Museum/tourist centre
Five sites
2014
SPARK® Managed Service
Customised Guest Access WiFi and User Experience Portal
SPARK® Analytics
24 / 7 / 365 Service Desk
Wanting to roll out a renewed guest-access WiFi solution that enabled Museums of Oxford to showcase a unique branded user experience, engage with their visitors and understand visitors through analytics data, WiFi SPARK proposed a solution that met the site’s needs and worked within its budget. Speedily installed, the solution enables the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford to engage with guests like never before whilst providing premium WiFi during their visit.
Two University museums, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Bodleian Libraries, have all historically won awards at the Vice-Chancellor's Public Engagement and Research Awards.
The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe and is the second-largest library in Britain, after the British Library.
The History of Science Museum now holds an unrivaled collection of early astronomical and mathematical instruments from Europe and the Islamic world and an exceptionally rich set of microscopes.
Adopt innovation that facilitates guest-access WiFi at some of Oxford's most historic sites
Through the WiFi, allow users to engage with online content, information and wayfinding to enrich their visits
Facilitate the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford in learning more about their visitors, the capacity of the sites and the movement of visitors across them through standard analytical reporting
Develop a tailored User Experience that contributes to establishing the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford brand and create a polished welcoming stop for users
Move all data to the cloud
Ensure the rollout was fast and effective so to be ready for an influx of visitors after the lifting of Covid restrictions
Offer a reliable 24/7/365 UK-based Service Desk for round the clock support
Adopt innovation that facilitates guest-access WiFi at some of Oxford's most historic sites
Through the WiFi, allow users to engage with online content, information and wayfinding to enrich their visits
Facilitate the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford in learning more about their visitors, the capacity of the sites and the movement of visitors across them through standard analytical reporting
Develop a tailored User Experience that contributes to establishing the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford brand and create a polished welcoming stop for users
Move all data to the cloud
Ensure the rollout was fast and effective so to be ready for an influx of visitors after the lifting of Covid restrictions
Offer a reliable 24/7/365 UK-based Service Desk for round the clock support
“It has been a pleasure and a delight working with WiFi SPARK over the years – starting in 2014 with the initial roll-out. During all these years, the team has been most helpful, approachable and demonstrated flexibility to cater to our ongoing (often changing) requirements and managed to successfully navigate the Oxford procurement landscape. With the install of the service, we are now confident that the service is in safe hands for years to come.”
Anjanesh Babu
Lead Architect
Gardens and Museums Infrastructure and Improvement Programme
WiFi SPARK has had a long and successful history with Oxford University. Installing guest-access WiFi at Bodleian’s Weston Library over twelve years ago, a new initiative to improve the infrastructure across the city’s museums and gardens saw the team look to WiFi SPARK to expand its solution across more sites.
‘By investing in our people, our digital and our physical infrastructure, we will create new ‘spaces’ that allow a deeper understanding of culture and science past, present and future.’ - GLAM Strategic Plan
The Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford (GLAM) strategic plan for 2020/21-2022/23 intends to grow its global audiences while nurturing and supporting local communities and fostering new ways of working. As noted in the plan, utilising digital is one of the routes GLAM will take to gain that deeper connection with visitors.
Coming to WiFi SPARK with their aims and objectives, the WiFi SPARK team was able to develop a solution that would allow GLAM to increase visitor engagement, gain analytics insights, develop their virtual brand and install a robust WiFi solution, all with an attentive Service Desk on hand to help.
It is important for WiFi SPARK that it does not just provide a flat-pack solution to each of its customers. Tailoring each aspect of the build to the desires, requirements and budgets of the customer works to fit WiFi SPARK’s buildable solution. At GLAM, an original proposal was made to install a dual server solution for increased visitor connectivity and fail-over facility, however, this did not fit within the ideal budget in the mind of the infrastructure improvement team, and although it would allow connection for a large number of visitors, would be an exorbitant solution for the spaces. Working closely with the GLAM team, WiFi SPARK went back to the drawing board to value engineer a more appropriate solution ensuring the project remained in budget and met the needs of the sites.
Building on top of the guest-access WiFi connectivity, a unique user experience (UX) portal was developed to greet visitors upon their connection to the WiFi. With a unique UX for each site, the individual teams can edit their background images to reflect new site updates, seasonal changes or specific events. This amenability contributes to the solidification of brand identity and encourages user engagement.
The UX’s are set up as data-click entries, this means that to access the WiFi users need to enter their name, email address, that they are over 18 and that they agree to their data being collected and the Terms and Conditions. By the end-user agreeing to their data being collected, GLAM can understand their audience demographic like never before. This information can inform Marketing or events decisions, for example, if there is an influx of students attending around September/October, GLAM could release a special discount offer for students visiting museums to grow their audience further.
With the aim of moving away from their virtual machine workspaces and migrating to the cloud, WiFi SPARK responded by engineering a system to enable the transition in partnership with the talented Oxford IT team. This enabled remote working and management from across the sites, as well as facilitated a two-week delivery window for the WiFi SPARK team. Working in collaboration, WiFi SPARK engineers calibrated and configured all of the technology for GLAM. Working in partnership with the Oxford team enabled a full understanding of the software and an even faster service delivery.
Wrapping up the solution is WiFi SPARK’s managed service. Continuous monitoring means that problems are able to be solved before they are noticed by the customer or end user. Furthermore, the 24 / 7 / 365 Service Desk is on hand to answer any customer or end-user queries. It also guarantees that if an end-user has any difficulty navigating the portal, they can seek assistance from the Service Desk and not add to the workload of GLAM staff.
With the most recent site addition being the Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum and two years still on the clock for GLAM’s strategic growth plan, the future could hold a wider investment in more sites to build a solution that covers the breadth of Oxfords visitor-attraction landscape.
As aforementioned, WiFi SPARK’s buildable solution means that upgrading technology to adapt to higher visitor numbers or amending the UX to engage with users differently for specific events or to collect a wider range of data is always an option. Working closely with a new account manager, the future will be one of sustained mutual growth and respect between the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford and WiFi SPARK.
To download a copy of the Gardens, Libraries and Museums of Oxford case study as a PDF, simply click the link below.
