👉Is a recession knocking again on our doors?
According to David Malpass (World Bank President) recession will be hard to avoid (The World Bank, 2022). This fact is something we all know. But, an important question for us is: how will the economic restrictions impact the educational sector?
Very soon some universities will probably be limited by the shortage of material, lack of maintenance, less investment to equip the laboratories, etc. Due to these possible risks, some local governments (e.g. UK) are taking a position, however, people are afraid of the duration and consequences of the upcoming age (Staton B., 2022).
Our company, which plays a business role in Education, Research and Health sectors, is very sensitive to this situation as we communicate with our customers, daily, observing their worries about the future. The universities' budget cut is leading to a big concern about the future of academic work resources, once the consequences can be severe to people’s lives (Lukes S., 2022).
We all know that academic activities are still there with the same or new needs as things naturally evolve. We still need to provide an answer to these needs, otherwise, there's a risk of going backward compromising the educational quality and the standards achieved up to today.
Where there is a crisis, there’s also hope.
Where there is hope, there’s also inspiration.
Where there is inspiration, there’s is a willingness of moving forward.
👉How can companies help universities going further with some investments?
Well, we can only answer by ourselves and that is precisely what we intend to do with this Blog Post. The last thing we want to do is to move the problem we all have in our hands to customers' shoulders. For example, by reducing the quality of our devices while raising prices. Hence, we are working on a solution that might help universities to go further with some investments, at least those that might be valuable in a long term and of course within the biosignals sector, which is the core of our activity.
👉What about reducing costs by adopting hybrid working models in education?
During pandemics, we were forced to move home and figure out a way of working and learning from unusual places. Of course, we do not want this lifestyle forever, as we need to get along with people around us, preferably in a presential format. But why not take advantage of both worlds?
Hybrid teaching is more sustainable as all the intervenients would benefit from the cost reduction in universities and departments (Selingo J. et al., 2021). These entities would still be capable of using some budget for investment and students would benefit from it while learning with more autonomy at their own pace, with no obligation of on-campus presence, and perhaps get more efficiency in learning as well, once more freedom and confidence is given to them.
Practical or theoretical academic activities in the biomedical sector, particularly in the biosignals field, sometimes involve investing in expensive, bulky, and high energy consumption equipment. This is common among various biosignals-related courses and disciplines (e.g. biomedical and electrical engineering, biology, physiology, psychophysiology, sports sciences, healthcare technology, etc.). For these cases, hybrid teaching could be a constraint for the teachers and students, because it would be utterly unsustainable to set up a lab in other inappropriate areas.
But what if it were possible to set up a biosignals workstation for each student, in a reduced format, with low energy consumption for an affordable price?
Well, that is indeed possible and that’s what we have been developing so far in our Education business line - BITalino.
We prepared our teaching solutions to fit hybrid education models, where teachers and students can complete biosignal exercises, projects, and challenges wherever is more convenient.
If you are interested in knowing more about how you can make an affordable and long-term investment, see the advantages of working with low-power, robust and affordable material, such as BITalino, that allows different learning modalities, i.e. on- and off-campus.
👉BITalino is your portable and cost-effection solution to learn biosignals anywhere
Since its very beginning, our company has focused on the development of simple and cost-effective biosignals solutions for education and research. BITalino has served a critical and instructional role as our entry-level product to start learning about biosignals. We can emphasize the most important aspects of it and why it can become an important instrument for biosignals practices wherever you are, namely:
- Work from anywhere without losing quality
- Long lifetime battery
- Low power & low (or no) maintenance devices
- Easy to flip the classroom
- Hands-on training is possible whether you are in a lab or anywhere else.
- Allow individual or collaborative interactions
- More autonomy for students over learning
👉What steps are we doing to assist universities in resolving their budget problems?
As mentioned at the beginning of this blog post, we are sensitive to the economic issues that universities have been experiencing in recent months, and as a result, we are following up with a temporary price reduction in order to allow teachers and researchers to continue their work with the highest quality possible.
For the upcoming months you can expect:
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-20% off on our teaching systems (r)evolution Board Kit BT/BLE and (r)evolution Plugged Kit BT/BLE
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The biosignal processing software unlocked in our classroom solution - ClassBIT Engineering
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1x FREE biosignals consumables box, which is equivalent to +1 semester of classes.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned on our biosignals blog posts.
Author: Madalena Proença (Product manager at PLUX Biosignals)
