Help me build the best computer lab possible!
August 2, 2012 8:00 PM
I have the opportunity to build a state of the art academic computer lab. If you were one of our students, what would you want in the lab?
I have been asked to build a state of the art computer lab for our academic department. Assuming no budgetary constraints, what would you like to see in a computer lab you would use everyday? The sky is the limit.
This is for higher education. I am purposely omitting specific details because anything goes.
I have been asked to build a state of the art computer lab for our academic department. Assuming no budgetary constraints, what would you like to see in a computer lab you would use everyday? The sky is the limit.
This is for higher education. I am purposely omitting specific details because anything goes.
Which departments will likely have students using it? Because there's all manner of equipment that would be amazing for any Computer Science students (See: Kinect dev kit), while Biology students would have their own 'dream items'.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:21 PM on August 2, 2012
posted by CrystalDave at 8:21 PM on August 2, 2012
All I ask for is machines that don't ask me to configure the update settings for Microsoft Office every time I log in and try to open a goddamn Word document. That, and an up-to-date version of Firefox.
The other thing I would want is a place to sit down with my laptop and some kind of painless way of getting my laptop to interface with the lab printer over WiFi that didn't require me to install anything on said laptop. It would be nice if, when I needed something printed, I wouldn't have to e-mail it to myself, log into a lab computer, access my e-mail, download the attachment, open it in Word, tell Word that I didn't give a shit about updates, hit print, log into GoPrint, agree to pay $0.05/page, realize that my print purse was empty, put more money into my print purse by manually entering my debit card information, confirm the print job, walk over to the counter, show my ID, and collect my printouts. That, no joke, is the procedure at my school. If I could just show up with my laptop, open whatever thing it was that needed printing, hit "print", and then go collect my stuff, then I would be a much happier camper. If you've got an unlimited budget then roll some of that into making it simple and free for students to make printouts.
posted by Scientist at 8:23 PM on August 2, 2012
The other thing I would want is a place to sit down with my laptop and some kind of painless way of getting my laptop to interface with the lab printer over WiFi that didn't require me to install anything on said laptop. It would be nice if, when I needed something printed, I wouldn't have to e-mail it to myself, log into a lab computer, access my e-mail, download the attachment, open it in Word, tell Word that I didn't give a shit about updates, hit print, log into GoPrint, agree to pay $0.05/page, realize that my print purse was empty, put more money into my print purse by manually entering my debit card information, confirm the print job, walk over to the counter, show my ID, and collect my printouts. That, no joke, is the procedure at my school. If I could just show up with my laptop, open whatever thing it was that needed printing, hit "print", and then go collect my stuff, then I would be a much happier camper. If you've got an unlimited budget then roll some of that into making it simple and free for students to make printouts.
posted by Scientist at 8:23 PM on August 2, 2012
Grub boot loader with every possible OS you can throw at it. Ability to SSH into the computers from home to do remote development. Legacy machines running DOS 3.0 to test backwards compatibility. At least one unpatched windows XP box running service pack 2 so students can play around with metasploit in an environment that wont get them arrested. Nessus, xcode and pgp installed on every computer.
posted by KeSetAffinityThread at 8:23 PM on August 2, 2012
posted by KeSetAffinityThread at 8:23 PM on August 2, 2012
Also a 3d printer would be great and the students will love you for letting them play with it.
posted by KeSetAffinityThread at 8:25 PM on August 2, 2012
posted by KeSetAffinityThread at 8:25 PM on August 2, 2012
Also I would really like it if there were a supercomputer (wouldn't have to be a big one, honest) that I could get time on to run simulations and such. Seriously, my PI has often spent weeks running maximum-liklihood models on her personal office computer because my University doesn't have anything better that she can use. We recently got a bog-standard Lenovo all-in-one that is now the computational workhorse of my lab. It pains me that there isn't anything better on campus for us to use.
posted by Scientist at 8:26 PM on August 2, 2012
posted by Scientist at 8:26 PM on August 2, 2012
A 3d printer. Can't express how much I would have loved one when I was at school.
posted by Packed Lunch at 8:28 PM on August 2, 2012
posted by Packed Lunch at 8:28 PM on August 2, 2012
I'm with Scientist here on being able to print via wifi. I graduated a little over a year ago, but there was no way for the people on wifi to print other than how he describes (sans the cost).
posted by Meep! Eek! at 8:32 PM on August 2, 2012
posted by Meep! Eek! at 8:32 PM on August 2, 2012
ESX Cluster (or whatever its open-source equivalent is) to spin up / down / reset virtual machines of any OS.
Tons of disk space.
posted by meowzilla at 8:32 PM on August 2, 2012
Tons of disk space.
posted by meowzilla at 8:32 PM on August 2, 2012
Anyway, not to dominate but I would seriously make sure that you have your fundamentals nailed down before going crazy with the toys. Make sure that there are plenty of machines, that they're all properly configured, and that they have all the relevant software that the students at your University will need.
