AV Case Study: Canberra Institute of Technology, Woden Campus
The newly-opened $300m Canberra Institute of Technology Woden campus may not have an AV department but it still cares about AV.
30 October 2025
Text:/ Christopher Holder
Canberra Institute of Technology has a new campus in Woden. It’s a new-build next to the Woden Westfield Shopping Centre, and what’s known as a ‘vertical’ or ‘stacked’ campus, encompassing five stories and some 66 learning spaces. It’s a state government operation and sits on the ACT government IT network. Much like every government institution in Canberra, CIT is a Cisco house and shares the same off-site network administrators and tech support. If you think this is reading like the world’s driest introduction to an education-focused technology feature, then how about we frame it in this way: the newly-opened Canberra Institute of Technology Woden campus doesn’t have an AV department.
CONSISTENT CLASSROOM
Let that sink in for a moment. If you were wondering how AV/IT convergence was going, then look no further. CIT’s AV has been designed to be more than a ‘light touch’, it’s effectively ‘zero touch’. Anything that needs any hands-on intervention is a potential liability. Anything that can’t be updated, rebooted, and tweaked remotely is struck off the BOM. It’s all on the Cisco network.
It’s all Cisco Certified.
ASL (Audio Systems Logic) was the AV consultant with Sam Dockrill running point. “CIT has adopted the Cisco Classroom platform. It’s a hybrid and remote learning system based around WebEx, Cisco control, Cisco hardware and Cisco-certified peripherals.”
After a series of workshops with the educators, ASL and CIT agreed on a template for its general learning spaces that combines three LG displays in the room (an interactive and a regular display at the front, and another panel at the rear for the lecturer to eyeball remote participants), a Sennheiser TCC2 ceiling microphone array for all audio pickup for the far end, Q-SYS DSP, QSC pendant loudspeakers for presentation audio, a Cisco Room Bar to stream vision of in-room classroom contributions (with the unit’s mic array assisting with the camera’s e-PTZ positioning) and a Cisco-badged PTZ camera at the rear of the room to follow the lecturer.
Some learning spaces are super-specialised and take a different slant on the tech. For example, the music labs have an Epson projector shooting at the front wall, the dressmaking spaces have a camera trained on the teacher’s Bernina to see IMAG detail displayed on the main LG screen, while the Cyber Centre of Excellence uses LG super-narrow-bezelled displays for a video wall at the front of the classroom. The exceptions prove the rule – the general learning spaces are shared by all departments and provide a consistent experience and ease of operation.
MORE THAN A BADGE
CIT Chief Information Officer, Craig Neiberding, explains the Cisco Certification philosophy:
“Cisco certification is less about the badge itself and more about supportability and knowing the product will integrate and work.
“Seeing two key technology partners working together means I’m not worrying about whether they will integrate; whether the microphones will work, for example. I have a single technology platform, supported by Cisco as the main provider. Cisco manages those relationships.
“Historically, you needed AV departments, racks in rooms with multiple items of kit, and staff who knew how to handle it all. The problem was that when things didn’t work, people got creative –unplugging, re-plugging, forcing it to work in ways that weren’t effective.
“With Cisco certification and integration, it’s seamless. It makes life easier, and ultimately it’s about the student experience. It just works.
“Everything in the CIT AV design is Cisco certified,” continues Sam Dockrill. “The LG solution is a good case in point. For our design to be a Cisco-certified solution, we need a Cisco-certified display. That was the biggest factor in LG’s favour – it was one of the few suppliers that had certification across the entire suite of the displays we needed, from a compact 43-inch booth display to a monster 98-inch touchscreen. LG has the full suite of displays to meet the demands of the project and they’re all Cisco certified.”
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With Cisco certification and integration, it’s seamless. It makes life easier, and ultimately it’s about the student experience. It just works
CLASSROOM THAT LISTENS
There’s no question that the Cisco Certification and Cisco Classroom approach is more than a convenient and/or box-ticking exercise for Craig and CIT. It’s an important step forward:
“Classrooms are no longer just avenues to teach,” enthuses Craig Neiberding. “The environments are live – they listen.
“With Cisco technology enabled by LG screens, we now have accessibility features like live dictation in 40-plus languages. If students speak another language, they can get live translation as the teacher talks.
