Category: Higher education

With Amazon Web Services (AWS), education technology (EdTech) companies and universities are transforming the video learning experience for students and families.

University College London’s (UCL) virtual learning environment, built on the Moodle learning management system, is at the heart of its digital education infrastructure and used by students all over the world. Before migrating to Amazon Web Services (AWS), its system could handle 2,500 concurrent users. But when the pandemic drove schools and universities to predominantly online teaching, the UCL team wanted to support six times this amount in just 10 weeks. Here’s how they did it with AWS.

According to a recent study conducted by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), less than half of all US students are back in the classroom full time a full year after the start of the pandemic. As schools look to safely bring students back onsite the fall, with cloud technology, schools can manage their large populations through robust reporting of test results with meaningful statistics around clusters of students who live, learn and play together while meeting state reporting guidelines for point of care testing.

Using AWS, Edunation seamlessly responded to increasing demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Edunation collaborates with top educational institutions across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and provides all-in-one learning and school management solutions. Today, the EdTech is on a mission to push learning management systems (LMS) beyond virtual classrooms.

The surge in cloud-based online learning is “positive disruption,” said Melissa Loble, chief customer experience officer at Instructure, the maker of Canvas. She believes online learning has transformed the classroom on a global scale—in many ways for the better. Read four ways that Canvas and other cloud-based learning platforms have disrupted the educational landscape, both for traditional colleges and universities and global programs.

“Action cannot be completed because the system is out of date.” Every technology user understands the frustration of getting this message. When Bucknell University turned to the cloud to modernize their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, they found unexpected gifts along the way: more cost savings, better solutions, and best of all, new “found” time to devote to high impact projects.

CEU Universities launched the first cloud computing program in Spain, in collaboration with AWS, to create pathways for students into cloud technology careers. CEU is working with key organizations as part of an initiative called CEU Tech 4 Good to develop student talent through mentoring sessions and internships. This hands-on experience will help prepare students to pursue cloud-related job opportunities when an AWS Region opens in Spain in late 2022 or early 2023.

Higher education leaders agree the coronavirus pandemic forced many institutions to adapt and innovate. Which strategies worked? Which tactics didn’t? What role did cloud technology play? The AWS education team recently convened a small group of university leaders for a roundtable discussion to learn about how higher education institutions innovated to support learning, teaching, health and administrative processes, campus culture, and physical infrastructure.

The College of Liberal Arts at University of Texas at Austin wanted to make it simple for students, faculty, and staff to contact support agents. This is how they built and scaled a contact center solution on AWS with Amazon Connect that reduced call wait time, cut costs, and more easily resolved technical issues — all while call volume more than quadrupled.

AWS and Howard University announced an initiative to upskill its students and build pathways to technical careers with cloud computing courses and training resources for educators. Learn more about how the collaboration will prepare students for the workforce with hands-on experiences, how Howard University is launching a master’s program with the support of AWS experts, and more.