For many of us, college is a distant memory. For me, it was walking across campus, or commuting from home to campus, to get precious time on the computing labs in Beatty Hall. This often meant long hours waiting in line for a terminal to open up so I could code my COBOL or FORTRAN programs for an assignment. Forget about the PC-based labs. They were restricted to the architecture and engineering students who needed to use AutoCAD or Primavera Project Management tools on those limited systems.

Today, students are able to connect to any resource, from a multitude of devices, from anywhere. Resources tend to be readily available to them on multiple devices, often with minimal restrictions on their experience. But it is not just the student population benefitting from this freedom, faculty and staff have similar options.

This flexibility has allowed institutions to provide access to educational resources during the pandemic. It has also allowed for hybrid learning, and teaching, from virtually anywhere.

Has this been enough?

Probably not.

Institutions and their constituents, need access, but also security and reliability for the systems they all use: security to protect the student, faculty, staff, and reputation of the institution, as well as the partners they work with on a daily basis like suppliers, vendors, or research programs. Citrix provides security on all of the levels of access, from policy management and enforcement to reporting.

Students today require flexibility in the devices they use, whether it is their own personal device or devices issued by the school, to complete assignments, collaborate with fellow students, or just take time to play the latest online game.

This flexibility can cause challenges with security, as well as performance and reliability. The challenges with purpose-built, restricted devices mean students need to go to the resources, so they don’t have those resources available wherever they are on whatever device they’re using. Devices need to be scanned, often continuously, to ensure they are not compromised. The users need to be authenticated in real time and validated throughout their time online to ensure they have not made a change that could change their security context. And finally the systems on the back end need to be aware of the changes in the user context to adjust access to content and services based on the policies of the institution.

Now more than ever, faculty and staff are required to ensure they are engaged with their students to allow the students to maintain their cadence and be successful. Often the faculty would work from their campus offices, classrooms, or labs to deliver the course content and curriculum to a localized student audience. We saw professors teaching during the pandemic from their living rooms, home offices, or other remote locations — often with technical challenges related to bandwidth, network congestion, devices, and application limitations (and the occasional family pet). Classes that were held online, were often unsuccessful due to these technical issues, and needed to be either cancelled or rescheduled.

Student and faculty research projects were also affected by the pandemic, and the restrictions that came with it. This included restricted access to lab environments, research sources, and collaborators across the globe. Alternative methods were devised to allow some of the activities to continue, but for most students it meant that critical labs, or internships and clinical rotations were at risk or cancelled.

At Citrix, we are focused on products and services that will allow students, faculty, staff, and the entire institution to thrive in a hybrid environment. Secure, remote, reliable access to the applications, data, services, and tools they need will help them be successful. This will focus on security, experience, and flexibility, as core to their success.

Citrix Workspace can power the secure delivery of applications, desktops, data, and services to any device. Leveraging our Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) approach to security across the entire organization and environment can protect all constituents and stakeholders. With our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop service, we can provide access to those apps and desktops from any device. And with our networking products, we can enable the campus to be extended anywhere with the same level of security and reliability that people expect on the traditional campus. And with Wrike, we can change the way people work, with a collaborative workflow management approach to support improvements in process and efficiency.

Citrix is a proud annual sponsor of the EDUCAUSE Conference. If you are attending the show this year in Philadelphia, be sure to visit Citrix in booth #907 for in-booth presentations, live demos, and a chance to win great prizes!

We also have a Citrix EDUCAUSE virtual experience going live on October 26, where you can watch the same demos we’ll be featuring in our booth. We’ll also have exclusive presentations by our Chief Security Strategist, Kurt Roemer, and members of our Product Leadership Team. Be sure to visit the virtual experience — you can also win exciting prizes! And check out how universities are using Citrix technology.