Transforming Higher Education in Australia: The University of Queensland

Over the past few years, Cisco has partnered with the University of Queensland to bring educational transformation to their campuses through the use of Cisco technology.

The University of Queensland has deployed an extensive wired and wireless network across multiple campuses that supports educational outcomes for staff and students.  The UQ network provides the platform for digital services to be developed and deployed to better improve the student experience.

To showcase our partnership and to better understand the impact that digital transformation has on campus and community, we’ve interviewed Robert Moffatt, the Director of Information Technology Services at the University of Queensland in Australia.

Read on to see what he had to say about the digitization of education and UQ’s Cisco partnership.

How have educational institutions become more dependent on technology to meet the needs of students and educators? 

Robert Moffatt (RM): Universities are typical of any large enterprise where you’ve got a lot of people. Students and staff come from a society that’s used to using social media and used to having communications on tap. So, if you provide them with an environment that is conducive to their collaboration and their ability to access information, then you have an engaged community – a successful community.

In a university, that’s what it’s all about — student success. It’s also important for staff to utilize new pedagogies, and utilize technology to enable the delivery of new pedagogies. Technology underpins all of our initiatives.

How has technology specifically impacted your campus?

(RM): About five years ago our campuses at the University of Queensland were pretty barren in terms of technology and communications infrastructure. We embarked on a very large program of improving connectivity both between campuses and on campus, providing ubiquitous wireless technologies and ensuring that we had the bandwidth, the access and the communications facilities in place to underpin all that we wanted to do to deliver content.

How important is digital transformation to your university?

(RM): It’s vital. What digital transformation enables us to do is deliver more and more useful services to our university community. Digital is all about leveraging technology and enabling us to innovate, enabling our students to innovate and enabling them to be successful.

How has Cisco helped in achieving that vision of digital transformation?

(RM): Cisco is a fundamental partner for the University of Queensland. They’ve been with us for a very long time now, and they’ve assisted us in the transformation of our campuses to a more digital, more connected environment.

They’re partnering with us to ensure that we can leverage the investment that we’ve made, and the commitment we’ve given to our university community to better affect.

Watch this video to learn more about how universities are leveraging digital technologies to transform higher education around the world, and visit cs.co/digitalcampusanz to see more.