Organization Size: 8050 employees
Organization Profile
KL University is a deemed university located in the Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh, India. It consists of 11 academic departments, and six schools of excellence, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological research
Business Situation
KL University wanted to communicate effectively with students, faculty and parents. It wanted to bring all into a single cohesive, collaborative environment, providing a rich set of tools and technologies.
Solution
KL University chose Microsoft Live@edu, a set of free hosted communication and collaboration services designed to meet the needs of students and faculty.
Benefits
• Improves communication
• Enables to stay connected
• Improves skill set
Software and Services
• Microsoft Live@edu
Vertical Industries: Education
Country/Region: India
Business Need
• Collaboration
• Mobility
IT Issue
• Cloud Services
• Virtualization
Languages: English
KL University wanted to provision its 5,000 students and 750 faculty and 300 staff with permanent email addresses, and were looking for a reliable, secure and low cost solution.
What the university needed was a more reliable way for teachers and students to communicate and collaborate. After looking at various third-party communication options, the university selected Microsoft Live@edu, a set of hosted communication and collaboration services. As a result, it has witnessed improvements in student performance, closer relationships with parents, and enhanced learning environments. The university also subscribed to Campus Agreement with student option and IT Academy that made available latest technologies which boosted student’s placement opportunities. The solution met and exceeded all the university’s requirements and helped maintain a sense of community on and off campus.
K L University (KLU) is a pioneer in the field of engineering education and research in private sector in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It was established as Koneru Lakshmaiah College of Engineering in the year 1980. The college was made Autonomous in the year 2006 and in 2009 it is accorded Deemed to be University status.
Spread across 11 academic departments, and six schools of excellence, the university has a vibrant community of more than 5,000 students.
Students are excited about the reliability of the new email service as it enhances their ability to collaborate and co-ordinate with peers and faculty. So far, it’s been a fantastic tool and it’s helped us enhance the overall campus experience.
– Raja Harin Koneru Vice President KL University
As a forward-thinking institution, the university constantly looks for new ways to keep its students, faculty, and parents connected. However, while it had 18 labs with 2,500 computers and a data centre with 15 servers, it did not offer an email service for students. This made it difficult for the faculty and the administrative staff to ensure that every student received important campus communications. “We didn’t have a consistent, reliable way to communicate with our students,” says Raja Harin Koneru, Vice President, KL University. “We never knew if all students and parents received important campus news.”
The university considered providing its own email solution, or working with a local provider, but both options proved too expensive. Also, as the university was looking at provisioning laptops to their students for the new academic year, therefore, cost was a big concern.
“The infrastructure and bandwidth costs to support the student and faculty with 5,000 email addresses turned out to be very expensive,” says Raja Harin Koneru. “We needed a consistent email system to link faculty, administrators, students, and parents.”
Students and faculty alike wanted an e-mail solution to improve campus communications. The university began looking for a cost-effective student email solution that could unite students and faculty to enhance collaboration and add to the learning experience.
After researching hosted email solutions, KL University chose the Microsoft solution. The university decided to deploy email on the Microsoft® Live@edu platform, a free, hosted service for educational institutions. Live@edu caters to K–12 (schools), and higher educational institutions. It provides students, staff, faculty, and alumni with long-term, primary email addresses and other applications they can use to collaborate and communicate online. “Microsoft Live@edu is the ideal solution for us,” says Raja Harin Koneru, Vice President, KL University, “It offers is a rich set of collaboration and communication services. We preferred it to the other offerings, as we believed it would work better for our students and faculty.”
The new platform, combined with Windows 7, creates a connected learning community. KL University worked with Precision Infomatic Ltd. to deploy the solution.
With Live@edu, all faculty, staff and students now have a stable and secure technology platform to enhance both the teaching and learning environment. Every staff member, faculty, and student has a university email address that is used regularly for communication.
As a Microsoft IT Academy member, we have access to excellent resources and support that enable our students to get industry-relevant skills.
– Ravi Babu Systems Engineer KL University
KLU subscribed to the Campus Agreement with student option and Microsoft® IT Academy that provides resources that faculty and students value. The university is using the IT Academy program in the second phase of deployment. The Microsoft IT Academy program provides membership in Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance (MSDNAA) Program, which gives the university’s faculty and student’s access to the latest software. It also provided all the upgraded licenses for its labs.
