IBM and IBM Partner Flagship Solutions Group announced Tuesday that St. Thomas University is delivering new innovative classroom curricula and collaborative research projects using infrastructure from SoftLayer, an IBM Company. The cloud-based solution gives students and faculty across the Miami-based university the ability to launch initiatives in scientific research, mobile banking, sports administration and electronic medical recordkeeping.
As part of STU’s transformation effort, IBM will deliver six virtualized servers as well as work with STU to educate and train students on how to utilize cloud computing, provision servers, and move workloads. Access to IBM Business Analytics software will give students the ability to work on real industry projects, like exploring use of analytics tools to analyze sports stadium statistics and operations for Sun Life Stadium, an IBM customer.
“We want to invest dramatically in computer science, and with new faculty interest in cloud computing we sought IBM’s help to do something hands-on and that expands our research possibilities and collaboration at the same time,” said Dr. Wim Steelant, Dean of Science at STU.
The SoftLayer platform will also help give students hands-on experience in applying technology to specific industry challenges through access to case studies, technology-based white papers and other teaching materials through an IBM hosted website with 3 million students, 25,000 faculty staff from 5,000 institutions globally.
With its new cloud computing enabled research facility providing lab capabilities for all students, STU is already attracting new students. Enrollment in physical sciences has increased by 30 percent, and the university credits its cloud computing investment for helping it retain more students as well.