Kuwait University is the only governmental university in its country, with 40,000 students and 1,600 faculty members. The university has built a unified, remote learning environment adopting Microsoft 365, Azure, and Surface devices. Through this change, Kuwait University enhanced the educational experience for all, gained valuable data, and improved communication between students and professors.
As the only governmental university in its country, Kuwait University needed a solution to ensure continuity of operation throughout the pandemic. “There was no other way to proceed with our classes, except going online,” says Dr. Abdullah Al-Mutawa, Assistant Vice President for Information Technology at Kuwait University.
The university's goal was to adapt the dispersed Learning Management System (LMS) to a unified online learning mode. Because students didn’t have a universal ID system prior, it was difficult to keep track of registrations per class. Sometimes students would opt to use their personal email accounts to coordinate with the school, instead of the official school emails. “There was no way to ask every professor to create their own class and add their students using emails,” Dr. Abdullah says. “But since we switched to Microsoft Teams, the tools automated the process and enabled our professors to use online learning more easily.”
Improved educational experience available 24 hours
Now that the university has a unified sign-on system, students and faculty can easily book appointments through Microsoft Teams and 365 Suite. Dr. Abdullah says, “It's not only about connecting teachers and students online. We even extended the education to 24/7 availability. Students can now post their concerns on chat and get instant help from their peers or instructors.”
Microsoft Teams also enables a more appropriate learning environment from home. “An awesome feature of Teams is the ability to isolate the background noise. You cannot imagine how important this is when 40 students are in an online class,” Dr. Abdullah shares enthusiastically.
The university modernized teaching tools as well. Surface devices were distributed to all faculty members, which worked as a laptop but also as a smart screen blackboard. Instructors found it especially helpful during online lectures and benefited from the Surface’s versatility.
Modern education boosted by cloud
One key challenge the University faced was conducting a huge number of exams concurrently. “We can get up to 15,000 concurrent users at a time. Hosting our Learning Management System on Azure made it possible to run such a number of simultaneous exams effectively,” Dr. Abdullah shares.
“We have 15,000 concurrent users. Hosting our Learning Management System on Azure made it possible to run such a number of simultaneous exams effectively.”
Dr. Abdullah Al-Mutawa, Assistant Vice President for Information Technology, Kuwait University
Having everything running on Microsoft 365 enabled the university to gain usage insights. “We can see how many minutes the students are online, how much time they spend on homework, or what device they use. This information helps us find the best time and format to our content.”
In the future, the university plans to use AI more widely. “The auto caption in Microsoft Teams is something we want to adapt to support people with disabilities. And with AI-driven bots, we can gain access to even more powerful data to enhance the learning experience for our students,” says Dr. Abdullah. The solutions used to enable learning during COVID-19 will be expanded. “Education will never return to its state before the pandemic. It will be hybrid. This is the new normal,” he concludes.
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