Microsoft IT Academy helps KLU offer students learning solutions for IT skills training and certification to boost career prospects and employability. “The goal of Microsoft IT Academy program was to give students the opportunity to get better jobs,” says Y. Purandhar – Dean Placements, KL University. “It brings us information about the most current technologies available today and that’s what students need and want.”
KLU also plans to roll out the Live@edu suite of collaboration and productivity solutions including Microsoft Office Live Workspace, for document sharing and collaboration; Windows Live® SkyDrive®, a cloud-based file storage service that provides each user with 10 gigabytes of storage; and Windows Live Messenger instant messaging service for real time messaging.
The university started deploying Live@edu in Nov, 2009. It was deployed within a day after registration. 6,000 email ids have been provided so far.
“Live@edu has been a hit,” says Ramana Murthy, Professor – Soft Skills, KL University. “The faculty and staff are thrilled with Live@edu because this provides a unified communication mechanism to communicate on a regular basis with the students. And students like having 10 gigabytes of email storage. With Live@edu we have offered everyone the latest communication and collaboration technologies with highly secure data storage at Microsoft data centers.”
With Live@edu, KLU is delivering a leading edge, fully integrated set of communication and collaboration services that is building a sense of community across its campus. The move is not only saving significant costs but also giving faculty, students, and staff a work environment that is more convenient and collaborative.
Improves Communication
Live@edu offers world class communication and collaboration services and is proving to be an excellent tool for communicating with students. “Live@edu, a familiar, easy, and reliable solution, has made it easy for us to deliver the kind of sophisticated online communications that students want,” says Ramana Murthy. “We have gained a dependable communication link between faculty and students that we had long needed.”
Adds Venu Madhav, In-charge Automation Systems, “Collaboration and information sharing between faculty and students has improved appreciably. Students and faculty are using features such as Instant Messaging with Microsoft® Outlook® Live and Windows Live® SkyDrive® to access and share assignments and reports.”
The goal of Microsoft IT Academy program was to give students the opportunity to get better jobs. It brings us information about the most current technologies available today and that’s what students need and want.
– Y. Purandhar Dean Placements KL University
Stay Connected, Anywhere on Any Device
Live@edu increases the ability of students, faculties and staff to connect and collaborate with a suite of online tools, including shared calendars, documents, and workspaces. It keeps students and faculty connected anywhere with online access on virtually any web-enabled device.
“Students are excited about the reliability of the new email service as it enhances their ability to collaborate and co-ordinate with peers and faculty,” says Raja Harin Koneru. “So far, it’s been a fantastic tool and it’s helped us enhance the overall campus experience.”
Improves Skill Set
The university’s membership in the Microsoft IT Academy Program provides easy access to instructional technologies and thereby promotes enhanced student learning. “As a Microsoft IT Academy member, we have access to excellent resources and support that enable our students to get industry-relevant skills,” says Ravi Babu, Systems Engineer,
KL University.
Today, 1,000 students are currently taking advantage of the IT Academy program in some way, and 200 students have benefited from them over the past six months. The success shows that Microsoft IT Academy has been a good choice for the university.
Ravi Babu continues, “Most importantly, the platform provides the technology knowledge, which students need. It allows them to have the skills required when searching for employment.”
About Microsoft Live@edu
Live@edu is a no-cost hosted platform for student communication and collaboration, providing industry-leading services to the global education market. Email and calendars with a 10GB inbox, 25GB of additional file storage, document sharing, instant messaging, video chat and mobile email are just part of the feature set. Live@edu provides students with the professional tools to prepare them for college or work from day one. Live@edu is accessible through popular Web browsers for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems – and easy to set up, administer and manage.
About Precision Infomatic Ltd.
Precision Infomatic Ltd. is a part of Precision group, a 240 crore (60 Millions US$) IT Group, head quartered at Chennai and is one of the India’s premier sources for IT products and support services. Established in 1996, it provides quality service to address the Information Technology requirements of Corporate, Small and Medium Enterprises in India. Precision has over 1400 dynamic professionals spread over Bangalore, Hyderabad, Trichy, Madurai, Coimbatore, Vishakhapatnam, Mumbai and Delhi.
Microsoft Case Study: KL University