Body
The following labs are considered "general labs":
- Library Lab (public desktops)
- APFL 132
- APFL 216
- APFL 322
- FISH 339
- SCIN 133
- STLE 108
- Seibert Ground Lobby
- CCMA Second Floor Lounge
- Degenstein 24/7 Lab
Faculty needing software in these spaces or on general classroom computers should submit their request to IT by the deadline; instructions will be sent to all faculty via email near the end of the academic year.
All requests should be submitted via the software request form linked in the email sent to faculty department heads, by the deadline indicated in the email (typically by the end of May, early June).
The Office of Information Technology is here to help customize the classroom and lab computers to meet your teaching needs. The request of additional software in our teaching spaces may seem like a minor request, but there’s often quite a bit of thought that goes into this task, which is why we have a set schedule to make requests for each academic year. If you submit a software installation request after the deadline has passed, we will do our best to accommodate it, but please understand that we cannot guarantee fulfilling your request in an expeditious manner. The following challenges can make last-minute software requests difficult for IT:
- During the summer break, the Office of Information Technology creates a master software configuration (known as a disk image) that contains all of the necessary software and settings for all academic use computers. There are nearly 700 computers spread between the 30 general, specialty, and mobile labs, as well as classroom podiums – as you can imagine, it’s a daunting task. Having your requested software included in this massive deployment helps us with standardization and streamlined workflows. Due to summer conference, facilities cleaning/maintenance/construction projects, and summer class needs, we have a narrow window of opportunity to perform this summer computer maintenance.
- Installing software during the academic year may require that IT staff perform this work when the lab is not in use; this is often in the evenings or on the weekends – after hours work requires coordination of staff scheduling and potential overtime costs to the university.
- IT staff require time to test your software in our environment before rushing to installation. Many software packages have drivers, browser plugins, Office plugins, or other components that can impact other software titles on the computer or cause stability issues for the computer that impact other classes.
- If your software requires purchasing, license renewal, or license server configuration, this can require additional planning and processing time.
- Your software may change the hardware requirements of a lab, for example, we may need to install larger hard drives to accommodate a large software package. Such a request would necessitate much more planning.