Allow me to paint you a picture. A professor walks into an unfamiliar lecture hall five minutes before class begins. Along with the expectant faces of her students, she’s greeted by a complicated touch panel full of buttons and menus she doesn’t recognise. Her laptop won’t connect to the system on the first try. The auto-tracking camera glitches as she moves across the room. By the time the professor finally gets the technology dialled in, precious time has been lost, and so has student engagement.
This kind of situation persists in higher ed, even as institutions invest heavily in AV upgrades. The irony is that tech designed to enhance teaching often ends up slowing it down. Complex systems frustrate faculty, drain IT resources, and in some cases, raise the total cost of ownership by generating a constant flow of help tickets. And because installation of intricate systems can drag on for months, or even years in older buildings, AV teams often start the school year already behind.
The solution is better design and smarter onboarding. When AV/IT leaders choose intuitive, scalable solutions and pair them with faculty-first training, they empower instructors to teach with confidence. Bridging the AV gap requires collaboration across faculty, AV/IT teams, and facilities, ensuring solutions fit actual teaching workflows. With the right approach, colleges can finally close the gap between what classroom technology can do and how it’s actually used.
What follows are my recommendations to make that vision a reality:
EASE OF USE & COMPATIBILITY
A difficult interface or multi-step setup not only delays classes but also drives up support tickets, strains IT teams, and often forces institutions to replace poorly adopted systems sooner than planned. We see over and over that if the tech isn’t intuitive, it won’t get used, no matter how advanced its capabilities.
Smaller and midsize classrooms often present the toughest challenges when it comes to sound. Unlike large lecture halls, which are typically outfitted with professional-grade audio systems, these spaces must balance cost, simplicity, and usability, which are factors that directly influence whether solutions can be scaled across a campus. There isn’t a universal formula for designing hybrid or hyflex environments, but flexible, blended approaches can offer a practical path forward.
Ease of use begins with design. Faculty should be able to walk into any classroom, connect their device, and start teaching within seconds. Plug-and-play functionality, pre-optimised camera settings, and one-touch controls reduce the learning curve dramatically. This requires guidance from AV leaders, because each space is different, and the right settings may vary between rooms. For example, sometimes, a system that can auto-frame a professor as they move around the room is helpful, but in other cases it might be better to have multiple pre-set views the lecturer can switch between as they talk.
Compatibility is equally important. Most faculty already have platforms they know well and trust, whether that’s Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, and they shouldn’t have to abandon them to use new AV hardware. Solutions that integrate seamlessly with these platforms minimise retraining and boost adoption. This interoperability also makes it easier for AV/IT leaders to standardise technology across campus, ensuring that classrooms look and feel the same whether a professor is teaching in a historic lecture hall or a newly renovated lab.
A standardised, user-friendly AV ecosystem has two major benefits. First, it reduces the need for multiple devices in a single room, lowering costs and simplifying support. Second, it removes a burden from faculty. When instructors know they’ll encounter the same straightforward setup in every classroom, they can shift their attention back to students.
In short, ease of use plus compatibility equals adoption – and adoption drives both return on investment and meaningful improvements in the teaching and learning experience.
EASE OF INSTALLATION
Even the best-designed AV solution falls short if it’s too difficult to install. Many higher education institutions operate in buildings that span decades or even centuries of infrastructure. Adding new equipment can be surprisingly complicated. I’ve talked to AV/IT leaders who note that something as simple as installing additional power outlets in a historic lecture hall can become multi-year endeavours.
Smartly designed solutions get around this challenge by reducing components, cables, and the need for specialised work. Features like single-cable power and flexible mounting make rollouts faster and more adaptable to varied classrooms. The payoff for AV/IT leaders is twofold: scalability (more rooms upgraded in less time) and sustainability (fewer points of failure and less ongoing maintenance).
TAILORED, THOUGHTFUL ONBOARDING
Onboarding is just as critical as design. Without it, I see instructors often fall back on workarounds, avoid tech systems altogether, or resign themselves to relying on AV/IT teams to a level they find inconvenient.
Effective onboarding is faculty-first: it prioritises teaching needs and begins with personalised, hands-on training that shows professors how to use tools in the context of their real classroom workflows. From there, ongoing support ensures that their capabilities continue to grow and evolve. AV/IT leaders can build this support into rollout strategies with tactics like these:
• Demonstrations and Q&As: Live walk-throughs where faculty can test tools, ask questions, and see common teaching scenarios in action.
• Office hours with AV staff: Dedicated drop-in times for troubleshooting and refresher help.
• Peer forums: Spaces where faculty can share tips and strategies, either within a single campus or across partner institutions.
• Video tutorials and micro-trainings: Quick, accessible resources that professors can revisit anytime.
The impact of faculty-first onboarding is far-reaching. With that foundation set, instructors are free to experiment with new ways of engaging students both in-person and online. Students benefit too: consistent, high-quality hybrid experiences can improve satisfaction, participation, and even retention. And for institutions, better adoption means fewer support tickets, a higher return on AV investments, and stronger outcomes across the board.
The disparity between what AV solutions can do and how they’re used persists in higher ed, but there are proven ways we can erase it. By choosing well-designed solutions and maintaining channels of support for faculty, AV and IT leaders can close the higher ed AV gap and make sure institutions get the most out of their tech investments.
