RIP the Campus Computer Lab, 1960-2009 571
theodp writes "When every student has a laptop, why run computer labs? That's a question schools have been asking themselves as computer ownership rates among incoming freshmen routinely top 90%. After only four freshmen showed up at the University of Virginia in 2007 without a computer of their own, the school decided that it's no longer worth the expense of running campus computer labs. Student computer labs have been a staple of campus life since the '60s. So what are the benefits that will be missed as other schools follow UVa's lead?" The university's report notes understanding that "that students need collaborative space where they can bring their laptops and mobile devices to conduct group work, especially as the curriculum becomes increasingly team- and project-based." One of the spaces formerly occupied by computer labs "has been transformed into a technology-rich collaboration area."
Re:Printing (Score:5, Interesting)
Could be interesting to see a networked laser printer on every floor of every dorm in response to this. It need not be too horribly difficult to tie into a centralised auth system so you can track who prints how much, so you can have people pay for toner if they go over quota.
I wonder if the economy will change that back... (Score:5, Interesting)
Spend $1,000 on that new laptop, or instead use the same $1,000 to take out less in student loans? That should be a pretty easy choice.
Computer labs provide forums to exchange ideas (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my favorite professors, Arthur Lo, said of his course:
"Most of my students say that they get the most from this course from the lab exercises. I think that they get the most from their lab partners."
This was back when a computer "lab" really meant a "terminal room." But you could take a quick break, discuss assignments with other students, to make sure that you understood it correctly, ask older students which courses were good, tell younger courses which course sucked.
Computer folks tend to be introverted enough anyway; encourage them to get out a bit, instead of hacking alone in their dorm rooms.
They're still useful, but they should change (Score:3, Interesting)
I still find computer labs on campus useful. Some of the reasons have already been mentioned (printing, obscure software licenses, collaboration, etc..).
What I'd like to see more of is docking stations for laptops. USB keyboards and mice, large monitors, no boxen. Its still difficult to get access to these in most labs, they're often locked to the box in an inconvient manner...
The modern computer lab can still have computers, but they should accomodate the fact that many students have their own computers. Just include an actual computer at every other station or something...
Re:Printing (Score:5, Interesting)
Personal printers are horribly unreliable and very expensive to maintain.
For as much as tuition costs these days, and for the fact that many schools assess a "Technology fee" on top of tuition, I think computer labs and printers on campus should absolutely be present.
Someone who lives off campus isn't going to want to cart their notebook around everyplace they go, and I know from experience that it's a lot easier to get work done in a distraction-free computer lab, compared to a noisy dorm room.
Re:Computer Labs are still useful (Score:5, Interesting)
Very true. This is also important for the instructors (at least in CS) - how can you mark programming assignments if the environments used for development are that diverse.
It'll be interesting to see how VMs change that game: assignment handout is a Linux VM that runs on any host OS, an has all the necessary apps and libraries installed. Students hand in a modified VM for the instructor and TAs to run on whatever host platform they use. Not quite feasible yet, I think, but maybe in a few years?
Been a long time since I was in college, but .... (Score:4, Interesting)
I can see the "computer lab" simply evolving to better meet the needs of the modern student.
You're probably going to want to provide some comfortable workspaces where a laptop can be placed, and possibly offer amenities like a USB docking station with full-size keyboard, mouse and 20" or 22" LCD display attached. Network printers should be available as well.
You'd also want to have a number of desktop systems in the lab, loaded with specialized software packages needed for courses - but too expensive to expect students to buy for individual use. (EG. My ex-g/f had to use the SPSS statistical software for several of her psychology courses.)
Re:Still Important (Score:5, Interesting)
I graduated last December, so my experience is recent as well. Almost always, all the computer labs on campus are packed to capacity, and usually stays this way until late at night.
Labs provide several things:
First, a place to do last minute changes before printing. Yes, there are portable printers, but for students, they are both expensive in both initial expense and per ink cartridge. Connecting over a wireless network can be problematic for some computers, and finding the right printer in the right floor of the right building to print to can confuse some students who are barely able to stand up due to a hangover the night before.