Talk to the heads of various departments and get them to give you a list of the different software packages that students (undergrad and graduate) use in their studies and work. Make sure that the computers in your lab are capable of running that software, and get it installed and configured and regularly updated. If it's something heinously expensive that not very many people use then it doesn't need to be on every machine, but there needs to be a procedure for getting ahold of a machine that has it and not having to wait around for an hour while somebody uses the one ArcGIS box or whatever to check their Facebook.
Seriously, what I want most in a computer lab is working computers that have the software that I want to use, plus a place for my laptop and a way to interface it with the print system. Anything else is frankly a bonus. It would be nice if I could configure my account's desktop with shortcuts to the things that I like to use and my preferred default browser and have it save my browsing history and such, too -- it's annoying to have to start from scratch with the default Windows setup every time I have to use one of the public machines, it would really enhance the functionality of the labs for me if the computers there showed some inkling of a notion that I had ever logged in ever before. And it would be nice if I could have some kind of networked drive space that I could access either from lab computers, from my laptop over the school's wifi, or remotely via a web app. Dropbox and Evernote mostly replace that functionality for me though.
Apparently I have some issues that I needed to get off my chest. I'm done now. Just, you know, make sure that you don't lose sight of the fundamentals.
posted by Scientist at 8:40 PM on August 2, 2012
Talk to the heads of various departments and get them to give you a list of the different software packages that students (undergrad and graduate) use in their studies and work. Make sure that the computers in your lab are capable of running that software, and get it installed and configured and regularly updated. If it's something heinously expensive that not very many people use then it doesn't need to be on every machine, but there needs to be a procedure for getting ahold of a machine that has it and not having to wait around for an hour while somebody uses the one ArcGIS box or whatever to check their Facebook.
Seriously, what I want most in a computer lab is working computers that have the software that I want to use, plus a place for my laptop and a way to interface it with the print system. Anything else is frankly a bonus. It would be nice if I could configure my account's desktop with shortcuts to the things that I like to use and my preferred default browser and have it save my browsing history and such, too -- it's annoying to have to start from scratch with the default Windows setup every time I have to use one of the public machines, it would really enhance the functionality of the labs for me if the computers there showed some inkling of a notion that I had ever logged in ever before. And it would be nice if I could have some kind of networked drive space that I could access either from lab computers, from my laptop over the school's wifi, or remotely via a web app. Dropbox and Evernote mostly replace that functionality for me though.
Apparently I have some issues that I needed to get off my chest. I'm done now. Just, you know, make sure that you don't lose sight of the fundamentals.
posted by Scientist at 8:40 PM on August 2, 2012
I would look outside the box. Doesn't everyone at school have their own computers now? The lab needs to do what those can't. What is the mission of your department? How can this new lab further that mission?
Beyond that and Scientist's excellent suggestions, standardization is the thing. If there is a way to make the user's experience the same no matter what machine they log onto, the better. Furthermore, don't just buy wacky shit that seems like a good idea. Buy things that can be supported by anyone. Sure, YOU might know how to maintain some open source solution to some problem, but will the next guy? Will the university's in house IT people be able to support it?
Computer labs are where dreams go to die. They always have been, they always will be. Try your best to make that happen as slowly/little as possible.
posted by gjc at 8:47 PM on August 2, 2012
Beyond that and Scientist's excellent suggestions, standardization is the thing. If there is a way to make the user's experience the same no matter what machine they log onto, the better. Furthermore, don't just buy wacky shit that seems like a good idea. Buy things that can be supported by anyone. Sure, YOU might know how to maintain some open source solution to some problem, but will the next guy? Will the university's in house IT people be able to support it?
Computer labs are where dreams go to die. They always have been, they always will be. Try your best to make that happen as slowly/little as possible.
posted by gjc at 8:47 PM on August 2, 2012
In case it's not leaping out from their documentation, I'll mention that I understand VCL addresses many of the foregoing needs by providing online reservations/checkout of custom virtual machine images running in your private cloud environment.
So students and faculty set up times when the VMs with precisely the software they need will be available, either online or in the physical lab where teaching sessions enjoy the common use of machine images tailored to the class by the instructor. Apparently, you can have a distributed systems class walk in and use Redhat images with Hadoop on them, followed by a GIS class that walks in and fires up Windows machines with ArcGIS on them, followed by individual students who just need Office or who check out a custom image where they have root access so they can tinker. Remote access is also available.
I haven't used it personally, and I suspect there are competing solutions now. But for many years, it was the envy of university IT departments everywhere (and may still be).
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:11 PM on August 2, 2012
So students and faculty set up times when the VMs with precisely the software they need will be available, either online or in the physical lab where teaching sessions enjoy the common use of machine images tailored to the class by the instructor. Apparently, you can have a distributed systems class walk in and use Redhat images with Hadoop on them, followed by a GIS class that walks in and fires up Windows machines with ArcGIS on them, followed by individual students who just need Office or who check out a custom image where they have root access so they can tinker. Remote access is also available.
