The phrase BYOD came to prominence around 2009. It encouraged students to bring personal laptops, smartphones and tablets to campus and lectures, rather than relying on the use of the university’s own computers in libraries, study centers and labs.
Although BYOD brings many benefits to universities and students, there has always been an elephant in the room… How does the university deliver the software apps that a student needs for their course, to their own devices?
With increasing tuition fees, students want to see this monetary value reflected through improved access to learning material. One approach is through the devices that they’re familiar with, anytime, anywhere.
It’s true that student-owned devices have become smaller. Laptops are more powerful and affordable than ever. Wi-Fi and connected services have become quicker and the reliance on online services to store documents has increased exponentially.
However, the way apps are delivered to these devices hasn’t changed. There’s still a heavy reliance on the traditional ‘installed’ application that natively executes on the device, regardless of whether that device is running Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS or Android. They all have their respective new app stores, but heavyweight apps that are typically used within a university are excluded from these methods of delivery (mainly due to their size and complexity).
So, it’s more traditional tools that are used by a university to deliver software. Tools such as Microsoft System Centre (SCCM), Norton’s Ghost, traditional FAT deployment tools, and sometimes a bit of VDI or RDS thrown in for good measure.
I’ve visited over 200 universities over the last few years and regardless of the country I visit it seems they all face the same challenging deployment issues…
Traditionally installed apps to a manged estate are typically deployed by a tool that places an application in an image with the core OS. That image is then deployed to lab and open access areas. These tools have been around for years, so the universities are familiar with how to use them.
The first problem arises when this image gets too large and they have to start splitting it into multiple images. Some IT teams will use alternative tools that allow the segregation of these applications. This is what’s commonly known as ‘image bloat’, and is a problem that won’t go away with these traditional tools.
The second issue is with an ever-increasing image size, the time that’s spent creating and updating this image can be vast. And typically, the universities I’ve met with must do this all in the summer, ready for the new semester. Often, applications don’t get updated until then, so there are a full 12 months that most apps don’t get patched with the latest security updates or version tweaks.
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Student and staff laptops have been introduced to the university network for years. The introduction of eduroam made sure that all students have a good quality internet connection and access to most common services such as cloud storage and email. But as I alluded to earlier, the ‘elephant’ in the room has always been the fact that most students can’t access university software apps on their own devices.
There are many ways that universities have tried solving this problem. In the past, some kind of RDS or VDI solution has been thrown in to the mix, that will allow a certain number of titles to be made available to students and staff through a remote or virtual desktop.
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VDI has always been touted as the way to scale large infrastructure environments. But with such a large IT estate, universities often find that to scale to the size needed to support all students, a large backend infrastructure would be required, along with a huge pile of cash each year and a dedicated technician (or two) to support it. To me this seems unnecessary, when all most students want is the application, not the full desktop! They want apps to perform at the same speed as if they were installed, and with most VDI tools that becomes even more of a challenge. Especially when it comes to heavyweight apps like MATLAB and AutoCAD…
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We believe that supporting the desktop environment in a university is one of the most challenging IT scenarios. If you take the average university estate you’re looking at 100s of applications that you have to deliver, to a huge range of different devices and potentially 10,000+ users.
The way universities have approached this is to use a number of different delivery technologies to deliver apps to an end-point. And how that application is delivered really depends on the end-user’s circumstances. A quick example would be if you’re a science and engineering student using AutoCAD within the university on a managed device, then typically the application would be deployed via Microsoft SCCM or other traditional FAT installation tools. However, if that same student is off site, at home or in a coffee shop, then the university may choose to deliver that app in a different way, maybe through Cloudpaging or deliver it through a remote session.
The dream for an IT department is to have one software package that they can distribute amongst the most common delivery methods within the university. The idea being that regardless of the delivery technology used, the application is packaged only once, reducing the time it takes admins to prepare and deploy software.
For students, the requirement is more straight forward. A student wants to use their own device. The desire is to use university software on their own device, anywhere and at any time. Ideally the ability to acquire this software from one place is desirable regardless of the device they’re using, and they would like to have software perform as if it were ‘locally installed’.
