The newest building in Gies College of Business is Steven S. Wymer Hall. With two 80-seat classrooms, four 60-seat classrooms, an auditorium seating 200, and nearly 90 offices for faculty and staff, this facility greatly expands the ability of Gies Business to serve its learner populations.

To enhance the support for the many in-person and online courses and programs offered by the College, these spaces boast new features and attributes. Some – such as new software – are behind the scenes, but other features of the building expand the technological capabilities of Gies Business both to provide access to content and to ensure excellence and engagement for the learners.

“When we first got into the online space, we were pioneers in many ways,” said Steven Pratten, associate director of digital media. “Now, there is more competition in this space, and we need to continue to focus on those differentiating factors.”

Five live studios and six master control booths

Before Gies Business launched its first online program, the iMBA, it had no dedicated studio space. Maintenance rooms in the basement of the Business Instructional Facility basement were fitted out to create recording studios to facilitate the live sessions for the iMBA. With enrollment and the number of courses increasing within the program, the one production studio quickly became inadequate as the demand for live sessions increased.

“What had exploded in all that time, of course, is numbers,” said Marty Booth Hodges, Gies Business studio manager. “At the beginning we had, at the most, four live sessions per week. That quickly grew. We now do close to 50 live sessions and events a week.”

Conference rooms on the third floor of BIF were then remodeled as additional studio space. There was also a change in the technology used for these studios – one that will be continued in Wymer Hall. The studios no longer need to be hard-wired; they were now capable of being run through the network.

While functional, these spaces had not been originally designed with online courses and recording studios in mind, so space was tight, and everything had to be made to work.

The situation is different with Wymer Hall. “In Wymer, we were able to design the studios and their footprint from the bottom-up,” Pratten said. “That includes designing the size, the acoustics, the lighting, storage, and really the functionality in terms of network stacks and power outlets. We were able to design recording spaces as they were built, as opposed to retrofitting spaces.”

For the new studio spaces for live sessions, they will use top-of-the-line production broadcast software – the same software used in live sports and other broadcasts. It will have a lot of playback features that will be new to the Gies Business experience.

In many ways, these live sessions have proven to be key components of the course experience for the learners.

“From the beginning when we launched it, feedback from the students has always been that they really appreciated the synchronous sessions,” Booth Hodges said.

Soundstage studios

Something that was not possible to retrofit into existing space in Wohlers Hall or the Business Instructional Facility were actual soundstages, large spaces for recording course content. In Wymer Hall, there will be two large soundstage studios for recording sessions.

“The soundstages in Wymer Hall will represent a giant leap forward in our production quality,” Pratten said. “We are going to have a 40-foot green screen studio in one of the sound stages. That’s going to allow us to immerse anyone we’re recording with into a virtual world. It’s going to let us put people anywhere. It can be a virtual set.”

New to these soundstages will be physical sets for recordings. Gies Business is working with Flyover Studios in Rantoul to have custom sets created. These sets will provide for a physical environment for the instructors to move around in and interact with. This was not possible in the other recording facilities.

With these physical sets, actual furniture can be part of the course design. There could be a casual, welcoming look or a more high-tech look to the studio, depending on the nature of the course.  

“You can imagine, if we’re doing a finance course, we might want a sleeker, more high-tech look – you know, if we’re talking about emerging technology or anything in the tech sector,” Pratten said. “If we’re teaching a leadership course, that’s where we might want to create more of a casual feel where the instructor’s inviting you in, and they’re sitting in a lounge chair and they’re sharing stories with you.”

These soundstages will also enable greater flexibility with the equipment. “We’re going to be able to move lights around on the grid. We’re going to have nuanced controls over our lighting and our camera placement,” Pratten said. “You can make this course look the way it should. We’re really looking for a really polished, cinematic look in the production technology.”

Classrooms

There will be some augmentation to the classroom technology. The changes in the classrooms will be “evolutionary, not revolutionary,” according to Steve Hess, director of classroom & conference technology. The spaces will be designed to maximize learning for in-person and remote students.

The classrooms will be set up similar to those in BIF, with two displays in front, two displays in back, and a camera in back. Some additions to the spaces will be having the rear displays act as projectors as well. This will enable the projection of a larger gallery of learners online. Additional cameras are placed to make it easier to capture a white board for online learners to see.

These changes are intended to enhance the learning experience for students in class and those watching remotely. It will expand the ability to reach students. 

The auditorium in Wymer Hall will be designed with the current classroom experience in mind. It will have two displays in front and two monitors that will be easily visible to the instructor. It will also have ceiling microphones. Unlike the Deloitte Auditorium in the Business Instructional Facility, which was designed and intended for giving presentations, these attributes will help enhance the learning experience for students with more flexibility in learning.

So, the classrooms in Wymer Hall will be improving on what is currently found in BIF and other rooms at Gies College of Business. Hess is sure that all the improvements will get positive responses. “I think that people are going to really like the building,” he said. “It’s going to be really nice.”

Serving the campus community

These spaces are a great advance for Gies Business. They are also great advances for all of campus. Wymer Hall and the technology it contains will be shared resources with the rest of campus. Though Gies courses will have priority for scheduling the studios and classrooms, the rest of campus will also be able to utilize them for video production and online course delivery as well. Online courses are a growing need for many departments and colleges at the University of Illinois.

“As much as we can share the soundstages and the studios, we want to do that,” Pratten said. “These are not just a leap for what we do here at Gies, but across the campus. There’s nothing similar to this on campus that is so focused on online learners.”