I haven't used it personally, and I suspect there are competing solutions now. But for many years, it was the envy of university IT departments everywhere (and may still be).
posted by Monsieur Caution at 9:11 PM on August 2, 2012
Oh, and scanners/copiers with functioning OCR so that I can quickly and easily digitize handouts and make copies of handwritten notes or sections of textbooks for my classmates. That would be pretty helpful.
Also perhaps it would be great if there were some kind of central repository of notes and papers and other helpful study material, organized by course. That way if I was curious about some aspect of a course, like I wanted an example paper to use as a model for an assignment or I wanted to read another student's notes or get a copy of a test from a previous semester, or if I wanted to contribute to a repository of such things, there would be a place to do it that wasn't reliant on the professor for that specific class manually updating the relevant section of the Moodle or Blackboard page or whatever. Something persistent, that existed across semesters without requiring professorial approval for submissions. I would be fine with this just being basically a public-access folder on a network drive, in fact making it anything fancier would probably break it.
I know that such a thing would probably get used for cheating and plagiarism, but students already have no problem doing that and at least this way it would be in a central and publicly-accessible place where faculty could at least theoretically keep an eye on it.
posted by Scientist at 9:12 PM on August 2, 2012
Also perhaps it would be great if there were some kind of central repository of notes and papers and other helpful study material, organized by course. That way if I was curious about some aspect of a course, like I wanted an example paper to use as a model for an assignment or I wanted to read another student's notes or get a copy of a test from a previous semester, or if I wanted to contribute to a repository of such things, there would be a place to do it that wasn't reliant on the professor for that specific class manually updating the relevant section of the Moodle or Blackboard page or whatever. Something persistent, that existed across semesters without requiring professorial approval for submissions. I would be fine with this just being basically a public-access folder on a network drive, in fact making it anything fancier would probably break it.
I know that such a thing would probably get used for cheating and plagiarism, but students already have no problem doing that and at least this way it would be in a central and publicly-accessible place where faculty could at least theoretically keep an eye on it.
posted by Scientist at 9:12 PM on August 2, 2012
When you're looking into departmental needs (if you go that route), consider the needs of less-directly-computationally-intensive departments.
Do the music, RTE, or theater departments want to use production software for their work? Can you provide headphones (even if they need to be checked in/out)? Can they record work in a departmental studio and access their works from your Academic Computing facility?
Does the history department have resources they want available for historical research, such as access to your and other research libraries? Are there specific computer publications you should have available in the building?
Does the English department want effectively a typing lab? Could it be separate from some of the other spaces?
What are the right configurations for work spaces? A row of tables is useful in many circumstances, but it might be nice to have both some more isolated work spaces and some more collaborative ones. Provide a projector or two in a room so that students can practice presentations
Consider planning and budgeting for an ongoing replacement program to keep your lab machines up to date. If you replaced 1/3 of the machines every year, you would still be state-of-the-art in 4 years.
Consider the advantages of a variety of different machines. Linux, Windows, and MacOS. iPads and Tablets.
Make sure you have a maintenance routine that works well for a harried student labbie to reflash a machine to the standard configuration quickly.
Provide shared storage, with a quota, that is available to every user from any machine in the lab.
Provide a lot of user-accessible power outlets, so that users don't unplug your stuff to plug in their laptop.
Consider getting a charging laptop locker, so that students can plug in their laptops, lock them up, and leave for lunch (or class).
Consider a large-scale plotter. Don't let just anyone print to it.
Expect that students will play games on the computers. I did. Have a policy in place to make sure that they can share nicely with people who need to get work done.
When I was in Academic Computing in the dark ages of the 1990s, we had a faculty-only room that had a few computers and printers for faculty emergencies. Usually it was used by professors who didn't want to be found outside of office hours.
posted by Mad_Carew at 9:29 PM on August 2, 2012
Do the music, RTE, or theater departments want to use production software for their work? Can you provide headphones (even if they need to be checked in/out)? Can they record work in a departmental studio and access their works from your Academic Computing facility?
Does the history department have resources they want available for historical research, such as access to your and other research libraries? Are there specific computer publications you should have available in the building?
Does the English department want effectively a typing lab? Could it be separate from some of the other spaces?
What are the right configurations for work spaces? A row of tables is useful in many circumstances, but it might be nice to have both some more isolated work spaces and some more collaborative ones. Provide a projector or two in a room so that students can practice presentations
Consider planning and budgeting for an ongoing replacement program to keep your lab machines up to date. If you replaced 1/3 of the machines every year, you would still be state-of-the-art in 4 years.
Consider the advantages of a variety of different machines. Linux, Windows, and MacOS. iPads and Tablets.
