Case Study: Royal Academy of Music
“We are delighted with the service that Brantas provide. Our experience has shown that there are few providers in the market-place that really understand MOSS and know how to take a customer’s requirement and translate them into real, working solutions. Brantas’ team of professionals have clearly demonstrated their capabilities in this respect and delivered exactly what we wanted on time and within budget.”
Steve Newell, Head of Technology, The Royal Academy of Music
NEED
The Royal Academy of Music needed a technology platform that enables them to attract the best music students. By getting the most out of technology, The Academy can allow students and lecturers to work closely together regardless of location. Unifying the flow of information between students and teachers through the use of digital portfolios was vital if the new platform was to be deemed a success.
Each student and lecturer needs to have a personalised workplace combining both personal and academic information. Combining student and The Academy schedules into one unit of information was something that The Academy could not previously offer to its students.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The key business challenge for Brantas was to customise the technology platform for The Academy and make it truly unique whilst using a standard technology toolkit. We had to fully understand the needs of both the students and teachers before designing the solution. We knew we had to push the technology to its limit in order to deliver a platform look-and-feel that The Academy could be proud of. We also had to migrate academic events and information from legacy systems and transfer them to the new solution.
SOLUTION
We knew we could count on our knowledge and experience of customising and tailoring Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 to deliver a portal solution befitting an academic institution such as The Royal Academy of Music. We enhanced the collaboration and content management features of SharePoint by supplementing the existing capabilities with bespoke components. The look of the new portal was extremely important and our objective was very simply to make the finished solution look nothing like the default solution style. Brantas ensured that we made best use of the application features to ensure that ongoing system developments would be possible.
RESULTS
- New intranet solution assists The Royal Academy of Music to deliver the learning curriculum.
- Quicker student/teacher communications
- Digital portfolios and personalised workplaces help students manage their academic materials.
- The facility to publish academic events quickly and easily.