Students love the flexibility of being able to access apps wherever and whenever they need to, and not being tied to the restrictive opening hours of on-campus computer clusters (labs). Being able to study flexibly improves the learning experience and it improves student outcomes.
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Because of the unique IT environment faced by universities (100s of apps, 1,000s of devices, 10,000s of users), when it comes to application delivery there's unfortunately no silver bullet. Remote Desktop Services (RDS), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), application virtualization, desktop virtualization, imaging, SCCM, VMware, Citrix... the list goes on.
To meet student expections and improve the student experience of IT, what universities really need is a combination of some of the above, to deploy apps to users on any device on-demand, within budget.
AppsAnywhere does exactly what it says on the tin. We give university IT the ability to provide any Windows app on any device. In addition, you can maintain full control over access to ensure you’re within the terms of your software licenses. Full license control enables universities to see which apps are, and more importantly, are not being used – driving down costs and increasing efficiency for university IT.
We've reinvented the way students access apps. AppsAnywhere enables access to apps wherever they are, on any device, at any time, both on and off campus. Students (and staff) can even access apps on their own laptop, from a completely customizable 'app store'. Students no longer have to follow apps. Now the apps follow them.
No single method of delivering apps is the best. That's why AppsAnywhere has been built to support a variety of software delivery methods, including Cloudpaging, VMware, Parallels RAS, SCCM and App-V. That means you can deliver any application and deploy them all through AppsAnywhere, our beautiful user access portal. And yes, that includes 'tricky' Windows apps like SPSS, SAS, NVivo, MATLAB and AutoCAD!
One of the key delivery methods that AppsAnywhere integrates with is Cloudpaging from Numecent. Cloudpaging is an application virtualization tool, which has built on the foundations set by legacy equivalents such as Microsoft's App-V and VMware's ThinApp.
Unlike those legacy tools, Cloudpaging supports the virtualization of 100% of Windows apps. Applications virtualized using Cloudpaging technology run at the same speed as if they were fully installed on the end-user's computer. That means you can deliver graphics-intensive software without needing an expensive backend infrastructure to support it!
In this webinar you’ll learn:
Auto validation is still available as an option. We aim to ensure there are as few occasions of attempting to launch but being unable to as possible, and where they occur, explaining why.
Detection occurs during validation - the client is given a list of directories to look in and it returns what it finds.
Dark mode wasn't something we were able to do for this version, but it is something that we are looking to include in the future.
If client download is not available in that instance - such as in labs mode or if client install is suppressed, then the client link will not appear. The client download link will also only appear on platforms which have a client - i.e. Windows and macOS.
If you would like to upgrade to 2.12 please submit a support request and the team will be touch.
To implement BYOD in a cost-effective and sustainable way, schools will need a clear idea of a number of key data points to understand which technologies are necessary and how many licenses of each technology are required: Number of users/devices Weighting of device type/platform (Windows vs Mac vs Linux) Software titles to deliver Usage data on software titles for licensing User groups requiring specialist software You can read more about implementing BYOD policies in schools in the SecurEdge article, ‘How to successfully implement a BYOD program into your school’ > https://www.securedgenetworks.com/blog/how-to-successfully-implement-a-byod-program-into-your-school
With a BYOD policy implemented, schools can begin working to introduce centralized communication points such as Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) or Learning Management Systems (LMSs). Software delivery tools such as AppsAnywhere also provide areas that can be used to communicate with students. Once BYOD is enabled, schools can be more confident that students are actively accessing digital academic resources through specific channels, and that communication propagated through those channels is much more likely to be seen.
Yes, it can do. While BYOD technologies may be expensive, with the correct provisioning and tools implemented, the decrease in hardware investment required from schools by allowing students to bring their own device and insight from reporting data can help schools save money on their software delivery.
BYOD policies in schools reduce the hardware investment of electronic devices, including mobile devices, needed for schools to offer equal access to digital academic resources to all students. By leveraging student-owned hardware, BYOD policies in schools can increase the resources available to students, such as software, digital media and digital learning environments, at a fraction of the cost of ensuring there are enough organization-owned machines for every student to use. Furthermore, BYOD allows students to access school resources outside of school and outside of teaching hours via their own device.