Second, not every student wants to deal with a laptop all the time. It is nice to just carry around a USB flash drive, or just store files in a home directory.
Third, the computers in a computer lab run by competant admins are usually decently secure, provided you reboot them before use to ensure DeepFreeze rolls back all changes done by the previous person.
Fourth, there are apps that are very expensive. Not just Maple and Mathematica, but MiniTab, AutoCAD, SPSS, Cubase and plugins, Premiere, the CS suite, Microsoft Office, etc. Yes, one can get demo versions, and yes, one can make the "demo versions" have a very long evaluation period, but most students don't pirate either for legal/ethical reasons, or the fact that infected torrents are becoming more and more commonplace.
Finally, there is something nice about going in and checking mail and Web forums on a machine without having to either dig up a laptop or try to fumble with a smartphone's small screen. Just sit down, log in, do your E-mail and Web browsing, log off, and go about your business.
Operating System and Applications (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember when I first began Engineering at my local university, many of the kids did indeed have laptops. But they're (by and large) laptops running WinXP or some Apple OS. When we began our C course, not one of them knew what gcc was, or how to use XEmacs (which is what the course instructors asked us to use). Even those with laptops used the computer labs throughout the entire term.
Personally, my laptop (running Ubuntu at the time) suffered a hard drive failure during the semester and I'm eternally thankful I had access to the computer labs during that time.
Re:Printing (Score:4, Interesting)
Did you know that printers can be accessed via a network? Even a WIRELESS network?
Truly, we live in the future.
Why Have Student Labs - Two Reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
In my experience there's a lot of pressure from to get rid of labs in Universities and Colleges simply to reduce costs. At it's core, this is a process of shifting the cost of computing facilities from the institution to the students. And yes, I know that when the institution pays for labs the monies are ultimately coming, at least in part, from the paying students. However, a machine in a student lab is much more highly untilised that an individual's notebook, a cost of labs is spread across all students, rather than the individual, and the economies of scale mean that the cost per unit for the institution is utually much less than the cost per unit in the individual model.
Anyway, two reasons to retain labs:
- some students don't have notebooks. Should ownership of a computer be a prerequisite to obtaining a post-secondary education? I'm sure the vast majority of students have their own desktop or notebook, but the single parent working part-time and supporting two kids while trying to upgrade their credentials might not.
- speciality software (GIS, discipline-specific stuff for psychology courses, math courses, etc.) is pretty damned expensive, and typically has very restrictive licenses in terms of seat installations or concurrent users. Trying to get licensing that allows you to distribute to student PC is tough and expensive. And Microsoft is the biggest prick of them all; they hose you if you try to support virtual labs to give access even to Office applications, insisting that even if your virtual lab supports 50 concurrent users you must purchase a license for every student who could possibly use the service, which is typically in the 1000's.
We're starting to push users toward Open Office (we should have done it a long time ago I suppose, but version 3 is pretty sweet and a step up from previous version IMHO). But the FUD out there makes students hesitant - faculty telling them their work won't be accepted if it is created using anything other than Word, for example, with both the faculty and the student not realising that they are requiring a file format, not the use of a particular program.
Anyway, getting rid of student labs is a boon for Microsoft, and for hardware manufacturers, and hoses marginalised students, while adding yet another barrier to higher ed so that only snotty nosed kids whose parents are paying their way through school can afford to go to university.
Okay, that last part is a little over the top, but not so far - there's truth in there.
Re:Oh, keep one around.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Slight digression:
This is why universities need to have a class on basic computing sanitation. Part of this class's lab fee would be a decent laptop. One can argue what brand, but that's beside the point. Another offering by the university would be discounts on licensed software. I have seen one university offer Windows Server 2008 CDs for $25, XP for $5, and similar prices for Office, iWork, and OS X upgrades.
This basics class should teach computing essentials of labs such as logging on, making sure you are logged off, rebooting to make sure DeepFreeze cleaned everything off, saving stuff to one's home directory and not a temporary directory, and basic common courtesy when it comes to printing.
It should also teach the basics of what to do on the laptop. Not just buying a copy of Norton Antivirus and installing it, but also concerning about backups and where old files are stored that are not needed on a daily basis.
