Whether it is education, research or the support of that, at Wageningen University & Research centre (UR) quality is paramount. And it is not for nothing that ‘For quality of life’ is the slogan of this university. LeftClick is also closely associated with this philosophy: we delivered Wageningen UR a high quality narrowcasting system, with many possibilities.

The fact that at Wageningen UR quality plays a key role is apparent, inter alia, from its outstanding reputation as a leading university in its field, domestically as well as internationally. Even when it concerns communication solutions, some years ago, Wageningen UR was already way ahead. Gerard Folkerts, consultant/project leader IT at Wageningen UR: every department is authorised to operate this by themselves within the university, so back then people had chosen all sorts of possibilities, and there was nothing standardised as yet.”

“After about five years, we wanted to bring about some changes in that; we wanted narrowcasting to support Wageningen UR centrally”, Gerard Folkerts adds. “That’s why we executed quite an extensive selection process for a suitable supplier, whereby LeftClick was finally chosen.”

When choosing a supplier for narrowcasting, there were several important aspects to consider. For example, the flexibility of the system played a role: the system would have to be easy to integrate with many other sources. Also the fact that LeftClick was offering a web-based solution, was a reason for Wageningen UR to choose LeftClick. Gerard Folkerts: LeftClick had also offered the option of running the system at the location, but it seemed more advantageous to not do that. We chose the web-based system, without any installations here at our university.” “Besides that, the management of the system and its user-friendliness also played a major role when choosing LeftClick”, says Gerard Folkerts. “It had to be an appealing solution for the users of the system who place the content, as well as for the operators who worked with the whole system. We, the operators, wanted to be able to access information easily and quickly from a distance, about the players and screens. That is possible with the system of LeftClick. For example, I can acquire a status overview of all players, so that I know exactly which hardware will soon require maintenance or replacement.”

At Wageningen UR there are 50 digital displays installed. Gerard Folkerts: “Most of the displays are situated at places where many students come. For example, in our Forum-building there is one situated on every floor close to the lift. So, when visitors or students arrive at the floor in question, they directly see the relevant information for that floor, such as the current time-table information. We can really focus this information on the place where the screen is.”

All the media libraries and book libraries of Wageningen UR are also provided with digital displays. Gerard Folkerts: “You can see on it, for example, which new books the library has bought. Besides that, at some locations, we are checking which possibilities there are regarding links with Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.”

But there are more expansions on the horizon. For example, the university wants to link the meetings data in Outlook to the system, so that this data has to be entered only once, and changes are directly visible on the screens. Gerard Folkerts: “These possibilities do exist, but the functionality should run smooth too, and should work within our surrounding. Furthermore, we are checking out which applications and possibilities there are for interactive narrowcasting.”