brand Value: Building a Modern Smart Campus
A modern university is more than a place of learning—it is a model of smart, sustainable development. Thru the latest IP-based technology, institutions can:
- Reduce travel and support remote meetings and lectures (lower carbon emissions)
- Reuse learning content and support ESG-aligned sustainable education
- Strengthen brand identity in recruitment, ceremonies, and major campus events
- Leverage existing infrastructure investments including network switches, Ethernet cabling and legacy equipment
Lumens solutions have been successfully implemented in dozens of well-known institutions worldwide, including Pennsylvania State University (USA), Ashoka University (India), and National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan), demonstrating how technology drives learning innovation and sustainable campus development.
IP-based ProAV, empowered by AI, represents more than a technology upgrade. It is a strategic investment in a university's competitiveness, and a gateway for students to an enhanced experience of higher education.
From classrooms to meeting rooms, and from standalone systems to campus-wide integration, ProAV is becoming foundational to the transformation of higher education.
- Investing in ProAV is not just about choosing equipment for each faculty or department.
- It's not even about opting for the technology for the next decade of campus development.
- Selecting a winning strategy for ProAV will determine a university's ability to project its expertise worldwide and to attract and retain the students it needs to survive and prosper.
Interested in planning hybrid classrooms or a smart campus strategy?
Contact the Lumens solutions team to build the next benchmark in smart educatio
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