Of course this course should cover basic stuff like dealing with phishing E-mails (manually type the site's URL to verify, and do NOT click on the link), validating SSL certs (to show that www.bank.com isn't really www.bank1.com), and not downloading and running executables unless one knows they are from a trusted source should be covered.
Most people reading this on Slashdot have this knowledge as instinct. However, people will be surprised how many students do not know even the basics of computer security to guard the data on their machines. I have had to instruct many a student sporting a new Macbook where to buy an inexpensive portable 3.5" disk, and get Time Machine set up so they have a way to recover deleted files should disaster befall them later on in their college adventures. With Windows, because access to backup utilities depends greatly on the OS and edition, I recommend highly a third party utility like Retrospect or Acronis TrueImage. Add to this a subscription to Mozy (which allows unlimited data backed up for $5 a month per machine for home users), and this will cover almost any disaster that would befall a student's machine.
Re:I wonder if the economy will change that back.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Oh, keep one around.... (Score:3, Interesting)
A few, sure.
On my campus, I know of about ten computer labs, five run by campus IT and another five run by departments. I'm sure there are more departmentals I don't know about. I work in the IT labs regularly, and I almost never seem them empty. But those other labs are always empty. Shrinking the number of labs to what people actually use is a good idea.
Re:Printing (Score:2, Interesting)
the worst thing you can do is leave a printer in the dorms (especially of first year students) as they will inevitably be hacked and in turn be used for free copying.
Anything universities do to monitor people in uni residences will be turned to the advantage of the penniless (or just stingy) student
In my first year, every flat had an electricity meter that you had to feed coins to keep it working. After one bright spark discovered you could fool it by sticking a knife in it, viola, they get free electricity.
When they came to remove the money from the meter and found it empty, they got reprimanded and fined. However, afterwards they were a bit more careful and only did it once or twice a month - they saved loads of money doing it though and something similar would happen if you left university funded electronics unatended with students.
Re:Printing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Printing (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the problems with printing facilities on campus is that it requires students to go to where the printers are.
A good solution is to subnet off printers, with automatic domain login and printer negotiation, to allow for students to print to their dorm's printer -or if they're in the library or study room, whichever printer is closest. Each printer gets a subnet, and if there's a student on said subnet, that's where s/he prints.
As far as doing away with computer labs... that really doesn't seem like a good idea to me. What if someone can afford tuition, but can't afford a laptop/desktop? Such things should be optional for higher education - seriously. (It's one thing if you're a science major, another if you're an arts major.) At least minimal computer labs should be maintained: 1, 2
On the other hand, I feel sorry for campus support staff - student employees and full-time 'professional' employees alike. I can't even begin to imagine what kind of a headache all those different Windows versions, Macs, and Linux machines would cause on a network, given that the network will be largely "administered". I can see some fairly draconian policies cropping up as the result of worms and things: you've got to have version $x of antivirus version $y installed, and you've got to hand over control of your (Windows) machine to the Directory (incl. automatic updates and the like) if you want to use campus computing services.
Kind of reminds me what (IIRC) was done on my college campus in late 2000/early 2001 after Win2k came out. Anyone who had W2k was required to be on the domain in a limited role or their MACs would be blacklisted (on account of how the NT4 domains were set up for labs and the like, IIRC) for fear of what someone might do with a machine that possesses network Administrator privileges.
Re:Spend the money supporting the students' PCs (Score:3, Interesting)
That's actually what my workplace (a public university) does. We've got campus-wide unencrypted 802.11g and a place where students can get their computers serviced cheaply ($5 to $35, depending on what's done, plus some support from tech fees).
No plans to get rid of computer labs, though.
Re:Printing (Score:3, Interesting)
...I know from experience that it's a lot easier to get work done in a distraction-free computer lab, compared to a noisy dorm room.
I, on the other hand, find it easier to get work done in a distraction-free dorm room than in a noisy computer lab.
Re:Computer Labs are still useful (Score:3, Interesting)
"I agree; student laptops are useful for generic computer usage, but not that great for assuming a particular set of software, unless you're going to go the extra step and mandate that students buy a particular computer with a particular OS and software environment. If you aren't going to do that, you're stuck with some of your students running Windows, some OS X, a handful Linux, and very little you can assume about what they can install and run."
