All I Want for Christmas is Campus Standards – Campus Standards (Part 2) | Integrator Insights
“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
John Wooden
What gift do I want for everyone in higher ed AV? A comprehensive set of standards, of course! In my October article “Getting on the Same Page – Campus Standards (Part 1),” I shared some of the benefits of developing and maintaining a set of campus standards including improved communication, fewer surprises, improved performance, and saving money. Since we’ve established the reason “why” you should develop standards, lets spend a few minutes to discuss the “what” of standards and specifications.
The first set of standards to think about are industry standards. For professional AV, one obvious standards provider is AVIXA. They have made a focus over the last 10 years or so to really develop and document standards that are designed by and for AV professionals. Some of the widely accepted ones are around image size and contrast ratio, rack design and build, cable labeling, drawing standards, and performance verification. In addition to AVIXA, we need to be aware of a wide range of other standards organizations including the National Fire Prevention Association (NFPA) and their National Electric Code (NEC, NFPA 70), BICSI, Audio Engineering Society (AES), Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), and many others. As an institution develops their own internal standards, it is good to understand the basics of the industry standards and ensure their own standards meet or exceed the industry standards. The local internal standards may even reference a list of other industry standards and state that when there is conflict the industry standards take precedence.
Developing a custom set of standards for your specific institution can expand on more “preferences” beyond the industry standards. As I’ve been working on our own local campus standards, I’ve chosen to break them into three areas: general institutional audiovisual (AV) standards, infrastructure standards, and contractor standards. I broke them down this way thinking about what different target audiences may be stakeholders. If multiple standards documents are developed, there will likely be many areas of overlap between them; that’s to be expected – don’t reinvent the wheel each time, just cut and paste as needed. The various standards documents will also likely reference each other internally.
Starting with general institutional AV standards, the target audience is internal and external audiovisual system designers. These standards may outline a set of standard manufacturers for various audiovisual hardware categories. Any ecosystems that institutional processes are built around such as control systems, AV-over-IP systems, or audio DSP systems should be clearly specified as campus standards; for a campus ecosystem built around one -tron, to have a room built with a control system from a different -tron would clearly be problematic. The institutional AV standards would also include hardware and system design and performance expectations; for example: all classrooms will be equipped to support user devices (BYOD), all projectors will be solid state, distribution systems must support 1920×1080@60Hz, acceptable wireless microphone frequencies are x, and so on. Think of everything you would want an outside AV design consultant to know before they developed a solution for your campus and get it down in writing.
Infrastructure standards provide guidance on facility and construction requirements; the target audience is internal facilities teams and external AEC firms. These standards define specifics around core building infrastructure such as conduits, back and floor boxes, backer boards, power outlets, lighting, HVAC, etc. It might define specific requirements for installation of various audiovisual hardware; for example, it might define what needs provided at each flat panel display location and even provide a typical elevation drawing. Too often the construction requirements to support audiovisual systems are forgotten or ignored early in the design process. With a set of specifications that your facilities team can provide to design firms up-front, the audiovisual needs can be advocated for even before the in-house integration team may be aware of the project. The goal here is to ensure everything is ready (and as easy as possible) for you or your audiovisual contractor when you arrive to start the audiovisual system installation.
Finally, audiovisual contractor standards may be developed to give outside contractors a strict set of guidance on how they will provide AV solutions to your organization; the target audience here, aside from the obvious outside contractors, is the internal procurement team. These standards should help guide an outside contractor to install an AV system in a way that will meet or exceed your expectations. In order to service projects later, you will need to fully understand how the systems were installed; these contractor standards should remove a lot of uncertainty by guiding the installation to your requirements. Some topics included in these standards may be: expected submittals, quality assurance, storage, substitutions, IT security (after all, #AVisIT), commissioning, and warranty. There will likely be an extended section on installation that would give some specifics such as mounting requirements (e.g., display and mount must be less than 4” deep), cable management (e.g., Velcro ties only), equipment racks (e.g., security screws), and terminations (e.g., must use 568B). One section that is critical is around programming; one specific item: I’d strongly encourage stating the requirement up front that all programming code, both compiled and uncompiled, belong to your institution and will be provided at the end of the project.
Undoubtedly, there are many other ways to structure internal standards; each institution should determine how best to develop their own. But no matter the layout, a good set of standards will not only help your internal audiovisual team, but will also help your procurement team, your facilities team, outside AEC firms, and outside contractors. With so many stakeholders involved, standards have the potential to make a dramatic improvement in the coordination among them. You may find it is one of the best AV gifts you have ever received!