At the University of the South, students can go through a storefront similar to Apple’s App Store to access college-licensed software, but on their own device rather than in an in-person computer lab.
Vicki Sells, the chief information officer of the Tennessee college, which is also known as Sewanee, explained in an Educause seminar last week how campus IT is taking a “bring your own device” approach to distributing software. Students often need to visit computers on campus to use software for classes, like computer-assisted design software, that require expensive licenses and high-powered computers.
Through AppsAnywhere, students can log on through a portal to access software remotely. At Sewanee, more than 90% of students use Mac devices, Sells said, but the AppsAnywhere software also allows for Mac users to access Windows software.
When a user logs in, the interface is a grid that presents all of the available apps through the college. That can include data analysis software like SPSS, an IBM statistical tool, as well as applications like Excel and Adobe Creative cloud.
Sewanee also built other links into the platform, including to academic services like the registrar’s office, which Sells said the college is likely to continue to explore.
When the coronavirus pandemic shut down campus in the spring of 2020, the goal for Sewanee, which enrolls about 1,800 undergraduates, was to get students back on campus for the fall. Part of that process was examining how students interacted with in-person spaces like computer labs. Sells said students expressed before the pandemic that they prefer using their own computers.
The college’s leadership approved a $1.2 million technology proposal in June 2020 that included AppsAnywhere. The IT team rolled out the platform in four weeks, and aimed to provide enough server capacity that 200 people could be accessing software simultaneously. The university also bought laptops that students could check out if they needed more computing power for classwork.
“We didn’t know if possibly there could be an outbreak of COVID on campus and suddenly everyone would have to go back home and working completely remotely,” Sells said.
That capacity is likely to be reduced this year, she added.
Other higher education institutions also shifted to virtual lab software during the pandemic, both for student use and for researchers and faculty who need access to specialized software. Other providers include Apporto and Amazon AppStream.
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Sewanee's ‘App-store’ interface allows students to remotely use software housed in computer labs - EdScoop
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