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Switching a College from Desktops to Laptops?
tverbeek asks: "The college of art and design where I work is going to start switching next year from a labs-with-desktops approach to computers, to a students-with-laptops approach. The president appears to have made up his mind that we're doing it, so that's not really up for debate. We'll be starting by equipping all the full-time faculty this year, then next year start requiring (as in 'you can use financial aid to pay for it') each new student to buy a laptop that meets our specs (Apple or Dell, depending on major). Does anyone have experience with this kind of transition? What were the biggest complications?"
"How did you handle software licensing, especially for high-priced apps? How do you do software installs/upgrades? What do you do for resource-hungry apps (e.g. CAD, 3D rendering)? What about traditional lab configuration issues like anti-malware software, classroom restrictions on IM/P2P/network gaming, standard configuration options, etc. that would seem impossible to do with computers you don't own?
I know that many other colleges have done this sort of thing, but what about *art schools* or other colleges with high-end needs but mostly non-technical users, and where something like Photoshop is considered a 'core' application more than MS Office? Also, I'm especially interested in info about much more/less support staff the laptop approach requires; my intuition says that 1000 unsecured laptops will take more work to support than 300 locked-down desktops, but I need data."
I know that many other colleges have done this sort of thing, but what about *art schools* or other colleges with high-end needs but mostly non-technical users, and where something like Photoshop is considered a 'core' application more than MS Office? Also, I'm especially interested in info about much more/less support staff the laptop approach requires; my intuition says that 1000 unsecured laptops will take more work to support than 300 locked-down desktops, but I need data."
... what are you going to do with physical security? 1000 persons walking around with laptops is going to be sweet for any thief.
please excuse my apathy
You might check with your local law school. Many of them mandate laptop ownership for all students.
You're taking the intelligent route and making them pay for them on their own, though, so that's a step in the right direction.
Generally the feedback was students liked the mobility but hated being forced into buying a laptop.
Licenses weren't hard; they worked just like a normal lab environment, licensces are obtained from a central license server either on campus or a trusted facility of the software vendor.
As for the malware thing, in order for a laptop to get on the network, it had to prove it was up-to-date each time, and had to prove it was running university-approved, up-to-date anti-malware (provided free by the institute). This worked marginally well with only a few outbreaks.
The downside? Tech support, and lots of it. Students got confused, broke stuff, or generally got mad when things didn't work on the first try. The solution is a tech help desk, staffed by students or well-informed tech support people, where you can simply bring your laptop in and have it checked out by a "professional." That seems to clear up most of the problems.
Art students had little to no trouble, as they all bought macs. :)
This is a horrible idea. Crime in the area around my first college was bad, I'd hate to think what it would be like with _every_ student carrying several hundred dollars worth of pawnable hardware. I also see plenty of students incredibly pissed at having to allocate hundreds of dollars to a laptop that they need for food. Not to mention that it's a laptop that they, effectively, aren't going to have full control over what they run on.
Please, don't be so cheap.
And that's not all -- it's stupid in general, but it's even stupider in this particular situation becuase of the expensive and resource-intensive software art students use (e.g. Maya). First, getting licenses for every student will cost a hell of a lot more than getting licenses for X computers in a lab that are shared between students. Second, those laptops are going to have to be really high-end not to absolutely suck for the art students to use -- we're talking $3000 17" Powerbook expensive. And yes, they actually need the big screens, because all their work is visual and people really do need access to decent tools (and they need fast processors for the same reason).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I go to Lawrence Technological University, and they have a Laptop Initiative. They have two sets of computer types: a compaq laptop for architect/sciences and a micron laptop for the engineers. Each Major type has their own 'Laptop Image' that loads the computer with the OS and programs. Since all the computers are the same they just image everything in the labs and hand them out to the students. Then the student is free to do what they wish with the computers. They have no locks on them what-so-ever. The programs on the computers are registered like corporations, and some of them require you to be on campus to use them (Matlab) because they have to contact the campus servers. As for upgrades, its up to the student. However, every two years the computers are returned to the help desk for the next set of images to be loaded. And if you bork your computer, you can just go down there and have them re-image it for you. Any physical damages have to be paid for though. You don't have to use a campus issued computer. If you have your own you can use it on their network, but will not be pre-registered on the domain or given any programs/support. The laptop initiative is very useful because it allows students and faculity to contact each other when ever needed. Our whole school is wireless with printers throughout the buildings, so presentations and class work can be done on them.
