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Virtual Computing Lab-Community College Project


This project is conducting research and evaluation work surrounding the deployment of a cloud computing infrastructure, the Virtual Computing Lab, developed at North Carolina State University. While these technologies were first developed for use in higher education, its potential for delivering high-cost, specialized software to the community college system became immediately apparent. Evaluation done in conjunction with a series of pilot projects in community colleges included focus groups, large scale surveys, and system log file analysis. Data collected over the past year has shed light on the promise of the technology, the challenges to implementation and its likely impact on instruction. Future work will both expand the number of community colleges participating in pilots and begin work evaluating VCL in high schools.

Project partners: IBM, NC Community College System, and NCSU's VCL development team
Funded by: IBM Faculty Research Award, NC Community College System
Project Period December 2007-January 2010

PROJECT TEAM