They could probably get away with distributing fully loaded and licensed virtual machines. Hand out usb fobs with the VM at a few central areas and maybe set them up to auto-expire after a year or 6 months or something so you can be sure that students will always have the current standard configuration.
Might take another year or two before the tech stragglers will have systems fast enough to run VMs without any pain, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least 95% of current students were suitably equipped today.
Re:Printing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Spoken like someone who didn't pay for his own (Score:3, Interesting)
3.5 days of work?
Boys and Girls. DON'T WORK IN COLLEGE. It's not worth it. You'll just learn less and get a shittier job.
If you know you're going into a field that pays well. If you know you have the talent and dedication to get hired quickly. If you qualify for student loans. DON'T WORK. I knew so many people in college who worked through college and didn't own a car who now... don't have a job and still work at where they worked in college. In a large part because they would be late to class because of bus schedules. They weren't free for after class studying or group projects because they had to go to work and or catch the last bus of the night and they didn't get very much networking done.
You're already paying 20k+ so what does an extra $5k a year in part time retail do for you? Nothing. It does nothing. Student loans go for 10 years. If $500 helps ensure you'll be employed and skilled out of college then spend the freakin' $500 bucks.
If you make 50k out of college instead of the 13k you currently make working at quickie mart in the evening then paying off your student loans is trivial.
Have a plan.
Stick to it.
Don't waste 50k on tuition if you aren't going to have the time to do the work because you want to save a few grand.
Re:Printing (Score:4, Interesting)
Noisy dorm room? The solution to the excessively noisy roommate is very simple but requires a slight modification of the way we view the world with respect to education. The solution is to live in your own apartment while attending college. Impossible unless your parents have tons of money? Nope. You don't need your parent's money. I'll explain:
Today, it is common practice to finish high school and immediately go to college. Why?
I did things differently and I believe it was extremely beneficial. I went to college, but not until later. First, I got a Real Job. Contrary to public misconception, you do NOT need a college degree to get a Real Job!
Now mind you, in the beginning, it wasn't a particularly well-paying Real Job and it wasn't in the field I wanted to work in (software engineering). But I was out of high school so who cares? It was a job in a dirty machine shop where I started off sorting nuts and bolts, moved on to sorting expensive end mills and drills, moved on to cleaning dirty machine parts, and moved on to writing programs for their machines, setting up a company-wide network, and doing quite a few wonderful IT-related things for that company, all of which began one day when the boss found out that I knew quite a bit about computers and programming. By the way, the job started paying pretty well! Since I was living well below my means, not going out to bars nearly as much as my friends and not spending money on anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, I saved up quite a bit of dough during those years and learned a tremendous amount.
When I was 24, I decided it was time to attend college and get that degree. I noticed something very interesting. The students who were fresh out of high school had NO CLUE about living in the real world. They would cram for tests only to forget the stuff a day later. They didn't have the life experience to recognize which information was a solution to an important problem, and which information was interesting but unimportant. How many times have you heard a student ask, "When are we ever going to need this in real life?" I heard this quite a few times, and always in reference to EXTREMELY IMPORTANT KNOWLEDGE!!! But you cannot possibly recognize what is important without the real life experience that you can ONLY get by working in a Real Job before going to college and getting into lifelong debt with student loans.
Remember, back in the day, children worked after school and during school vacations. Nowadays that is very uncommon, even in high school, due to "child protection" laws that place many limitations on how, when, and where children can work. Although these laws may protect children in one way, they harm them in another way by robbing them of important life experience during those years. Today, 30 is the new 20 because you need to gain, during your 20s, the life and work experience that your grandparents gained when they were in their teens. Today, people in their 20s are less mature than their counterparts in the 1950s were. You need that time, after high school but before college, to get that real life experience. Plus you earn Real Money, live in a Real Apartment, and if your job, like mine, isn't in the field you wanted to work in, you gain additional insights, knowledge, and experience by exposing yourself to something totally different. Much better than graduating from college and realizing that you have an infinitude of student loan debt and no clue what to do next. Not to mention that you do NOT have roommates (quiet or loud) during college, and you do NOT need your parent's money! When you want noise, you can go to a bar.