“For hearing-impaired students, we not only have Sennheiser MobileConnect throughout the building, the technology also provides live captions as the teacher or student speaks.
“It’s opened up a whole new perspective: it’s not just a classroom, it’s a living environment that adjusts to the needs of the student.
“The philosophy for the Woden campus is the environment listens and that’s the same with the classroom. So with a hitting a six-star efficiency rating for this building, each space adjusts to how many students are in the room, what the students are doing, what the air quality is – if it’s too light, the blinds close, for example. So it was really important to make sure everything connected and worked. Cisco really enabled that link into our learning management ecosystem and helped us with that bridging that gap. That’s an on-going endeavour. We’re still rolling that out.”
CONNECT ON YOUR TERMS
As Craig mentioned, hearing augmentation is handled by a Sennheiser MobileConnect platform across the campus. MobileConnect is a wi-fi-based system and designed to be mediated via the user’s smart device. A QR code in the classroom directs students to the appropriate stream, accessed via the MobileConnect app. Craig Neiberding appreciates how MobileConnect gives all of CIT’s students another option:
“Ultimately, I really like the accessibility aspect – not just with hearing augmentation, but also with closed captions. It gives people choice. Everyone is different, so they can choose what works best for them.
“With hearing augmentation in the past, you had to go to the desk and collect a portable hearing loop device. Now, it’s integrated. It’s in every space. It’s invisible. If you need it, you can use it, but there’s no stigma attached to having to ask for special equipment.”
FIT FOR MULTIPURPOSE
One of CIT’s marquee spaces is the multipurpose room which offers a high level of production for events such as graduations and the like. If proof of the room’s versatility was needed, the day AV.technology visited CIT, high-school hospitality students were learning the fine art of the barista from coffee carts and an attached catering-spec kitchen (the almond latte was first class, thanks).
The space is architecturally distinctive with decorative ceiling panels and floor-to-ceiling glazing at the front and rear. “We decided on a JBL VTX A6-based line array for the room,” explains Sam Dockrill. “The most important aspect was pattern control. Having more sub-compact elements in the line helped us to control that vertical dispersion and avoid the rear glass panels. The VTX B15 subs are flown in a centre cluster in a cardioid configuration to do our best to keep the neighbours happy.”
The multipurpose room is regularly used by the music production students, with a weekly live performance that will involve the media production students. CIT Technical Director, Simon Wheaton explains:
“We’ve got an Allen & Heath D-Live live mixing system in the multipurpose space that connects to our recording control room via MADI (Dante is also available). We can multitrack record that performance and we can do a studio mix of that performance which we can send to the media studio, which is doing a live vision switch.”
The multipurpose space also features an Allen & Heath SQ mixing console and JBL VTX M Series foldback for stage monitoring.
“The multipurpose space has been a real success,” notes Sam Dockrill. “On paper, it looked particularly challenging, what with all the glass and almost no flexibility in where we could hang loudspeakers but the JBL VTX series, combined with a careful approach to acoustic treatment, has resulted in something special.
“JBL VTX represents excellent value. I think for anyone aspiring to a ‘tier one’ line array but without a tier one budget would be surprised at just how good VTX performs.”
SELF AWARE
CIT specialises in the hands-on learning of practically-focused disciplines. So, at the very least, it’s interesting that the Woden stacked campus has gone all-in on a remote, hands-off approach to AV. CIO, Craig Neiberding, doesn’t see any tension at play:
“We’re a college that specialises in teaching students technology, but it’s not our role to support it.
“That’s why we chose a technology platform that is self-monitoring and alerting, with an ecosystem of products with proactive measures. Rather than waiting for an ‘I can’t see myself on camera’ call, the service desk will automatically receive an alert that they can attend to at the start of the day.
“That ties into our scheduling system. If a camera is down, the system can proactively reallocate a room that meets the class requirements, rather than the teacher walking into a room to find the technology isn’t working.
“It’s all about delivering a high-quality teaching and student experience.”
ASL: www.audiosystemslogic.com
Fredon (systems integration): fredon.com.au
LG: lg-informationdisplay.com
Sennheiser: sennheiser.com
MadisonAV (JBL): madisonav.com.au
TAG (A&H): tag.com.au
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