# Digital signage for universities and colleges Running campus and department screens, timetable and room-change notices, open-day boards and student information, played from the screen's own browser and scheduled on per-department channels. Source: https://channelos.tv/industries/higher-education ## What runs it ChannelOS plays as a web page in the browser the screen already has: Android TV, Google TV, webOS, Fire TV, a Chromebox, or a laptop in kiosk mode on the HDMI port. There is also a native Android TV app, downloaded as an APK from channelos.tv rather than from Google Play. There is no media player box to buy and no per-device licence. ## What goes on the screen - **Department corridor boards.** Seminars, deadlines, who is in which office this week. The department keeps its own channel, so a change is an edit, not a request to somebody else. - **Room changes and timetable notices.** The notice that has to go up this morning and come down at noon. Place it on the hours it applies to and it takes itself down. - **Open days and recruitment screens.** A different board in the foyer for one Saturday, scheduled weeks ahead, with the ordinary board resuming on its own afterwards. - **Library, union and study-space screens.** Opening hours, quiet-period rules, what is closed for an exam. Several screens on one channel so a change lands across the site at once. ## When ChannelOS is the wrong answer ChannelOS does not integrate with a student information system, a timetabling product like Celcat or Syllabus Plus, or a room-booking platform. It will not generate a room-change board from your timetable feed and it has no single sign-on with your identity provider, so access is ChannelOS accounts rather than campus accounts. A university that needs the timetable to drive the screens should buy an education signage platform with that integration. ChannelOS fits the campus where the real problem is that departments cannot reach their own screens, and the content is words a person writes. ## Questions ### What is digital signage for universities? Campus digital signage means running department corridor boards, room-change notices, open-day screens and student information on displays instead of printed notices and emailed PDFs. In ChannelOS a board is an editable show played by the browser inside the screen, and each department can hold its own channel, so the people with something to say are the people who change the screen. ### Can each department run its own screens without going through IT? Yes, and that is the point of the channel model. A channel is a named feed with its own timeline, and a screen tunes into one, so a department's screens follow a department's channel. Somebody in that department edits the board from a laptop or a phone and it reaches the screen in seconds, because a screen derives what it shows from the schedule in real time rather than waiting for a publish. ### Does it connect to our timetabling or student system? No. There is no integration with a student information system, a timetabling product or a room-booking platform, and no SAML or single sign-on with a campus identity provider. If the requirement is screens generated from the timetable, buy a product built for that. ChannelOS is for the boards a human writes, which on most campuses is most of them. ### What hardware does a campus screen need? Usually none beyond the screen. ChannelOS plays in the browser already in Android TV, Google TV, webOS and Fire TV displays, and there is a native Android TV app, downloaded as an APK from our own site rather than from Google Play. An older display takes any cheap HDMI stick that loads a modern web page, with no per-device signage licence, and existing Chromeboxes or kiosk laptops already driving displays work as they are. ### Can a notice be scheduled to appear and disappear on its own? Yes. A show is placed on a channel's timeline with a date range and hours, so a room-change notice can be set to run from nine until noon on one day and nothing has to be taken down afterwards. An open-day board can be scheduled weeks ahead and the ordinary board resumes by itself when the date-scoped one finishes. ### How much does campus digital signage cost? The first screen is free forever and additional screens are billed per screen per month at the rates on the pricing page. Free screens carry a ChannelOS banner that opens into a full slide roughly every two minutes, which is worth knowing before putting one in a public foyer. There are no player devices to buy and no per-device licences. ## Related - [Digital signage for schools](https://channelos.tv/blog/digital-signage-for-schools): The K-12 version: hallway boards without an IT project. - [Many screens, one channel](https://channelos.tv/blog/manage-many-screens-with-channels): Why a campus with forty screens is not forty times the work. - [Internal communications](https://channelos.tv/use-cases/internal-communications): Staff-side screens, and the difference between a notice and an announcement. - [ChannelOS Academy](https://channelos.tv/academy): Twenty-four lessons, one job each, for handing a screen to somebody who has never run one.