1. Service Catalog
  2. Teaching, Learning, and Research Technologies
  3. Computer Labs
  4. Student Virtual Labs (SVL)

Student Virtual Labs (SVL)

Available To

Students and Faculty 

Service Overview

This service provides 24 hour, 7 day a week access to university-licensed software used for classroom instruction and assignments. SVL offers no-cost, convenient access from nearly any common device to what would otherwise be expensive software. With SVL, students do not need to physically visit a campus computer lab.

PLEASE NOTE:  After March 29, 2021, requesting specific software access will no longer be necessary. After this date, SVL will be restructured so that any student or faculty member can access any software available in the virtual lab environment by selecting from a pool of available virtual computers (desktop images). See a preview.  These desktop image pools include:

  • Computer Aided Design & Maps: this includes such software as ArcGIS, Autodesk, AutoCAD, and Revit
  • Data Sequencing: this includes such software as Geneious, MEGA X, Morphoj
  • General vLab: this is a plain image with Microsoft 2016, Notepad++, ImageJ, web browsers 
  • Math & Statistics: includes such software as Minitab, Orange, R, R-Studio, SAS, SPSS, Mathematica, MATLAB, GeNIe (free for academics)
  • Programming Languages: includes such software as Eclipse IDE for Java Developers, Python, Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio Professional
  • Limited Licensing: this is given access to certain classes. It is not open to all students, faculty or staff. The application availability is indicated by ‘limited to users within the College of…'

Service Details

Benefits of the service: 

  • No cost
  • Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except during short periods of routine maintenance) 
  • More consistent instructional experience since Mac and PC users will have a very similar virtual desktop environment 
  • Compatible on most devices (Windows, Mac, iOS, Linux, and Android) 
  • Up to 2 GB of temporary file storage on a semester-by-semester basis 

Currently available software (as of Spring 2023): 

  1. Advanced Design Systems (ADS) (limited to users within the College of Engineering)
  2. ArcGIS Pro
  3. ArcGIS Desktop
  4. Autodesk AutoCAD
  5. Autodesk Civil 3D
  6. Autodesk NavisWorks Manage (limited to users within the College of Engineering)
  7. Autodesk Revit
  8. Design Entry CIS (limited to users within the College of Engineering)
  9. Eclipse IDE for Java Developers
  10. ETABS (limited to users within the College of Engineering)
  11. Geneious
  12. GeNIe (free for academics)
  13. ImageJ
  14. KeyShot (limited to users within the Colleges of Engineering and The Arts)
  15. LINQpad
  16. Lumion (Available March 2023)
  17. Mathematica
  18. MATLAB
  19. MEGA X
  20. Microsoft Office 2016
  21. Minitab 
  22. MorphoJ
  23. MySQL Workbench
  24. Notepad++
  25. NVivo
  26. PSpiceAD (limited to users within the College of Engineering)
  27. Python
  28. Orange 
  29. R
  30. RStudio
  31. SAS
  32. SAP2000 (limited to users within the College of Engineering)
  33. SpeedTrack (limited to users within the College of Health & Human Services)
  34. SPSS 
  35. SOLIDWORKS (limited to users within the Colleges of Engineering and The Arts)
  36. Stata/IC (limited to users within the College of Liberal Arts)
  37. Visual Studio Code
  38. Visual Studio Professional
  39. Vivado (limited to users within College of Engineering's Computer Science and Computer Engineering)
  40. Web Browsers (Internet Explorer and Google Chrome)

Note for Faculty:  If you would like to utilize Student Virtual Lab (SVL) as part of your coursework, please feel free to utilize the verbiage below for your syllabi or course material:  

- - - - - - - - -   

To complete coursework, please access CSULB SSO and access the SVL app/chiclet.  Select the applicable software package for your course.  If you encounter problems or have questions, please submit a ticket or contact the Technology Help Desk at 562-985-4959, helpdesk@csulb.edu

Requesting Service Enhancements

Service enhancements/requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. 

Any special software application requests can be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and will require up to a 4 to 6 week period for review, testing, and implementation; it is advised that any new implementations are not done during active semesters to minimize disruptions.

It is recommended that any new software application added to the environment first be tested in a live classroom lab for at least one term before it is virtualized within the SVL service.  This helps ensure that technical staff that supports the new software application has had an opportunity to discover any bugs and gain some relevant experience with the application.