Deakin University taps Citrix cloud to boost staff, student productivity

Deakin University in Victoria has adopted a cloud-based IT strategy built on Citrix technology that aims to boost staff and student productivity.

Using Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp, the university has deployed a virtual environment that provides students and staff with access to more than 80 mission-critical applications including ArcGIS, ArchiCAD and Solidworks.

The university has also provided its employees with laptops, tablet computers and secure access to its server for personal devices in a bid to increase mobility for staff working on campus.

With the university’s 53,000 strong student body increasingly looking to access the internal network via their own devices, such as smartphones and tablets, from any location at any time, Deakin University recognised it needed to change the way it delivered services to students, said the university's director ICT infrastructure services, Craig Warren.

“While life on campus and high-quality computer labs creates a complete university experience for many of our students, we wanted to ensure our on-site infrastructure wasn’t limiting for others, and appreciate our students adhere to different lifestyles. To meet these diverse needs, we wanted a digital environment that enhanced – rather than remodelled – our existing offerings to help drive uninterrupted productivity for our students,” Warren said.

The university has also installed application delivery controllers, enabling the university to seamlessly manage and cater for the growing number of devices connecting to the network.

“Through the roll-out of these new measures and the development of our cloud campus, we’ve removed fixed barriers and bolstered our ‘Deakin Anywhere’ mission. In doing so, we’ve witnessed an increase in staff and student productivity and transformed our students’ learning experience, representing the evolution of our university,” Warren added.

He said future projects will include investigating “new ways of working” such as video conferencing in lectures, as well as looking at new methods of machine and hologram learning to enhance the classroom experience.