In late 2017, the terms “coronavirus” and “social distancing” meant nothing to the general public. At the time, Creighton University leaders simply wanted to use cloud computing to give educators and students more flexibility and engaging ways to teach and learn.
Little did they know that they’d soon come to rely on the technology more than ever amid a world pandemic.
“Having DaaS (desktop as a service) in place came in handy when we needed to scale up to keep teachers and students connected during the pandemic,” said Robby Daniels, a central campus client support specialist at Creighton University.
As the university’s IT team moved more of its computing needs to the cloud through 2018, it found ways to quickly improve its distance learning program, starting with the school of business. Daniels turned to DaaS to allow students to access needed applications and educational software without having to download it themselves onto their devices.
When COVID-19 forced the campus to close in early 2020, Daniels was able to dial up DaaS to give more students in more departments the ability to easily, securely access required applications.
Making Online Learning Easy
Distance learning isn’t a new concept. Today, most universities offer some version of online classes or remote experiences. What made delivering online instruction difficult for Creighton in the past, however, was the lack of an integrated platform that delivered consistently high-quality experiences to every user.