Georgia Tech College of Architecture Boosts Knowledge-Sharing with SharePoint

Besides being consistently ranked as one of the top three engineering institutes in North America and ranked 7th in the nation among public colleges and universities, Georgia Tech prides itself on being a leader in applying technology to solve not only engineering problems, but business problems too. This includes the commercial world and the business of running a university.

From the institution’s perspective, being recognized as a technology leader has many benefits. First, it helps attract some of the best minds on the globe to apply and attend Georgia Tech—not only as students, but as instructors. Second, it allows the institution to consult with businesses in Georgia and organizations throughout the world in applying best-of-breed solutions employing current and emerging technologies. This can provide a competitive edge in a world where communication parity is increasing, primarily brought about by the Internet. This could not have been more evident than when Georgia Tech assisted Atlanta in winning its bid to host the 1996 Olympics. As part of the “sales package”, the IMAGINE lab, one of Georgia Tech’ College of Architecture’s six research centers, produced a computer-generated virtual representation of what the facilities would look like for each of the venues. Committee members could actually see, in real time, not only the location of each event, but how the existing and planned structures would work in supporting the games.

The need to continually increase communication and collaborative capabilities has been recognized for several years as an important issue for the Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture. As can be imagined, referenceable intellectual capital developed over many decades has tremendous value to current faculty and students. The ability to access and share these assets without communication barriers is very important.

The College of Architecture set out to find a solution that:
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• Is future-ready, with the agility, flexibility, and scalability to meet a broad, diverse, and evolving range of user requirements.
• Could be built on top of their existing infrastructure.
• Allows students, faculty, and business units to manage, archive, research, and retrieve documents and easily track revisions.
• Facilitates collaboration and communication using various voice, messaging, and conferencing options on multiple devices, including mobile units.
• Enables users to access data, perform tasks, launch and utilize applications from as few UIs (user interfaces) as possible, such as through Microsoft Office Outlook or a browser.
• Provides the ability to exchange data and assign tasks according to administrative workflow processes, data control policies, and/or end-user preferences

Because of Georgia Tech’s reputation, the College of Architecture could have selected hardware and software products from any of the world’s leading technology vendors; each anxious to have their wares showcased by the school.

“After spending several years evaluating a number of products we chose to stay with Microsoft, especially in light of the new product releases,” says Robert Gerhart, Director of Technology for the College of Architecture. “The new collaborative products will allow us to greatly expand services to our end-users with our existing infrastructure and knowledge assets.”

B2B Technologies, an Atlanta-based Microsoft Gold Partner, was selected to work with Georgia Tech's College of Architecture and Microsoft in implementing the selected application. “MOSS [Microsoft Office SharePoint Server] is the product we were waiting for to integrate our existing applications and at the same time provide additional operability and mobility as a service to our diverse community of users. MOSS is a good fit for us both strategically and tactically,” continued Gerhart.

By the middle of 2007, just a few months after their decision to use SharePoint, the College of Architecture has taken the first steps toward meeting their project goals. With this type of vision for the future, Georgia Tech is sure to remain at the forefront of technology as it has for the past 119 years.