Huawei Partners With UNISA to Build a Future-Proof Smart Campus. In an effort to foster a digital workplace, UNISA has partnered with Huawei to upgrade and reconstruct its network infrastructure. This collaboration aims to enhance the end-user experience by deploying advanced Huawei technology, significantly improving network management efficiency across all campuses.
A Pioneer of Distance Education in South Africa
Founded in 1873, the University of South Africa (UNISA) is the largest open distance learning institution in South Africa. Its main campus, Muckleneuk Campus, is located in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital. With over 400,000 students, including international students from more than 130 countries, UNISA is one of the world’s mega universities and one of the few on the African continent. The university offers a variety of degrees, including bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral, as well as certificate courses, vocational education, and training (VET), and continuing education (CE) courses. These cover a broad range of disciplines, making UNISA a globally recognized pioneer in distance education.
Opportunities and Challenges for UNISA Under Digital Transformation
UNISA has long championed the concept of “learner-centered” distance open education, providing high-quality, efficiency-driven tools for students and teachers. However, the scaling up of faculty and construction of new campuses have made it difficult to centrally manage devices and network operations and maintenance (O&M). Limited by the size and technical competency of the network O&M team, the university faced challenges in quickly addressing problems, leading to increased O&M costs. In the current era of digital transformation, UNISA needed to innovate its teaching approaches to stay ahead.
Building an Open Smart Campus for Revolutionary Distance Learning
To seize the opportunities of digital transformation, UNISA partnered with Huawei’s CloudCampus Solution to digitalize all of its campuses. This future-proof solution includes switches, routers, wireless access points (APs), and a network management platform, providing high speeds, solid reliability, and robust security. With the new network, UNISA offers better network services and user experience.
Key Benefits of Huawei’s CloudCampus Solution
- Full-Coverage Wi-Fi 6: Over 2500 APs are deployed across more than 30 campuses, creating high-bandwidth, high-concurrency, and low-latency wireless networks. This allows teachers and students to connect to the Internet anytime, anywhere, accessing high-quality educational resources in real time. The full-coverage Wi-Fi 6 enables hybrid education through UNISA’s ODeL distance education platform, supporting offline-online blended learning, online communities, and high-tech remote classrooms.
- Cloud-Network Synergy: An intelligent, future-proof, integrated network architecture is established, featuring wired and wireless convergence, ultra-high performance, massive data throughput, and full-stack open network devices. This ensures continuous network evolution and service upgrades.
- Centralized, Efficient, and Cost-Effective O&M: A unified network management system (NMS) is deployed to centrally manage current and future network devices, improving O&M efficiency and reducing operational expenses (OPEX) by approximately 80%. This also lowers costs for training technical personnel.
Looking Ahead for a Better Future
UNISA is steadily moving towards digital teaching and administration, committed to improving teaching efficiency and quality, and providing learners with an optimal experience. By partnering with Huawei, UNISA has meticulously planned its campus network, thoroughly analyzed its ICT requirements, and developed a viable smart school campus solution for long-term development. Looking ahead, Huawei will continue to work with UNISA to build a smarter campus, offering more efficient services, a more secure environment, and greater energy savings.
Conclusion
The partnership between UNISA and Huawei marks a significant step towards creating a future-proof smart campus. Through advanced network infrastructure and innovative digital solutions, UNISA is set to enhance its educational offerings and maintain its position as a global leader in distance education.