These are the types of issues that, in a well run institution, are resolved before any change of this scale is put through. The fact that the president of the school has mandated this without any sort of investigation into the ramifications is a sign that you should polish up your resume and start looking for a new job. Unresearched, unfunded mandates from the higher-ups are a sign that you're working in IT hell.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Some programs at the university I attend do this kind of thing already (fortunately, not my program). Specifications for one program of which I am aware require a specific Dell notebook with certain software, etc.
There are all kinds of issues with this approach. First, you lock students into a particular vendor. My university has this annoying tendency to do this all the time (let's start with soft drinks, i.e., the Coke-only contract we have here) because of financial incentives from the vendors for such monopolistic contracts. Frankly, these contracts should be illegal for a public university. I really don't care if it pays for a new scoreboard for the football stadium.
More specifically regarding computers, it forces students into unnecessary purchases. For example, say I have an HP laptop that meets all the technical requirements except for being a Dell. Why should I buy a new one? Well, because we have this requirement that you get a Dell because Dell computers are better... No, the requirement exists due to a contract with Dell, period. Never mind people such as myself who run a dual-boot system. I typically use the Debian side for everything and get by quite well. Rarely do I boot into WinXP -- the last time I did so was to read something off someone else's flash drive because I don't have support for it compiled into my kernel (I don't own one). The last time before that was at least two months before. I do my assignments in OpenOffice. Does it really matter? No.
Finally, I would add that at least at some universities, you can get aid for any computer purchase. Ours allows an increase in subsidized loan amount for one computer purchase per student per degree (basically, one every four years). I am unsure whether such an allowance is available only at the university's discretion or if it is available to all students receiving federal financial aid loans.
I know this isn't exactly the "data" that was desired, and I know that most students in your school probably are not wanting to run Linux on their laptops and don't care about anti-trust issues, so they would be quite happy with the university requirements. But, I think the arguments against such a requirement are rather logical.
-William Brendel
Laptops WILL be lost/stolen/broken, no matter what you try to do. Give students the option to engrave their names and a phone number (somthing that dosn't change: mabye the lost-and-found dept.) in large, friendly letters on the cover. Provide insurance to users if they don't have it. Giving backup services and CPU power from a central server is a must. This means a large RAID array and blade servers (running Linux, of course). Even if all the above fail, provide short-term use laptops, that can--hpoefully--boot up from the backups previously made.
Also be sure to lay down wireless access points of all sorts. Put a printer attached to the network in in centralized places, probably in every room. Think of every possable problem.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
And then you have the poor buggers who are paying their own way through school, and don't qualify for financial aid because they make "too much". You're getting to where higher education is something only the rich can afford, and only the very poor can get help paying for. $30,000/yr income and I'm supposed to afford putting 1/6 of it towards tuition? Thats half of what I pay for housing...are you kidding me? And now you're going to make me buy a laptop?
But the users are still being forced to use -- on their own property -- the particular set of hardware and software (e.g. operating system) required for the application. If my school tried to usurp control of my property from me, I'd start looking for another one then and there.
Now, if they wanted to allow me to use whatever software I want, including using alternative software for classwork (i.e. any photo-editing software instead of explicitly Photoshop), then I might be less hostile to the idea. Although this is the case at my school (because it's not vocational), I highly doubt it would be the case at an art school. At least, it's not the case at the Art Institute -- I know for a fact that when they say they teach "3D modeling" they really mean "we teach you how to use the particular interface of Maya, but if you want to use some other program, like Blender, you're SOL." It's exactly like these "Technical Colleges" that tell you they're teaching programming but are actually teaching you how to use Visual Studio and MFC.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The thing is, it's not 'stupider,' and I'll tell you why.
