Keywest Technology Designs, Installs Major Digital Signage Network for Midwest Community College

Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, KS, is using an extensive digital signage system from Keywest Technology to meet its campus-wide communications needs with over 100 digital signs.

When Johnson County Community College needed a way to keep students and faculty alike attuned to the latest developments in campus life, the Overland Park, KS, based educational institution turned to Keywest Technology to design and install an extensive digital signage network. 

Used to communicate everything from "Orange Barrel Alerts" warning students and faculty of road work on well traveled routes to and from the campus, to announcements on career placement activities, tuition due dates and athletic and performance event schedules, the digital signage network relies on more than 100 digital signs to blanket JCCC's 234-acre campus and satellite facilities in remote locations. Composed of more than 30 Keywest Technology MediaZone Pro digital signage systems, the company's InfoZone enterprise-level control, monitoring and management system, the community college's digital signage network is a mix of campus-wide and special interest channels.

Various departments and schools making up the community college create special-interest channels, made up of video, graphics, text crawls and animations, as well as schedule and manage playback. A main channel features items of interest to the entire campus body.

The network makes extensive use of InfoZone's Dashboard software capability to provide confidence monitoring of all channels in the network and to identify a problem that might arise. A special RS232 serial control capability was added to the network to allow all of the monitors on the network to be turned on and off from a central location to ensure monitors are not left on after the campus is closed and to turn on the monitors in the morning.

Keywest Technology also worked closely with JCCC to customize the installation to let the community college quickly convert its digital signage network into an emergency alert system that complements a newly installed campus-wide emergency PA system.

As part of its contract with JCCC, Keywest Technology also has provided training for campus personnel who program the special-interest and main channel as well as a high level of support.