A student team from the University of Otago has won two prestigious awards for a virtual desktop project.
At the Tertiary Education ICT conference, the project was awarded the Microsoft Supreme Award and the Excellence in Technology Innovation Award.
After three years of development, the project reached its final stages in September last year. The virtual desktop was soft-launched onto ten university computers to see how students would react to the upgrade.
Emerson Pratt, the university’s teaching and learning facilities manager, led the endeavour and said the project received “excellent” feedback during this stage.
“We saw many students lining up to use the ten machines with the new software, despite many other machines with the original software being free.”
Pratt said: “It was clear the students wanted to use the new service.”
The project’s timing was perfect, as the university’s current software, Windows XP, is being discontinued. Pratt and his team asked students how they would like to use their computers. Students said they wanted more access, and so stemmed the project’s motto: “Anytime, Anywhere, Any Place”.
Initially, the project was due to be released slowly last year with a big launch in February 2015, but plans changed after Pratt’s team saw how eager students were to use the software. Previous login times were around five minutes; the new software averages 22 seconds.
The virtual desktop project will cater for all students, including those on placement or distance learning. Previously, students could not access university databases unless they were using the university computer rooms on campus.
“The new idea of computer rooms is to be accessible everywhere,” said Pratt.
Since its inception, the project has seen logins from 36 countries. Since the project’s release, seven universities have asked Otago for more information, and the University of Hong Kong has sent staff over to study the project.
Lauren Baker, an Otago psychology student, said she found the new software beneficial.
“I got really sick of waiting to log in at the university computers because it would always take so long, but since the end of last year it’s been so much quicker and more efficient.”