Make sure you have a maintenance routine that works well for a harried student labbie to reflash a machine to the standard configuration quickly.
Provide shared storage, with a quota, that is available to every user from any machine in the lab.
Provide a lot of user-accessible power outlets, so that users don't unplug your stuff to plug in their laptop.
Consider getting a charging laptop locker, so that students can plug in their laptops, lock them up, and leave for lunch (or class).
Consider a large-scale plotter. Don't let just anyone print to it.
Expect that students will play games on the computers. I did. Have a policy in place to make sure that they can share nicely with people who need to get work done.
When I was in Academic Computing in the dark ages of the 1990s, we had a faculty-only room that had a few computers and printers for faculty emergencies. Usually it was used by professors who didn't want to be found outside of office hours.
posted by Mad_Carew at 9:29 PM on August 2, 2012
My school had a row of 10 minute stand-up stations for quick things like printing notes last minute or whatever. Then they had sit-down computers that had an unlimited time limit. They had a certain percentage of computers that were macs (like maybe 10% or so) of both the standup and sitdown variety.
Automatic double sided printing was great. They had giant flat screens or giant computer monitors turned vertical that showed the print queue, so you knew when yours would come out.
Having a great stapler, 3-hole punch, tape, scissors, scratch paper, hand sanitizer, etc. were essential. Paper recycle bin nearby.
You might learn a lot by visiting a large university and see how they run things.
posted by Mr. Papagiorgio at 9:31 PM on August 2, 2012
Automatic double sided printing was great. They had giant flat screens or giant computer monitors turned vertical that showed the print queue, so you knew when yours would come out.
Having a great stapler, 3-hole punch, tape, scissors, scratch paper, hand sanitizer, etc. were essential. Paper recycle bin nearby.
You might learn a lot by visiting a large university and see how they run things.
posted by Mr. Papagiorgio at 9:31 PM on August 2, 2012
I loved the computer lab because it was a place where I could focus. My computer at home was too distracting, whereas the computers on campus where 'locked down' for getting work done.
It would be great to integrate things like dropbox, SugarSync, google drive, etc. so that students can work on and print their assignments from anywhere.
posted by Mr. Papagiorgio at 9:35 PM on August 2, 2012
It would be great to integrate things like dropbox, SugarSync, google drive, etc. so that students can work on and print their assignments from anywhere.
posted by Mr. Papagiorgio at 9:35 PM on August 2, 2012
Power. Everywhere. Put in a raised floor and place as many floor outlets as you can in your lab.
Desktops are great for power and what not but students want the ability to move around and cluster to their hearts content; don't constrain them by forcing them to sit at a machine that doesn't move.
Buy a few digital senders - basically scanners with a sheet feeder and an ethernet cable that email PDFs.
posted by inviolable at 10:12 PM on August 2, 2012
Desktops are great for power and what not but students want the ability to move around and cluster to their hearts content; don't constrain them by forcing them to sit at a machine that doesn't move.
Buy a few digital senders - basically scanners with a sheet feeder and an ethernet cable that email PDFs.
posted by inviolable at 10:12 PM on August 2, 2012
Oh, I just realized that my answer was for a Computer Science - type basement computer lab, where the users would be CS majors needing to add all sorts of packages and weird software that may or may not work.
If you're referring to a more normal computer lab for normal students, I actually worked in one for a few quarters (but almost a decade ago). These are some of the more basic things, but if you don't get these down there's no point in the more slick things:
- Printing: you need to have fast printers, and a seemingly endless supply of paper. I think my lab went through a ream of paper every other hour at peak times. Double sided is good. Even with all these things, there will be times where there are just too many jobs in the print queue. We had an bookmark prominently placed on all the computers' desktop that showed the entire print queue and the students' position in that queue. Everything was transparent.
- Non-locked down computers: sometimes students needed to install strange software for their projects. All of our computers allowed admin access, so you could install anything that you wanted. If you screwed up the computer, it was a trivial job to re-image the machine back to normal - we just inserted a floppy disk (remember those?) and rebooted the computer. Five minutes later, the computer was back to normal.
- Real-time status of all other computer labs: I worked in the most visible and busiest computer labs. We had real-time information about other computer labs - how many computers were in use, how many people were in line. Sometimes computer labs get full - people would much rather walk a few buildings down to a nearly empty lab rather than wait 10 minutes in line. We had that information available.
- Clean computers - We wiped down all the keyboards, mice, and monitors at the end of every day. They were probably cleaner than my own stuff at home. No food allowed, of course.
- Staplers - we didn't have these cause they would inevitably break every week.
