Glasgow Caledonian University improves National Student Survey scores

Watch our video below and find out how Glasgow Caledonian University have improved their National Student Survey (NSS) scores, thanks to AppsAnywhere from AppsAnywhere.

AppsAnywhere at GCU - Video Transcription

GCU is the university for the common good. It has three campuses: one in Glasgow, one in London and one in New York. We have 20,000 students, around 1,500 staff, representing 100 different countries from all over the world. When the results came in from the National Student Survey [NSS], one of the common observations from our students was around the start-up time for work stations and the logon time for work stations.

We had a limited availability of software. Some of the specialized software was only available within certain school labs and the students were complaining that outside of the university hours, they couldn’t get access to that software. We needed a solution that was going to provide those applications throughout the entire university on all the computers, without actually putting the applications on the physical machine.

AppsAnywhere have been very effective. So now they can access the teaching software that was previously only available in specialist labs, is now available everywhere, whether that be on the web stations that we offer, here in Glasgow and London, or whether they be distance learning students that never make a step onto campus. This technology allows us to deliver all of our software anytime, anywhere.

We’ve managed to put the Application Jukebox [AppsAnywhere] player on all of our machines on campus. And the students are allowed to put that player onto their home machines, including some of the software is available off-site—they will be able to access it.

The biggest benefit of our collaboration with AppsAnywhere has been the actual Hub [S2Hub]. We introduced that about a year ago. We worked with the support teams to develop our own GCU theme and we re-branded it the app store. So the support and collaboration we’ve had to develop that has been excellent.

The software that I use is mostly 3D software. I usually spend a lot of hours and have no crashes, no lagging, no problems whatsoever.

We don’t have to buy full-site licenses anymore. We can buy concurrent licenses, put our application on our app store, and we can monitor that’s used and increase or decrease the license seats as we go along. We can add applications, we can update applications, we can include BETA applications, and students themselves can request applications as well, for them to be included in the app store.

Next steps for us, with regards to using AppsAnywhere, is to look at a much deeper integration with learning management system. This will mean that our students will have a one-stop shop to go to for all their materials and all the software that they need to study.

I would say to someone thinking about taking up Sofware2 to definitely try to at least a proof of concept year. I would be very surprised if any institution took on a proof of concept and didn’t follow up with a full-site license.