Microsoft Office SystemCustomer Solution Case Study

Dutch Educators Use Unified Communications to Reduce Costs and Increase Innovation

OverviewCountry or Region: NetherlandsIndustry: Education

Customer ProfileFormed in 2007, Dunamare Education Group is merger of three secondary educational systems in and around Haarlem, Netherlands, committed to providing quality education for the 12,500 students it serves.

Business SituationDunamare wanted to provide its educators with more efficient and flexible ways to communicate and collaborate with one another while also reducing costs.

SolutionDunamare deployed a communications-enabled business process (CEBP) solution using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to enable more flexible communication and collaboration and help reduce telephony costs.

Benefits Increased efficiency and

collaboration More flexible learning

“Within a week, everyone felt comfortable with the technology. It took about 15 minutes for me to explain the voice possibilities in Office Communications Server.”

Madelon Kruijff, Principal of Teyler College, Dunamare Education Group

Dunamare Education Group was formed in 2007 with the merger of three secondary educational systems in and around Haarlem, Netherlands. This newly formed group of 22 secondary schools is committed to providing high quality education for the 13,000 students it serves. As a part of this commitment, Dunamare wanted to find a way to centralize communication to help its teachers work together to solve problems in and out of the classroom. With the help of Microsoft Gold partner Wortell, Dunamare decided to deploy a communications-enabled business process (CEBP) solution using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to provide teachers and students alike with more innovative ways to communicate and collaborate in the learning environment while also reducing telephony costs.

SituationHeadquartered in Haarlem, Netherlands, the Dunamare Education Group oversees educational programs for 22 secondary schools in 36 locations across the region. Its 2,000 teachers and administrators serve approximately 13,000 students through college preparatory and vocational programs designed to fit students’ needs. As a part of the merger that formed the Dunamare Educational Group, all of the schools involved set a main goal of providing an innovative and widely accessible education for students. The group knew that this goal would require it to look for ways to incorporate technology into its learning environment, and that it would require teachers to collaborate to incorporate new methods to bring information into the classroom.

Teachers and administrators were relying primarily on email and the telephone to communicate with one another. For its messaging solution, Dunamare had deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. It had also deployed Microsoft SharePoint 2007 to provide an intranet portal that students and teachers could use to share information and class work. The real challenge for Dunamare was its voice solution: each of its 36 locations had its own telephony system to manage, with different providers and contracts for varying

levels of service. In addition, local calls in the Netherlands are not toll-free; customers are charged on a per-minute basis for every call they make, which meant that teachers literally had to worry about the cost of collaborating with each other.

Dunamare knew it needed a centralized communication system that teachers and staff could use to collaborate and create programs without having to worry about communications costs. But more than just lowering costs, the group consciously wanted to adopt the latest technology—such as instant messaging and presence—that could help its teachers communicate more efficiently, and possibly provide new, innovative methods for extending the classroom environment for students.

SolutionDunamare knew it wanted to create a new IT environment for its school system, so it enlisted the help of Microsoft Gold partner Wortell. Founded in 1987, Wortell builds innovative solutions based on Microsoft Unified Communications technologies, and it recommended that Dunamare deploy Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 for its voice, video conferencing, instant messaging, and presence capabilities. It also deployed Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 to facilitate class sessions, and Microsoft RoundTable to conduct

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management meetings and teacher conferences.

In February 2010, Dunamare deployed Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at a central data center. Dunamare uses a SIP trunk to connect Office Communications Server to the public-switched telephone network to complete voice calls. SIP trunking uses the session initiation protocol (SIP) and real-time transport protocol (RTP) to pass network traffic from Office Communications Server directly to a network service provider over an IP connection. It also upgraded to Exchange Server 2010 to take advantage of enhanced unified communications capabilities, larger mailboxes, and improved storage options. Finally, it is currently upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010, which will enable teachers to take advantage of extended collaboration capabilities. The staff can choose Microsoft Office 2007 or Office 2010 including the Outlook messaging and collaboration client.

All 2,000 teachers and administrative staff are enabled for the full suite of Office Communication Server capabilities. To make voice calls through Office Communications Server, staff members can elect to use a softphone, a headset, or a USB phone, based on whatever makes them feel most comfortable. As more teachers adopted the voice

solution, Dunamare removed its desk phones.

“Within a week, everyone felt comfortable with the technology. It took about 15 minutes for me to explain the voice possibilities in Office Communications Server,” explains Madelon Kruijff, Principal of Teyler College at Dunamare Education Group. Dunamare also used Microsoft Learning Plans to provide self-directed training for its staff; Learning Plans are collections of training resources organized into interactive paths that people can access on their own time. Teachers and administrators can access the Learning Plans through the school system’s SharePoint portal.

Teachers and administrators immediately took advantage of presence, instant messaging, desktop sharing, and click-to-call capabilities to communicate with each other. They could now discuss educational programs, coordinate lesson plans, or discuss students’ progress, even outside regular school hours. They are also using Exchange Unified Messaging to track and manage voice mail and email that comes in throughout the day, all through Outlook, Outlook Web App, or from their mobile phones.

To facilitate meetings between teachers and administrative staff at different schools within the system, Dunamare uses RoundTable, a conference phone with a built-in

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“Teachers always have their laptops with Office Communications Server, so they no longer need to rely on their mobile phones or a regular phone to communicate. It’s much less expensive.”

360-degree camera that follows the conversation, providing a close-up view of speakers’ faces so participants can easily identify each other and follow the conversation. With this technology, members of the staff can join or leave meetings at will, or they can review sessions they missed.