Here's some crazy extravagances:
- Dual Monitors
- Mechanical keyboards (if people don't go deaf from the noise)
- Free blank CDs/DVDs
- Desk space for books and stuff
- User profile that follows you with bookmarks / storage / settings
But for general computer usage, your audience is different than CS students. People just want to come in and type their paper / print out their essay / check Facebook. Having a variety of Linux machines available doesn't matter, and may just waste a spot where a dumb Windows machine would be more accessible.
posted by meowzilla at 10:51 PM on August 2, 2012
If you're referring to a more normal computer lab for normal students, I actually worked in one for a few quarters (but almost a decade ago). These are some of the more basic things, but if you don't get these down there's no point in the more slick things:
- Printing: you need to have fast printers, and a seemingly endless supply of paper. I think my lab went through a ream of paper every other hour at peak times. Double sided is good. Even with all these things, there will be times where there are just too many jobs in the print queue. We had an bookmark prominently placed on all the computers' desktop that showed the entire print queue and the students' position in that queue. Everything was transparent.
- Non-locked down computers: sometimes students needed to install strange software for their projects. All of our computers allowed admin access, so you could install anything that you wanted. If you screwed up the computer, it was a trivial job to re-image the machine back to normal - we just inserted a floppy disk (remember those?) and rebooted the computer. Five minutes later, the computer was back to normal.
- Real-time status of all other computer labs: I worked in the most visible and busiest computer labs. We had real-time information about other computer labs - how many computers were in use, how many people were in line. Sometimes computer labs get full - people would much rather walk a few buildings down to a nearly empty lab rather than wait 10 minutes in line. We had that information available.
- Clean computers - We wiped down all the keyboards, mice, and monitors at the end of every day. They were probably cleaner than my own stuff at home. No food allowed, of course.
- Staplers - we didn't have these cause they would inevitably break every week.
Here's some crazy extravagances:
- Dual Monitors
- Mechanical keyboards (if people don't go deaf from the noise)
- Free blank CDs/DVDs
- Desk space for books and stuff
- User profile that follows you with bookmarks / storage / settings
But for general computer usage, your audience is different than CS students. People just want to come in and type their paper / print out their essay / check Facebook. Having a variety of Linux machines available doesn't matter, and may just waste a spot where a dumb Windows machine would be more accessible.
posted by meowzilla at 10:51 PM on August 2, 2012
I suggest staying away from building clusters and the like.
1. A research lab at your school probably has a better-funded and better-managed cluster.
2. Amazon runs a much better public cluster than most research facilities will ever see.
3. No one needs to come to a computer lab to use a cluster, which is usually accessed via a job scheduler in a remote shell.
The only reason I might run a state-of-the-art computational cluster is not for students to use directly, but to serve the computational requirements of a visualization wall. This would be great for data exploration by students in hard science labs (biophysics, informatics-focused life sciences, etc.).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 PM on August 2, 2012
1. A research lab at your school probably has a better-funded and better-managed cluster.
2. Amazon runs a much better public cluster than most research facilities will ever see.
3. No one needs to come to a computer lab to use a cluster, which is usually accessed via a job scheduler in a remote shell.
The only reason I might run a state-of-the-art computational cluster is not for students to use directly, but to serve the computational requirements of a visualization wall. This would be great for data exploration by students in hard science labs (biophysics, informatics-focused life sciences, etc.).
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:04 PM on August 2, 2012
Think about how to keep everything up to date, ask undergrad, graduate, and faculty members what they want. Online polls, emails, whatever. Ask them from a teaching/student standpoint and a research standpoint. Ask what they need currently, and what they might like so that they could expand on their teaching/labs. Get feedback as you go along. And listen to Scientist, seriously great advice.
I would probably want A bunch of reasonably nice desktops for general purpose programming/cad/office work/etc. Again, ask what your users want. Having these set up right and enough of them is at least half of the battle to be happy. Most of the other half is printing. You want these to be a fair bit better than peoples cheap laptops so that they have incentive to use them when their doing some moderately heavy computing and not be upset at performance. You also want them to stay this way as the years go on. You may be doomed to fail at this, and this is where dreams die.
In my little world, they would have 24-27 inch IPS monitors depending on budget. Nice monitors also help computer usage feel nice (so so so many labs have terrible, tiny flat panels. Painful to work on.) I havent used VCL but it does look pretty nice. Otherwise *nix and windows dual boot that are sandboxed so that you can play admin. People need to install their own stuff regularly, and you can't cover every edge case. System wise I'm thinking i7, 8-16 gigs of ram, and a mid-range graphics card. Room by each of these for a laptop to sit without pissing off your neighbor, and convienient power ports for them.
Dreaming a bit here, but some serious workstations for rendering/modelling/big CAD projects. Dual CPU, 32-64 gigs of ram, workstation class graphics cards . 30 Inch IPS screens. 2 if I can go crazy. Basically, bridging a gap between the cluster level and cheap and efficient desktop level. The upside to these is that when you upgrade these computers (~3 years) you can just cycle them down to the general purpose computers. These sorts of things are more important if the lab is meant to serve as surrogate computing for masters/doctoral candidates who are either only taking classes (no advisor) or who's advisers lack a real computing budget. Might want to have acces to these based on enrolled courses/research need.
