Page 34 - College Planning & Management, March 2019

Case Histories REAL-WORLD SOLUTIONS
SafeZone Indoor Positioning Improves Police Response
“WE LIVE IN A 3D world, and now this
system gives us a 3D view of our campus,” says Roger Stearns,
assistant chief of police at Texas A&M University–San Antonio.
He’s talking about CriticalArc’s Safe- Zone indoor positioning solution, which has been deployed on the campus and now provides his officers with an unprecedent- ed three-dimensional view of the multi- story buildings under their protection.
It is transforming the way they work. For example, instead of receiving an alert about ‘an incident somewhere in the student union building,’ they get pinpoint specifics, such as ‘incident on the fourth floor, west wing, outside room 410.’
“With SafeZone indoor positioning, we’re able to provide a faster response,
whatever the emergency,” Stearns con- firms.
Among other capabilities, SafeZone allows users to receive rapid help simply
by activating an alert via an app or, in some cases, a wearable duress alarm. As soon as the alert is triggered, the location and details of the user are streamed to the monitoring team, allowing officers to coor- dinate a smarter, more targeted response. By enabling responders to visualize the precise location of an incident anywhere on campus, SafeZone is much more power- ful than traditional fixed panic alarms
and blue light telephones, which are more expensive to install and less accurate in operation.
Texas A&M–San Antonio says it will deploy SafeZone to cover any future expan- sion of the campus. The technology was in-
Texas A&M University–San Antonio uses indoor positioning solutions by CriticalArc to improve police response with 3D imaging of the campus and enhanced emergency alerts.
troduced with no disruption to the campus in a matter of weeks during the summer break. Stearns adds, “The process to get the SafeZone indoor positioning solution deployed is a simple one, as it’s a wireless installation and easy to maintain.”
www.criticalarc.com
Data Mining Comes to the North Carolina Community College System
The North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS), working with Tanjo, an award-winning artificial intelligence and machine learn- ing company, is incorporating a custom machine-learning “Brain” across its 58 institutions. NCCCS’s “Brain” will continu- ously and automatically map, understand, and organize information throughout the community college network. This superhu- man approach to data mining allows for optimal content discovery and is a neces- sary first step in digital transformation.
With about 700,000 students and more than 30,000 faculty and staff members, NCCCS produces countless educational innovations, courses, and best practices. With valuable content spread across 100 counties, traditional methods for shar-
ing and storing are limiting. In addition
to helping NCCCS map all its available content, the “Brain” allows the faculty, stu-
dents, and administrators to harness the power of machine learning. For example, custom brain-scraping bots can be easily set up to notify users to new and relevant content related to a subject of interest. The “Brain” can further draft documents or create custom curricula for faculty based on knowledge shared.
“With so much content available to us across our network, it became apparent that we could do a better job of organiz- ing and sharing that knowledge when and where needed more efficiently and effectively,” says Jim Parker, NCCCS CIO. “Tanjo’s machine-learning technology allows us to improve our collective intel- ligence while simultaneously mitigating otherwise tedious and costly tasks associ- ated with data mining.”
All of the algorithms and search visualizations are created specific to the fundamental features of the content used
In a digital transformation, the North Carolina Community College System, a statewide network of public community colleges, has incorporate a custom machine-learning “Brain” across its 58 institutions.
by the NCCC system—ensuring greater adaptability and ease-of-use. Unlike third- party software or open web service, the “Brain” resides under the NCCC system’s control and bars data from flowing outside the NCCCS network. CPM
www.tanjo.net
34 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / MARCH 2019
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