Loyalist College, Ontario, CA

Customer spotlight

Higher Education has a unique set of problems when it comes to software delivery. It isn’t as simple as it can be in the corporate world. Corporate IT can satisfy their computing provisions with VDI as there’s just a handful of apps, and users have a one-to-one relationship with their device, but this doesn't work in Higher Ed.

Loyalist College (LC) situated in the city of Belleville east of Toronto faced this issue. It has around 3,000 full-time students and approximately 12,000 part-time enrolled in a variety of programs, including Health Sciences, Applied Sciences, Business, and Skilled Trades and Technology meaning a large variety of software applications.

Loyalist's AppsAnywhere Journey

The OCCCIO

The Ontario College Council of Chief Information Officers, or OCCCIO for short, is a member run organisation which was established to further the strategic and operational goals and objectives of CIOs. One of the many benefits to being a member of the OCCCIO is that members meet frequently and exchange new ideas and technologies. Previously, LC had attended an OCCCIO conference in which there was a live demonstration and Q&A surrounding AppsAnywhere.

Student Expectations

LC were previously distributing software using Microsoft's SCCM, which was too time-consuming and unable to provide a long-term and reliable method of software delivery. LC needed to both increase IT efficiency and available resources whilst delivering a better software service to their students.

Just giving them access especially the anytime in anywhere piece really allows students to do it on their schedule. Not all students are the same. You have some who are coming in as a second career and have families at home. They can't necessarily always make it in when they need to. So this gives them that flexibility to access the tools to do their work, and manage that within their own particular schedule. So, you know, I've heard nothing but great things! 

Staff Feedback

Being able to deliver software a better way didn’t just affect the students; the faculty and IT departments were thrilled about it too.

From the IT department’s perspective, the implementation of Cloudpaging via AppsAnywhere provided the ability for them to expand their software base, and understand what software is being used resulting in a financial benefit. Not only that but it also streamlined their workload!

We knew that the students would get it. And they're used to an app store. But faculty, we thought was a whole other ball game, but when we introduced the concept to them early on, they were very excited for it right off the bat. We would usually give ourselves three to four months during the summer months. We’ve now found a way to shorten that amount of time! 

Looking ahead

LC say their mission is to empower their students, staff, and faculty and this is clearly reflected in their actions. They ensured digital equity for their students long before it became a hot topic due to COVID-19, and it’s obvious that their students appreciate it. 

We are delighted to have partnered with LC and successfully cemented a long term relationship where we will continue to work together to provide digital equity to their students. We are looking forward to seeing what the future brings to this inspiring college! . 

AppsAnywhere x Loyalist College