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Inside Higher Education
The
‘Computerless’ Computer Lab
After realizing virtually all students bring their own laptops to
campus, Wisconsin liberal arts college opened an unorthodox computer
lab.
By Carl Straumsheim
December 5, 2016
Colleges were once the place where many students encountered their
first computer -- and back then, the computer took up an entire room.
Now, with computing power in every student's book bag and pocket, some
colleges are finding the standard computer lab is no longer needed.
St. Norbert College is one such example. The private Roman Catholic
liberal arts college, located in De Pere, Wis., last year finished a
complete renovation of its Gehl-Mulva Science Center. The last phase of
the project included plans for a computer lab, but with the college
about to phase in a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy -- requiring
that all students bring their own laptops to campus -- filling that lab
with desktop computers didn’t seem to make sense, said Krissy Lukens,
the college’s director of academic technology.
“We had been noticing that students were beginning to use their own
computers more,” Lukens said in an interview. “Even in their computer
science classes, about half of the students would bring in their own
computers.”
As it turned out, the number of students bringing their own devices to
campus was higher than that anecdote would suggest, Lukens said. In
fact, a full 98 percent of students were using their own laptops, the
college found. Making laptop ownership a requirement meant students
could use their financial aid funds to pay for computers (though the
college also started a laptop scholarship program to cover the last few
laptopless students).
The growing use of personal computers and, more recently, smart devices
is changing how colleges offer IT services. Without having to acquire
and maintain desktop computers, college IT offices are free to move
those resources around and change their priorities.
That can come as a much-needed windfall. According to the Campus
Computing Survey, which tracks IT trends in higher education, nearly
two-thirds of the chief information officers and senior IT leaders
surveyed this fall said their offices’ budgets have yet to recover from
the financial crisis and the subsequent recession. About one-third said
they began the academic year with less funding than last year.
Not all colleges are able to require students to bring their own
devices to campus, however. At colleges that serve mostly low-income
students, for example, a laptop requirement adds an additional
financial burden. It also poses challenges for colleges themselves, as
their networking infrastructure has to handle the crush of extra
traffic.
In St. Norbert’s case, the college was able to turn one of its many
lecture halls into both offices and the new computer lab. As the
before-and-after pictures show, the renovation left the new space
virtually unrecognizable. The drab concrete cavern, complete with a
leaky roof (“It was awful,” said David C. Pankratz, associate professor
of computer science), was replaced by a more communal space, with
tables for small groups of students to work together, plug in their
devices and display their work on large monitors, as well as movable
lounge chairs, personal dry-erase boards and -- crucially -- a healthy
supply of candy.
Faculty members in the computer science department said they were able
to influence the renovation process, including sharing thoughts on the
general layout of the room and more specific wishes, such as the size
of the monitors. Since the idea behind the lab was for students to
bring and use their own laptops, the faculty members said they focused
specifically on creating a room that would give students space to work
with one another and for instructors to view that work without invading
students’ personal space.
Bonita M. McVey, associate professor of computer science, said in an
interview that there are some drawbacks to students bringing their own
laptops to the computer lab -- lack of common configuration being one
of them (though the college offers a virtual desktop environment that
anyone can log in to for a more standardized experience). And while
many students carry multiple devices with them -- laptops, tablets and
smartphones -- she said computer science needs to be done on larger
surfaces than can fit in a student’s pocket.
“Students can work from anywhere now,” McVey said. “What’s cool is that
students choose to come to the lab.”
Since this is only the second year the computer science faculty members
are using the lab, they could not say whether it has had an impact on
the way they teach. Unlike the room it replaced, the lab isn’t being
used for lecturing, though Pankratz said he will occasionally schedule
classes to meet in the lab rather than the lecture hall if he feels
that students need hands-on time with the subject matter.
Similarly, McVey said she likes using the lab as a space where students
can show off their work. In that setting, students use the tables and
their monitors to host poster sessions.
But both McVey and Pankratz said the main benefit of the new computer
lab isn’t the technology it contains, but rather what it means for
computer science majors at the college.
“We’re really happy that our students have a place to call home,” McVey
said. “It has mattered greatly to us -- people feeling comfortable and
feeling like they belong in the major.”
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