Santo Tomas University in Bogota

Santo Tomas University (2:59)

The Santo Tomas University is one of the non-profit universities that is considered one of the leading institutions in the Colombian education system. Founded in 1580, it is the first University convent in the country. It is currently headquartered in five Colombian cities (Bogotá, Bucaramanga, Medellín, Tunja and Villavicencio) and twenty-three (23) university centers in the rest of the country.

In March 2020, more than 30,000 students were sent home due to the progression of the pandemic. This was a major challenge for the University TIC ( Technology in Classroom ) department. Not only because it had to provide students with access to the university computer labs, but also to ensure compliance with the institution's security policies for managing access to internal systems and applications.

"The pandemic presented several challenges to the University, especially the technology department. The biggest challenge was ensuring that our students had access to all of the academic software and hardware resources we have in the infrastructure. This is where ISL Online came in. After reviewing several similar software solutions on the market, we were convinced that our students could securely access the college infrastructure resources remotely," explains Jeferson Urrego, Head of the TIC (Technology in the Classroom) department at the Santo Tomás University.

Private cloud for remote access to entire University

With the goal of continuing to offer high-quality products to the entire community, the University has decided to implement ISL Online - a remote access solution that would allow it to operate seamlessly. ISL Online helps students access the university computer classrooms from their personal devices. Students can have secure access from any browser and from any device without the need for a VPN. It also allows IT staff to quickly access the entire computing infrastructure to perform maintenance or troubleshoot issues.

"We set up a private cloud where our students can securely connect to the devices that we already have in our computer labs using ISL Online and use the installed software with the power of the devices. This has allowed us to continue all academic services efficiently," comments Jeferson.

Eliminating the learning curve and ensuring a better user experience

The main requirement of the University was that the new remote access solution be easy to use to provide the best possible user experience for students.

"After implementing ISL Online, we noticed several benefits. One was that we were able to make the technology available to students in a simple way that did not require a lot of learning. We simply made the resource available on our installations, and students were connected through unsupervised access and could use the technology or software installed on the system. In addition, each student's access was managed based on their academic program," summarizes Jeferson Urrego.