“ We are building an IS operating model that supports the university into the future that is responsive , efficient and effective ”
— Peter Powell , Chief Information Officer La Trobe University
of accommodating students that could not travel , made complicated still further by social distancing rules , La Trobe made the early decision to move to online teaching , with only essential staff remaining on campus . “ A significant technology challenge to deliver in one week ,” states Powell . “ Under normal circumstances , we have 25,000 students taught faceto-face and around 5,000 staff attending one of the Universities ’ five campuses every day . It never ceases to surprise me how well individuals and teams really come together when you have a fixed timeline .” Five days after the announcement , all students were receiving tuition online and only 100 essential staff were left on campus . “ Then followed the interesting stuff ,” adds Powell . “ VPN could only handle 500 concurrent users , so a new solution was built and tested in four days with existing equipment . Microsoft Teams was rolled out for collaboration , over 2,000 staff were trained virtually and a brand-new virtual desktop solution was implemented for Campus Lab capabilities . Finally , hardware was deployed and services were developed , enabling 5,000 staff to work from home . This was , and still is , transformation at a pace which has created new capabilities for go-to market strategies .”
To support customers during the COVID-19 pandemic , IBM took the step of providing 90 days of complimentary access to Watson Assistant for Citizens - AI software which can understand and respond to common questions about COVID-19 on its own . La Trobe was the first Australian organisation to leverage this offer .. “ As lockdowns spread across Australia , La Trobe University worked with IBM Garage to launch a chatbot to answer frequently asked questions about the virus ’ symptoms , state and
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