Higher education requires a holistic approach to address the specific needs of students, faculty staff and leadership. By allowing students and faculty to access secure digital education tools from anywhere on any device, a cloud-ready digital environment provides opportunities for continuous learning. Through its partnership with Citrix, Troye helps to build a strategic digital workplace to provide blended learning capabilities. An agile, flexible environment can transform the education experience for students, faculty, and staff so that people don’t have to attend in person or get a seat in a lab. Students and faculty are now able to access applications, data, and services, regardless of their location, device, or network – whether their need is for standard productivity or complex scientific or technical apps.
Troye CEO Helen Kruger says a continuity strategy will minimise disruption, maintain security and support uninterrupted education. “Missed class time can have a devastating impact on students. With a continuity strategy deviations from the educational calendar can be minimised.” Procuring, preparing and issuing thousands of laptops out to students is a monumental task. Fortunately, connecting students with the applications they require for learning needn’t be. With CItrix RemotePC, off-campus students may use their devices to easily connect to learning applications already residing on-campus LAB computers. “Students simply connect to presently dormant LAB computers which they’re already familiar with. Often the simplest solution to a problem is the best, and Citrix RemotePC is resonating well with several local universities as it addresses many immediate remote learning challenges while keeping capital expenditure very low,” she explains.
Kruger says North West University (NWU) is already providing a better way to learn by offering secure applications and data on any device. “Citrix gives NWU students a wider reach, regardless of their faculty, with a better user experience, whilst reducing the challenges of delivering applications anywhere.”
“It provides NWU the flexibility required for students, and provides a strategy to deliver applications as a service with digital workspace flexibility for students and staff,” she adds.
Ensure continuity with Citrix digital technology. Industry-leading Citrix solutions offer many advantages for students, faculty, staff and researchers and enable secure delivery of all Windows, web, SaaS, and mobile apps as well as data and services from any device, over any network or cloud along with administrative advantages of centralising management thereof. If they choose, IT can even implement thin clients that serve up app and desktop workloads and enable environments to be run on prem or in the cloud with a consistent experience that can be identical to what they have on campus.
She says it is common that there are insufficient PC’s in labs, and many universities are traditionally not able to extend access to users off campus, at any time of the day or night. “Citrix’s digital workspace solutions help protect institutions from consequences such as gaps in students’ education, damaged institutional reputation, and financial implications.” To address the specific concerns of higher education populations, a comprehensive approach must minimise disruption, maintain security, and support uninterrupted education.
“Flexibility and agility are essential to providing a seamless learning experience enabling students and faculty to complete and catch-up coursework so that the academic year is not lost,” she concludes.