@vnijs I agree that RStudio Cloud is the least technical overhead solution here. I was very lucky to have the university IT interested in helping me solve my server access/authentication issues when we set up the system linked to in your post. This past semester I used RStudio Cloud, and I'm currently writing up setting up a class on RStudio Cloud. I'll share a link here in a little bit. But I've also recently given a talk on it at eCOTS 2018. The slides and video cover some of the details: http://bit.ly/frictionless-onboard, https://www.causeweb.org/cause/ecots/ecots18/tech-talk/4. I'll be back with more...
I also agree with @mishabalyasin that the zero-to-data-8 approach is that easy. I think, especially in an educational setting, it would similarly require local IT help to get things going.