Dunamare has also set up an innovative CEBP e-learning environment. Through a webpage, students see a list of their own teachers, along with the teachers’ presence information. If a student sees that a teacher is online, the student can immediately start a chat with the teacher to ask questions or catch up on assignments. Parents can also view teachers’ presence information when they need to reach them. This solution enables teachers to provide assistance to students even when the school day is over as many teachers will set up times to answer questions while they are working in the evening.

As another e-learning initiative, Dunamare uses Office Live Meeting to record classes and make them available on the school system’s intranet for students who are unable to attend class or who want to review certain class sessions again. Teachers can also edit the classes to update material, or add links and videos for further study. All of the videos are hosted through the Windows Azure platform, a cloud services operating system, so

Dunamare does not have to worry about storing the content locally.Another innovative way that Dunamare is using Office Communications Server capabilities is for visitor registration. Guests who visit the school register at a Microsoft Surface table in the reception area. The Surface lets the teacher or administrator know a visitor is waiting. Teachers can reply using the video chat or instant messaging capabilities in Office Communications Server to let visitors know when they will be available to meet and escort them into the facility.

BenefitsWith a Microsoft Unified Communications solution, Dunamare Education Group has developed communications-enabled business processes that promote the importance of technology for everyone involved in a higher learning environment. It has been able to reduce costs while increasing the possibilities for communication between administrators, teachers, and students, and it has also developed innovative ways to use unified communications technology both in and out of the classroom.

Increased Efficiency and CollaborationDunamare’s primary goal in deploying a unified communications solution was to help increase efficiency and collaboration for administrators and teachers.

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“With Office Communications Server on their laptops, they [teachers] have access from anywhere. Their hours extend beyond the school day.”

Madelon Kruijff, Principal of Teyler College, Dunamare Education Group

Because educators can see each other’s presence information at any time of day, they can connect to each other in a way that is less formal and more conducive to promoting innovation and better relationships. “With Office Communication Server, educators can communicate without having to reach for the phone, which can be like an invisible wall,” says Danny Burlage, Chief Technology Officer and Founder at Wortell.

“Teachers are no longer confined to the school,” explains Kruijff. “With Office Communications Server on their laptops, they have access from anywhere. Their hours extend beyond the school day. They can also have more privacy when they make phone calls, which is important for things like parent-teacher conferences.”

Technology like RoundTable has also helped increase efficiency because teachers no longer have to take time out of the school day to travel to meetings at other schools. RoundTable helps the staff take meetings and collaboration to another level, because meeting participants can actually see who is speaking at any given time, which helps teachers get to know their colleagues better and promotes better collaboration both online and in person. “We used to have 30 people all in a room together,” says Kruijff. “Now we can have fewer people in the meeting, and others can join anytime if they have

questions, or they can watch a recording of the meeting later.”

Educators can also more easily prioritize communications. They can set their presence information when they want to be available to students, parents, or to each other, and they can use Unified Messaging to prioritize and answer voice mail messages on an as-needed basis, allowing them to focus more on the actual business of education.

More Flexible, Innovative Learning EnvironmentBy adopting unified communications technology, Dunamare has extended learning beyond the boundaries of the school building. “We have found that our teachers have adopted this solution so quickly because students are so willing to work with it,” says Kruijff. “School is always available this way, and the children want to learn at all hours—not just in school.”

Dunamare has developed several innovative, flexible learning programs using unified communications. Students who are unable to attend classes can “attend” sessions recorded in Office Live Meeting by accessing them through the school’s intranet, or students who attended class but want to listen to the lecture again can access videos for review. Teachers can spend more time developing and presenting new material, instead of spending time

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on review sessions for older material, and they can also easily update the class recordings with new information and supplemental materials. With the teacher portal on the school’s intranet, students can also see which of their teachers are available to answer questions or discuss important class projects.

Teachers are also piloting other ways to use technology in the classroom to improve the experience for everyone involved. By using RoundTable to record classes, students who access material online will be able to see the whole classroom, instead of a video just focused on students or teachers. Teachers can also take advantage of these recordings to review and critique their own and each other’s teaching methods, helping them to improve. Finally, teachers have a better record of students’ behavior in the classroom, which can be valuable for students who have trouble participating or focusing in class.

Kruijff also believes they can use the classroom recordings to fill the gap for subjects such as science and languages, which often experience teacher shortages.

Reduced Costs“Teachers always have their laptops with Office Communications Server, so they no longer need to rely on their mobile phones or a regular phone to communicate. It’s much less expensive,” says Kruijff.

Because teachers and administrators from different schools can use instant messaging or click-to-call capabilities in Office Communications Server instead of relying on the telephone, Dunamare estimates it has saved between 10 and 20 percent on tolls for local calls. And because the voice solution in Office Communications Server is centralized in one data center and needs to be connected only to one telephony system, Dunamare has consolidated its contracts with telephony providers, which also provides substantial savings.

Among its goals for students, Dunamare hopes to provide innovative and widely accessible education for all of its students. With a Unified Communications solution from Microsoft, it can continue to develop innovative and interesting ways to educate students well into the future.

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Wortell products and services, call (31) 20 7505050 or visit the website at: www.wortell.nl

For more information about Dunamare Education Group products and services, call (31) 23 5303600 or visit the website at: www.dunamare.nl

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.Document published June 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Office

− Microsoft Office Standard 2007− Microsoft Office

Communications Server 2007 R2

− Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007

− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Exchange Server

2010 Windows Azure Platform

− Windows Azure Technologies

− Microsoft SharePoint Learning Kit

Partners