The City of Glasgow College educates over 40,000 students across a range of full time and part time courses. To support this number of students, the college recently completed the building of two new campuses, as part of a ?228 million project supported by Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Funding Council.
As the largest tertiary education establishment in Scotland, it was vital for the City of Glasgow College to be able to share resources and data across a huge, robust and scalable data landscape. The environment needed to be capable of supporting its students across any of the campus locations, as well as allowing students of evening classes or off-site courses to use the college’s software and learning resources from any location.
Working with NetApp has enabled the City of Glasgow College to offer shared services, technology rich learning environments, and pave the way for exciting new innovations such as VR learning technology. In the coming months and years, technology will increasingly be used throughout the entire education process. For example getting students to design using CAD software, visualise their designs in 3D using VR, and then 3D print their prototype.
Craig Dowling, Head of Infrastructure, City of Glasgow College, said: “We have a duty to our students to look at where technology in education is going and make sure we are able to adapt our courses to the studies and technologies of the future. Working with NetApp has allowed us to make sure our data management infrastructure is ready for this challenge. Having the ability to work closely with NetApp and tap into the technical expertise available in our region has been a huge advantage for us. As a result, we are hoping to expand our IT services to other education establishments in the area, offering our datacentre as a service, as well as exploring the potential for centralised student timetabling systems, library databases and financial systems across the region. This could lead to cost savings and continuity for local colleges.”
Nick Thurlow, Managing Director for UK & Ireland, NetApp, concluded: “Flexible data management will continue to grow in importance when it comes to driving education forward as tighter budgets and emerging technologies increase the pressure on learning establishments to do more with less. We are pleased to have supported the City of Glasgow College as it continues to transforms the delivery of college education for students in Scotland.”
