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The trial started on September 22nd, at which point the 434 existing users were automatically upgraded to Pro. Since the launch of the trial, sign-ups have continued to grow, and three months later (December 21st) there are a total of 1,008 users from the University of Cambridge on Overleaf.

In September this year, we organized the launch of a university-wide trial of Overleaf at the University of Cambridge, which we’ve coordinated with the Department of Engineering. The trial was launched in time for the 'Helping Researchers Publish' workshop on Tuesday 27 September, which was held in the Department of Engineering and organized by Hannah Haines from the University Library.

Speed-dating underway - 10 minutes to question the experts about authoring tools and publishing resources #openpub2016 pic.twitter.com/0dJa7kVqZY

— Hannah Haines (@bettymoonwalks) September 27, 2016

“The workshop was a great success, with around 50 people attending and speaking with us – it was a fantastic opportunity to speak with the students about the benefits and features of Overleaf and hear their feedback and questions. The students showed a lot of interest and during the speed-dating event our table was pleasantly busy (we got 4 rounds). We gave a demo, informed the participants about the trial and how they can claim their Pro Accounts, showed the University of Cambridge portal on Overleaf and answered a lot of questions.

The participants were also very happy to see their PhD thesis template available on the portal. They really loved this.” – Villy Ioannou, Overleaf

Since then, there has been a fantastic take up, as seen on the graph above. In November alone there were over 200 new sign-ups, and in total there are now 1,008 confirmed Overleaf users at Cambridge, compared with 434 before we launched the trial. There are users from over a 100 different departments using Overleaf, with levels ranging from undergraduate through to professors, senior lecturers and facility managers & directors.

“Having the institutional account is a great way to introduce and promote the benefits of using LaTeX to students and staff. It’s really encouraging to see that people are signing up and using the site to create projects.” – Dan Crane, Research Support Librarian, Dept of Engineering, University of Cambridge

The reaction has also been very positive on social media:

So today I discovered that @Cambridge_Uni members can get free @overleaf Pro accounts through the uni. Snazzy! https://t.co/JUaGUyawyh pic.twitter.com/pa34bVSycV

— Georgina Cronin (@senorcthulhu) November 15, 2016

If you’re currently at Cambridge, you can claim your free Pro upgrade via the Cambridge portal on Overleaf. If you're already using it, let us know your feedback, or if there are any additional templates you'd like to see featured in the portal.

Happy TeXing!

About Overleaf for Institutions

Overleaf Commons is our subscription service for institutions to provide Overleaf Pro accounts to their students, faculty and staff. This service provides streamlined, branded enrollment, a private resource center, a teacher’s portal, member training and administrative analytics/metrics.

Find out more about Overleaf Commons and see which institutions are already signed up here, or get in touch to discuss – we’d love to hear from you.