As mentioned by the OP, requiring that students have a laptop allows financial aid to pay for it. Once every student has a laptop, the school no longer needs to invest the space and money on computer labs, just omnipresent wireless connectivity. In essence, the school is shifting the expense of computing from an indirect cost (i.e., tutition increase) to a direct cost (purchase). Frankly, most students would give their eye-teeth for a computer they don't have to share; the requirement of said machines makes the purchase affordable (via student loans).
Additionally, many software companies will deal in bulk with universities to provide lower-cost licenses to students/faculty. These programs encourage graduated students to purchase the software when they are out in the real world because they are familiar with it. MS is good at this, offering Office and Windows licenses for $75 each (yes, the newest versions, think XP Pro and Office 2003 full whiz-bang version). As far as high-end packages (solid-modeling in this case), one software company gives the school an unlimited number of licenses for a $5000 fee, but the school can earn that fee back by using the software in class demonstrations, required projects, etc. Again, the full-bore version, not a limited thing (this is software that costs $5000 per seat in the real world). Required software is also an eligible purchase using aid monies, thus making it easier on the student (in the short-term, at least).
The thing you're getting hung up on here is the difference between required purchase and mandated purchase. The latter (as I define it) is a computer bought, maintained, and controlled for you by the school. Medical schools (at least one I know of) are shifting to this setup, with exams being taken on the laptop (and answers being submitted via wireless; don't get me started). All other software is disabled while the test software is being run, and woe be unto you if you bring in a laptop for service that has anything other than school-sanctioned software on it.
All that being said, there are two problems I have with required computer plans. The first is that they tend to isolate students. Some of the more productive, enlightening, and entertaining times I had at school occured while working in the close proximity of other in a computer lab at four in the morning. The second is that, in order to justify the program, professors are encouraged to shoehorn computer-use into classes that don't need computers. Some professors do great things with the new technology, others, well, let's just say it doesn't work out so well sometimes.
Except for us middle class people- those who's parents make too much to qualify for any assistance, but not enough to pay for college. Requiring us to have a computer (and we are NOT by any means a trivial population) is NOT a reasonable expectation. I barely had enough money in college to eat despite not drinking, forget about buying a computer.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I can't believe this crap still gets modded up. Just goes to show how mods only know what they hear on Slashdot. LCDs are *just fucking fine* for what most people, including professionals, do with Photoshop. There is *so* much to Photoshop that *doesn't* require accurate color. Design, layout, compositing--so little requires knowing *exactly* how it the colors will look when printed. When I started using Photoshop here ten years ago, it was on a 256-color Mac driving a 3-year-old (at the time) uncalibrated monitor. Yet somehow, the results were fine. When needed, you look at the CMYK values. And it's worth mentioning that even calibrated displays are physically incapable of exactly matching printed output, anyway.
I work in a publishing company with hundreds of people using *gasp!* UNCALIBRATED LCDs. I know many artists and photographers in the area and NO ONE uses CRTs any more. All the work is being produced on LCD screens. We do have some press people here with calibrated displays, but do you think we EVER let ANYTHING out the door without seeing test prints? No.
The fact is, most of the Photoshop work happening on this planet happens on uncalibrated displays, and yet somehow the books make it to press, customers are happy, and the world keeps spinning. I personally know several award-winning designers and photographers and NONE of them own calibrated displays. Which would you rather have: a talented designer on a crappy computer, or a crappy designer on a great computer? That last theoretical 1% does not matter in the real world.
Anyone who says "You can't use Photoshop on an LCD" ranks right down there with audiophiles going on about their $300 cables and how CDs, let along MP3s, cannot be listened to.
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