BYOD policies in schools help to introduce students to completing work from their own devices in preparation for higher education and employment. In an ever-more-digital world, getting used to using personal devices to complete work can help desensitize students to the potential distractions offered by those devices. BYOD can also help students learn to manage their time effectively in a society where the lines between work time and free time are becoming more and more blurred.
We’re excited to be releasing AppsAnywhere 3.0 in December 2022, in time for January enrolment. Your dedicated Customer Success team will be in touch when it’s available to ensure your institution gets the most out of AppsAnywhere.
To get the latest version if you are currently using AppsAnywhere, schedule a call with your specialist implementations team and we can help you to start benefiting from AppsAnywhere 2.12 now.
Most IT professionals get excited when considering new technologies and solutions. Without a doubt, the prospect of a VDI deployment project is likely to get your team’s juices flowing. However, deploying VDI is complex and often includes a host of new infrastructure and unique software management tools. The best advice is to engage with a vendor partner early on so that the design for your campus can be vetted by experts who work with VDI on a daily basis. A vendor partner can also help guide through different architecture scenarios, use cases, and potential pitfalls. All of the knowledge transfer gained will put the IT team in a far better position to successfully deploy and support VDI for your campus.
As is the theme throughout the rest of this article, there isn’t really an objective victor in DaaS vs. VDI. However, when it comes to Higher Ed, we rarely see full DaaS deployments. They’re often saved for more limited use cases, such as temporary BYOD access, or delivering to satellite campuses. For the scale of delivery required by HEIT, VDI will usually come out on top. However, you still need to decide whether to go for legacy VDI, or newer, hosted solutions…
DaaS refers to virtual desktops being provided to organizations as a service-based solution. It will include support for managing, upgrading and maintaining virtual machines. It is a more complete out-of-the-box solution with a price tag to match. Fully-hosted VDI is just like legacy VDI, except you don’t need on-premise server infrastructure, and they are often pay-as-you-go. Fully-hosted solutions are also referred to cloud-hosted solutions and they are the same as VDI, except hosted for you, as the name suggests.
Both VMware and Citrix have a robust product offering across many different solution suites. Historically, Citrix has excelled in the realm of remote app delivery or app remoting solutions. On the other hand, VMware leads the way with full desktop VDI delivery. Deciding on the right approach is solely dependent on the needs of the institution and what goals they are hoping to achieve with the project.
A formal BYOD policy helps to ensure a high chance of success and adoption as well as communicating practical information to users on how to interact with and use software on their BYO devices.
To put it concisely, a BYOD policy should include any or all of the following: Device type Operating system Available resources Security Usage conditions
A BYOD policy is a formal definition and agreement between the BYOD provider (universities) and the BYOD users (students). It is similar to an SLA (Service Level Agreement) between service-providers and outlines how users can expect to interact with their university's BYOD program, as well as any limitations, usage conditions, and compatibility information.
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AppsAnywhere is a global education technology solution provider that challenges the notion that application access, delivery, and management must be complex and costly. AppsAnywhere is the only platform to reduce the technical barriers associated with hybrid teaching and learning, BYOD, and complex software applications, and deliver a seamless digital end-user experience for students and staff. Used by over 3 million students across 300+ institutions in 22 countries, AppsAnywhere is uniquely designed for education and continues to innovate in partnership with the education community and the evolving needs and expectations of students and faculty.
Register your interest for a demo and see how AppsAnywhere can help your institution. Receive a free consultation of your existing education software strategy and technologies, an overview of AppsAnywhere's main features and how they benefit students, faculty and IT, and get insight into the AppsAnywhere journey and post launch partnership support.
Register your interest for a demo and see how AppsAnywhere can help your institution. Receive a free consultation of your existing education software strategy and technologies, an overview of AppsAnywhere's main features and how they benefit students, faculty and IT, and get insight into the AppsAnywhere journey and post launch partnership support.