If you have a general purpose cluster students can access, I don't think that there is a need to include one as Blazecock Pileon said ... but otherwise I will disagree in so much as just because one research lab has one (or one cluster bought by several labs sharing grant money) doesn't mean that it is available for educational purposes. These things are typically jealously guarded by researchers. Again, they are great for senior undergrads and can also be nice as a computer subsidy for grad students with no or grant-poor advisers. Queue scheduling on a large cluster is a *great* teaching tool, and HPC is not really taught enough in many undergrad or graduate disciplines. It's a thing many students pick up in a research group, or through brief and underwelming seminars in my experience, and a real undergrad or graduate course in its usage would be fantastic, as would its avaliability for general use in other classes. And something that would be great to have available for any student doing technical computing. As BP mentioned, Amazon AWS for Edu is a great option to buy into if you don't want to set up your own, and I believe there are some grants you may apply for. But its not the kind of thing a singular student can really get access to on their own.
some other wishes:
Several semi-private conference rooms with overhead projectors and whiteboards (and markers, dammit, keep those stocked even if I must check them out) for group work and presentation practice.
Some standing computer's for quick printing.
Comfy seating and tables for people with laptops. Also, tons of power outlets, strong wifi and ideally gigabit ethernet. Segregate some of this off with a few couches as a more 'lounge-y' type area.
Scanner/Fax that can email PDF's
Duplex Printer for B&W and color available over wifi. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, let my laptop communicate with this thing easily. Seriously. Ideally I can print with a smartphone/tablet too, A monitor with the print queue is also fantastic.
A blueprint plotter and poster printer, controlled by whoever runs the lab. With some charge system. Subsidize it.
Plenty of storage (remote accessible), and webspace if your school doesn't offer some in general.
Lockers that you can check out on a daily basis are nice.
office supplies/tools that are locked down so that they can not run away.
If this is meant to be a lab for senior undergrads to be working on big capstone projects, and who will have access to the joint at all hours, a mini-kitchenette is nice *if* they don't have access to a department lounge or some such. (i doubt that's the case, but hey - sink, microwave, toaster, hot water spigot and lockers you can get for the semester if you are in the appropriate classes). A few decent couches in this case as well.
iOS and Android devices set up with Dev-Kits would be nice if that fits within your realm of need.
3D printer, rapid prototyper, Kinect dev-kit, lego mindstorms, and arduino boards you could check out would be super neat, but not really the core need of the lab.
posted by McSwaggers at 12:57 AM on August 3, 2012
I would probably want A bunch of reasonably nice desktops for general purpose programming/cad/office work/etc. Again, ask what your users want. Having these set up right and enough of them is at least half of the battle to be happy. Most of the other half is printing. You want these to be a fair bit better than peoples cheap laptops so that they have incentive to use them when their doing some moderately heavy computing and not be upset at performance. You also want them to stay this way as the years go on. You may be doomed to fail at this, and this is where dreams die.
In my little world, they would have 24-27 inch IPS monitors depending on budget. Nice monitors also help computer usage feel nice (so so so many labs have terrible, tiny flat panels. Painful to work on.) I havent used VCL but it does look pretty nice. Otherwise *nix and windows dual boot that are sandboxed so that you can play admin. People need to install their own stuff regularly, and you can't cover every edge case. System wise I'm thinking i7, 8-16 gigs of ram, and a mid-range graphics card. Room by each of these for a laptop to sit without pissing off your neighbor, and convienient power ports for them.
Dreaming a bit here, but some serious workstations for rendering/modelling/big CAD projects. Dual CPU, 32-64 gigs of ram, workstation class graphics cards . 30 Inch IPS screens. 2 if I can go crazy. Basically, bridging a gap between the cluster level and cheap and efficient desktop level. The upside to these is that when you upgrade these computers (~3 years) you can just cycle them down to the general purpose computers. These sorts of things are more important if the lab is meant to serve as surrogate computing for masters/doctoral candidates who are either only taking classes (no advisor) or who's advisers lack a real computing budget. Might want to have acces to these based on enrolled courses/research need.
If you have a general purpose cluster students can access, I don't think that there is a need to include one as Blazecock Pileon said ... but otherwise I will disagree in so much as just because one research lab has one (or one cluster bought by several labs sharing grant money) doesn't mean that it is available for educational purposes. These things are typically jealously guarded by researchers. Again, they are great for senior undergrads and can also be nice as a computer subsidy for grad students with no or grant-poor advisers. Queue scheduling on a large cluster is a *great* teaching tool, and HPC is not really taught enough in many undergrad or graduate disciplines. It's a thing many students pick up in a research group, or through brief and underwelming seminars in my experience, and a real undergrad or graduate course in its usage would be fantastic, as would its avaliability for general use in other classes. And something that would be great to have available for any student doing technical computing. As BP mentioned, Amazon AWS for Edu is a great option to buy into if you don't want to set up your own, and I believe there are some grants you may apply for. But its not the kind of thing a singular student can really get access to on their own.
some other wishes:
Several semi-private conference rooms with overhead projectors and whiteboards (and markers, dammit, keep those stocked even if I must check them out) for group work and presentation practice.