No lab == draconian laptop requirements (Score:3, Interesting)
Nerds need women (Score:2, Interesting)
Asked a girl out for a first date while working a shift as the lab assistant. Incredibly, she said yes.
And the date didn't go altogether bad (married 12 years with three kids.)
Re:Printing (Score:4, Interesting)
At the University of Colorado in Boulder, the people in charge of running printers (the IT department) decided to make the campus printing network for-profit, and it now charges rates that are comparable to Kinko's. As a result, every lab on campus bought its own printer, and many students followed suit.
Re:Printing (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>With cloud computing or browser operating systems, all we will need is a way to connect or probably we will always stay connected. The future is so bright.
Not when I'm paying a $10 a month rental to access that "cloud word processor" or whatever from Ripoffsoft. The buy once and use forever (or until my Word97 stops running) is the best model for users. It's the cheaper route IMHO. Of course most Americans today don't understand the concept of "saving money" or "stretching the dollar" which is why we have 2 trillion personal debt and 16 trillion national debt. Americans spend money like its an addiction.
Re:Printing (Score:4, Interesting)
>>>Computer labs cost money one way or another and the students are going to pay for it through tuition. The only thing that requiring a laptop does is make the costs direct instead of being payed for through lab fees.
>>>
Yeah but a communal lab where each computer is used by say, 100 students, is cheaper than one computer per student. It allows the overall cost to be spread-out and minimized (1/100th the cost). At Penn State in the 1990s we had 6 labs spread across the campus, around 500 computers, and probably 90% of the students used them. If that usage has dropped to 20%, then the solution isn't to eliminate the labs completely but to shrink them in size. Instead of 500 computers have 50 computers - the bare minimum. That reduces overall maintenance costs but still serves the poorer/lower income students who can't buy their own PC+laptop+printer+software.
BTW I visited Penn State just last semester. The labs were approximately half-as-full as back in the 90s. So yes demand has dropped, but it's still there, and the labs are still needed.
Not so good.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So you got your undergrad degree when you were 28?
That means that at 28, you're making the average salary of a 23 year old. And when you're 40, you'll be at the average salary of a 35 year old. On top of that, when you're 65, you'll be running on 37 years of savings instead of 42. And if you get married and have children in your 30's, you'll have missed out out on the first 5 years - the most important ones - both because your savings have the longest time to grow AND you can save a lot more of your income when you're single than when supporting a family.
A college degree makes you more productive. Delaying that degree makes you more productive later. This makes no sense.
Plus, it's not like you knew how to live like an adult when you graduated high school either. You just didn't learn how to be an adult AND take classes at the same time - so while everyone else pounded that out in 4-5 years, it took you a decade.
Anyway you cut it, your way is just slow.
Re:Printing (Score:2, Interesting)
Hanging out in the CS lab (Score:3, Interesting)
There was only a single semester when I *needed* the computer lab, and that was the first I had moved off campus. I didn't want to shell out the cash for internet access because, lets face it, I would spend so much time in the CS lab anyway.
The CS lab was linked directly with the department file server, and I had been running linux full time since my sophomore year. As long as I had enough bandwidth to upload a source file, or download the occasional lib file the prof provided, there was no need for me to be in that lab, and on campus bandwidth was plentiful.
So why do it? I liked the company. I didn't like everyone in that department, to be sure, but most of the folks I knew were pretty good guys (and a couple girls), and it was fun swapping stories of funky things we were experiencing on our own systems, problems we were having with our current projects, or the latest interesting story on Slashdot.
I was a TA for most of my college career, but I spent so much time in the lab that the idea of logging my hours was really a joke. I think it was true for just about every one of the upperclassmen (and those who knew what they were doing) that we were always there to help out anyone who asked.
There was a lot to be gained from that experience. The CS lab was a space where we could work with others, where we could serve as mentors, and where we could get a feel for what it might possibly like to work in a room full of other people with a common interest. I shudder to think of what my CS experience would have been like without that space.