University of Staffordshire on the security, budget and teaching challenges of creative courses – and why Mac Studio proved to be a magic bullet…

“In the last 18 months we’ve consolidated our creative arts and media courses into a single umbrella department, Creative Industries, that covers everything from product and graphic design to traditional media courses, animation, music and elements of broadcast and journalism,” explains Technical Services Manager for Digital Media and Communications, Richard Mortimer. 

This ambitious project “allowed us to bring all our Mac users together under a single umbrella, so that the individuals who are going to be responsible for teaching the specialist software are responsible for imaging and deploying the Macs, so there was less gatekeeping around the IT environment.” 

However, there was one major issue: the age of the university’s existing Mac Pro estate meant that they could no longer run an OS that was receiving active updates – a violation of the university’s Cyber Essentials certification – and that they struggled to support the latest software, especially that used by music and animation students. 

“All the Creative Industries courses are vocational courses, and they live and die on whether we’re giving students an authentic experience,” says Richard. “The USP of our music course in particular is that if you come here you can use whatever software you want rather than learning one specific programme, so students are running different pieces of software and throwing real time plug-ins at the timeline. We also wanted to bring more Wacom Cintiq tablets into our traditional film labs so they could be used more by animation students – the department has a large footprint on campus, and we have to justify that by making sure we have collaborative spaces for specialist work.”

Finding a ‘goldilocks’ workstation

Previously, the department had been meeting these various creative needs with a fleet of 2013 Mac Pro towers, but the latest tower models were significantly more expensive, and the university thought they’d be forced to choose between buying fewer Mac Pros and reducing the number of students working on campus, or opting for lower-spec iMacs and reducing the range of creative software on offer. 

But then Apple released the Mac Studio, “a really powerful workstation that supports the vast majority of our requirements,” as Richard describes it. 

“It’s a fabulous resource – a real powerhouse that enables us to do most of what we need to do in a creative and media environment at a really good price point.”

Above: Apple's Mac Studio. 
 

Maintaining compliance while saving “tens of thousands”

A long-term customer of Jigsaw24’s, Richard reached out to us about updating the university’s estate. 

“Jigsaw24 have always delivered fantastic service and a fantastic price point as well. The modern day climate across higher education is one where we have to be very, very aware of the finances, and delivering this last capital programme together with Jigsaw24 offered cost savings of tens of thousands of pounds, as well as a seamless process for getting after-sale support.”

Unfortunately, there was one issue: the university was part of the North West Universities Purchasing Consortium, which Jigsaw24 did not supply. “Fortunately we have a very understanding head of procurement who understood the importance of the savings Jigsaw24 offered.” The solution? The university were able to use the TePAS framework – traditionally thought of as framework for the public sector, but also open to universities – to buy from Jigsaw24 while meeting their compliance requirements.

“We’ve aligned our creative awards to the right platform” 

Between Jigsaw24’s competitive pricing, the TePAS framework, and the power of the Mac Studio, the university were able to maintain the size of their estate and offer students the full range of creative software they needed. 

“As a university and as a department we’ve grown up around Macs and changing that would have a negative impact on the student experience and the support system,” says Richard. “Not only have we been able to stay on the platform we and our students want, but we can now recruit across our Creative Industries portfolio with a degree of confidence, because we can bring students and their parents into our spaces on open days and they can see industry standard technology. We’re perfectly happy that we’ve aligned our creative awards to the right platform and can run the software in the best environment for it.”
 

Want to know more about how Mac Studio could help your students do more? Drop your details in the form and one of the team will be in touch. Alternatively, give us a call on 03332 409 210 or email media@Jigsaw24.com.