Some standing computer's for quick printing.
Comfy seating and tables for people with laptops. Also, tons of power outlets, strong wifi and ideally gigabit ethernet. Segregate some of this off with a few couches as a more 'lounge-y' type area.
Scanner/Fax that can email PDF's
Duplex Printer for B&W and color available over wifi. Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, let my laptop communicate with this thing easily. Seriously. Ideally I can print with a smartphone/tablet too, A monitor with the print queue is also fantastic.
A blueprint plotter and poster printer, controlled by whoever runs the lab. With some charge system. Subsidize it.
Plenty of storage (remote accessible), and webspace if your school doesn't offer some in general.
Lockers that you can check out on a daily basis are nice.
office supplies/tools that are locked down so that they can not run away.
If this is meant to be a lab for senior undergrads to be working on big capstone projects, and who will have access to the joint at all hours, a mini-kitchenette is nice *if* they don't have access to a department lounge or some such. (i doubt that's the case, but hey - sink, microwave, toaster, hot water spigot and lockers you can get for the semester if you are in the appropriate classes). A few decent couches in this case as well.
iOS and Android devices set up with Dev-Kits would be nice if that fits within your realm of need.
3D printer, rapid prototyper, Kinect dev-kit, lego mindstorms, and arduino boards you could check out would be super neat, but not really the core need of the lab.
posted by McSwaggers at 12:57 AM on August 3, 2012
I think the thing I would want most in a computer lab are dual monitors. There are so many occasions for students across the gamut of majors to be able to make good use of dual monitors.
A color laser printer with some nearby screen to show the print queue like McSwaggers suggested is also a great thing. A color scanner and a double-sided sheet scanner (like one of the ScanSnap scanners) would also be a nice to have and could be used by students in all academic disciplines.
A few stand-up terminals with quick access checking email or for printing off of a network drive or a USB stick would be great too.
posted by that girl at 1:42 AM on August 3, 2012
A color laser printer with some nearby screen to show the print queue like McSwaggers suggested is also a great thing. A color scanner and a double-sided sheet scanner (like one of the ScanSnap scanners) would also be a nice to have and could be used by students in all academic disciplines.
A few stand-up terminals with quick access checking email or for printing off of a network drive or a USB stick would be great too.
posted by that girl at 1:42 AM on August 3, 2012
anything goes.
Plan for reconfiguration (long-term and ad hoc). Walls can be moved. Cables can be moved. Tables are on casters and the stuff on the tables is wired for movement (or is wireless). Things can easily be added in the ceiling or under the floor. People get super-easy access to virtual machines so they always have examples of the latest machines to work on.
Offer two kinds of physical seating configurations: a quiet (no phones, no talk, etc.) serious area that seriously discourages fucking around, and then a separate drop in and lounge area for making brief connections and spending light computing time. Give hard-working students a quiet place to concentrate on hard problems isolated from people who are just playing around or just dumping a file to a printer. Research and implement the latest recommendations in work area design.
Let people book a certain terminal, and then hand them a cleaned and disinfected keyboard and mouse to use on it when they walk in. "Welcome, Ms X. We have been expecting you. Please remember, this is a strictly no-phones area. If your phone rings or you accept a call while you're in the work area, you will forfeit your place today and have lowered priority for future reservations. Would you like me to charge your phone out here while you work?"
Give easy access to weight room, punching bag, stationary bicycles, caber toss, lockers, vending machines, toilets, and a door to the outside world (tree to sit under, bicycle rack, food truck, screaming at the heavens in frustration, and maybe an approved smoking area, even if that means having to step off university territory). The brain is a meat machine and a bag of vices; cater to biological and psychological needs.
Sleep area. Day care center. Masseuse. "Masseuse." Nurse. Psychiatrist. Hypnotist. Mom. Cat. Pony.
posted by pracowity at 1:43 AM on August 3, 2012
Plan for reconfiguration (long-term and ad hoc). Walls can be moved. Cables can be moved. Tables are on casters and the stuff on the tables is wired for movement (or is wireless). Things can easily be added in the ceiling or under the floor. People get super-easy access to virtual machines so they always have examples of the latest machines to work on.
Offer two kinds of physical seating configurations: a quiet (no phones, no talk, etc.) serious area that seriously discourages fucking around, and then a separate drop in and lounge area for making brief connections and spending light computing time. Give hard-working students a quiet place to concentrate on hard problems isolated from people who are just playing around or just dumping a file to a printer. Research and implement the latest recommendations in work area design.
