At EDUCAUSE a few months ago, we announced a new technology integration with Ellucian student information systems (SIS). This integration is part of our ongoing commitment to help education IT teams evolve the way they enable learning through technology for their students and staff.
With the VMware Secure Digital Backpack for education, powered by VMware Workspace ONE, technology finally meets the needs of every student on campus. IT can deliver any application—SaaS, cloud-native, traditional and mobile—to any device in a single sign-on (SSO) environment. The student’s digital workspace stays up to date in near real time and semester after semester as they add and drop classes, thanks to the VMware Connector for Ellucian.
[Datasheet: VMware Connector for Ellucian]
What This Means for the Education Industry
It is not breaking news that bring your own device (BYOD) is king in higher education. What is newsworthy is technology that breaks down IT complexity and barriers to improve teaching, learning and business workflows.
VMware works closely with higher education institutions across the U.S. to develop capabilities that meet the needs of today’s modern, mobile learner. We help decrease student dependency on expensive, resource-intensive and inconvenient physical computer labs to get their work done. No longer does a student have to schedule time in a lab to access required and often specialized software.
[Related: College Students Learn Anywhere, Any Time with Spartan GreenSky]
What Does This Mean for IT?
Leveraging the Workspace ONE and Ellucian SIS technology integration, IT can simply entitle software once, based on the courses offered—traditional or online. Every student’s digital workspace automatically stays current without manual updates or in-house development.
VMware leverages the Ellucian Ethos Platform™ to integrate student and course information from Banner® by Ellucian and Colleague® by Ellucian into VMware’s secure digital backpack technology, then delivers needed applications to end users based on the courses they choose.
“As an open enrollment environment with more than 30,000 students pursuing traditional education, continuing education and professional development across more than 70 study areas, Schoolcraft College operates in one of the most diverse and dynamic learning environments. This new solution for Ellucian from VMware will help us deliver a secure and consumer-simple experience to our students while streamlining our costs.”
—Patrick Turner, Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Schoolcraft College
[Press release: VMware Automates the Delivery of Digital Learning Environments For Ellucian Customers Worldwide]
What Does This Mean for Students?
What VMware’s digital backpack means for students is simple: They can leverage whatever devices they choose to use the right applications, access the right content and know that everything they need is up to date. No need to remember multiple passwords.
Students can work from anywhere, on any device for:
- Seamless access to educational content both on and off campus,
- Improved collaboration and
- Truly mobile learning and work.
To find out more about VMware mobile solutions for higher education or the new VMware Ellucian Connector, visit vmware.com/go/edu.
