Case Study: California State University Channel Islands boosts coastal erosion learning with Propeller's virtual lab

We helped decrease “compute” time from an average of 60 hours to 8-12 hours

California State University Channel Islands faced a significant challenge in its coastal erosion studies program, where students were overwhelmed by processing gigabytes of drone data. The traditional computer lab was severely limited, causing 48-72 hour processing delays, restricting class capacity to 24 students, and creating scheduling constraints. The university partnered with vendor Propeller to find a solution that would alleviate these technical burdens.

Propeller implemented a cloud-based virtual lab solution, leveraging AWS to meet the technical requirements. This transformation reduced data processing time from 60 hours to 8-12 hours, allowing course enrollment to expand dramatically. The solution enabled students to access powerful computing tools from any device, collaborate more effectively, and continue their work seamlessly, including during campus closures. Propeller's student-focused approach successfully shifted the class from dealing with technology to focusing on learning.

California State University

Kiki Patsch

Professor