Specifications

Learning Spaces Guidelines
AV & Teaching Station: 17
Section 3: AV Facilities and Teaching Station
The audio visual facilities within learning spaces will need to vary
dependant upon the intended function, size and physical layout
of the space. It is desirable to standardise the user interface and
operation method of audio visual facilities across all spaces so that
teaching staff can gain confidence in how to use the facilities and
know that once they’ve mastered the facilities in one space that this
is transferable across spaces.
Detailed technical specification of the equipment that makes up the
typical audio visual provision and its configuration within different
categories of learning space is included in Appendix 1 but what
follows are over-arching principles.
All controls and interfaces for the audio visual facilities within a
learning space should ideally be located on a single ‘Teaching
Station’. This is a single piece of furniture that provides working
surfaces and secure accommodation for equipment.
The siting of the teaching station within a learning space should be
carefully considered to take into account these factors:
the lecturer should be able to face the students when
operating the facilities and the facilities themselves should
not inhibit the lecturer’s view of the students
the teaching station should not be located so that its use
would inhibit the students’ view of presentation display
surfaces
the siting of the teaching station should not inhibit ingress
or egress of users to the space
The design of the teaching station should enable its use by people
of different heights and if there is a horizontal writing/presentation
surface provided (e.g. visualiser) then this surface should ideally be
height adjustable to facilitate comfortable usage when standing for
users of differing heights.
The teaching station should contain an equipment cabinet to
accommodate standard 19” rack-mountable equipment. Security
bolts shall be used when mounting equipment in the cabinet and
any unused rack spaces should be covered with blanking panels in
order to prevent unauthorised access to the rear of equipment or the
storage of inappropriate items within the equipment cabinet.
Controls and configurations that are not appropriate for end users
(e.g. power amplifier output levels, audio loop configuration, radio
microphone channel setting) should be concealed behind a lockable
door on the equipment cabinet (unless this equipment is located in
another secure location).
All the key functionality of the equipment within the teaching
station should be controllable from a single touch sensitive control
panel. The rationale for this approach is that it permits a variety of
equipment types to be controlled from a standardised user interface.
It also does away with the need to provide tethered infrared remote
controls for certain equipment.
TASK
Audio visual
facilities
3.01
TASK
Teaching
Station
design
3.02
TASK
Controls for
the Teaching
Station
3.03