Case Study: University of Cambridge achieves increased student learning and collaboration with Microsoft Azure Notebooks

University of Cambridge increases student learning with open source Azure service

The University of Cambridge modernized its engineering curriculum to teach core computing concepts faster using higher-level, open source tools, but ran into limits with traditional approaches. Instructors found MATLAB and C slowed learning with low-level syntax, students struggled with installs, and university servers couldn’t scale to support hundreds of notebook users while enabling collaborative, anytime/anywhere work.

Cambridge adopted Azure Notebooks Service (Jupyter) as a cloud-hosted, scalable solution, removing installation barriers and letting students focus on concepts and problem solving. The switch enabled richer, real-data exercises (interactive plots, data fetching), improved student outcomes in an introductory course, and made research collaboration and teaching delivery easier across devices and locations.

University of Cambridge

Garth Wells

Hibbit Reader in Solid Mechanics, Department of Engineering