Xen worlds: leveraging virtualization in distance education

  • Authors:

  • Benjamin R. Anderson;Amy K. Joines;Thomas E. Daniels

  • Affiliations:

  • Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA;Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA;Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

  • Venue:
  • ITiCSE '09 Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE conference on Innovation and technology in computer science education
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

The Xen Worlds project at Iowa State University was designed to provide a virtualized lab environment for the Information Assurance program. The large number of off-campus students, and a desire for high levels of security, drove many of the requirements for the Xen Worlds environment. Some of the requirements established for the project were: The environment needed to be equally accessible and easy to use for both on- and off-campus students. It needed to be isolated from the outside world and other students. The system had to be equally usable for students with limited computing and network resources. Costs had to be kept to a minimum. The Xen Worlds environment has now been used to support several courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level. This virtual environment was equally accessible to on- and off-campus students on a 24/7 basis and supported numerous assignments in support of established curriculum requirements. Finally, surveys of students who used the Xen Worlds environment show that students have a favorable view of the project and view it as a useful and convenient learning tool.