Let people book a certain terminal, and then hand them a cleaned and disinfected keyboard and mouse to use on it when they walk in. "Welcome, Ms X. We have been expecting you. Please remember, this is a strictly no-phones area. If your phone rings or you accept a call while you're in the work area, you will forfeit your place today and have lowered priority for future reservations. Would you like me to charge your phone out here while you work?"
Give easy access to weight room, punching bag, stationary bicycles, caber toss, lockers, vending machines, toilets, and a door to the outside world (tree to sit under, bicycle rack, food truck, screaming at the heavens in frustration, and maybe an approved smoking area, even if that means having to step off university territory). The brain is a meat machine and a bag of vices; cater to biological and psychological needs.
Sleep area. Day care center. Masseuse. "Masseuse." Nurse. Psychiatrist. Hypnotist. Mom. Cat. Pony.
posted by pracowity at 1:43 AM on August 3, 2012
I worked at my university's computer lab for several years while I was a student.
You will want a lab that offers Windows, Mac AND Linux computers. About 45 percent of your computers should be Windows, another 45 percent Mac OS, and 10 percent Linux. You may even want to consider a lower percentage for your Linux computers as very few people will actually use them. We had one lab that had 10 Linux computers out of 100 total, each with some variation of Linux on them (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc), but they were always empty, even during peak times. Sad to say, most of your students wont want to use an operating system they aren't familiar with and they will be too much of a hurry to care to learn it, so those computers will never really get used. If it were up to me, I would have converted all but 2 linux machines into Windows or Mac computers. Your Linux users will be open minded enough to use Windows or Mac, but your Windows or Mac users will not be open minded enough to use Linux. YMMV.
I highly recommend splurging on high-end applications, like the Adobe series, or video editing programs, because most students won't be able to afford these applications, even with a student discount.
Make sure you have A LOT on scanners. We had 2 scanners per lab of 100 and they were occupied by students. Make sure the scanners have feeders so students can easily scan a bunch of papers (thesis anyone?) at once.
Students will often have to work on group projects together that require a computer at some point, so I highly recommend having small workstations that are sectioned off from the rest of the lab so normal users aren't bothered with the noise level of groups working together. I like to think that a computer lab is often like a library where the noise level is generally hush-hush, but some areas are designated for talking and group projects. In these areas, you will want to have a lot of outlets so students can bring in their own laptops to work together in the group.
Additionally, you will have professors that will want to teach classes in your lab, so it's a good idea to have a room or two in your lab dedicated to such things.
Your lab will be busiest between classes as students scramble to print essays and homework before their next class starts. Printing is mostly what your lab will be used for, so make sure you have good printing queue software and A LOT of printers. Also, I recommend having a couple of printing kiosks right outside the lab so students don't have to come in and sit down. Prime time to print is typically before and after classes, so be sure that you can handle crowds suddenly gathering and leaving on the hour.
To be honest, if you have a lot of extra money, I would use it to buy a bunch more computers. When I left, our university served about 20,000 students, and we had about 10 computer labs, with somewhere between 100-300 computers each. This was not near enough. Your students hate standing in line waiting to use a computer, so they will always trek to your school's biggest computer lab, as long as it's within walking distance. If your lab has a lot of neat technology in it, no one is even going to get a chance to use it if your lab is always filled to the max, because, like I said before, most users will use the lab just to print. So that workstation connected to that nifty 3D printer will always be occupied by some student just printing out his essay.
If anything, I would look for ways to expedite printing. Maybe assign a different printer at every computer? We had 4 industrial printers for most of labs, and for the most part, they could keep up with the demand, but sometimes, particularly when a user wants to print 3 copies of their 300 page thesis during peak time, the printers will build a very large queue and there is a 5 minute wait for printouts. 5 minutes is too long for most students since they come to the lab between classes and can't sit around for long. If the wait is too long, then students eventually give up the wait for their print outs so they can get to their next class in time, which is a lot of wasted paper IMHO.
posted by nikkorizz at 3:11 AM on August 3, 2012
You will want a lab that offers Windows, Mac AND Linux computers. About 45 percent of your computers should be Windows, another 45 percent Mac OS, and 10 percent Linux. You may even want to consider a lower percentage for your Linux computers as very few people will actually use them. We had one lab that had 10 Linux computers out of 100 total, each with some variation of Linux on them (Fedora, Ubuntu, etc), but they were always empty, even during peak times. Sad to say, most of your students wont want to use an operating system they aren't familiar with and they will be too much of a hurry to care to learn it, so those computers will never really get used. If it were up to me, I would have converted all but 2 linux machines into Windows or Mac computers. Your Linux users will be open minded enough to use Windows or Mac, but your Windows or Mac users will not be open minded enough to use Linux. YMMV.
I highly recommend splurging on high-end applications, like the Adobe series, or video editing programs, because most students won't be able to afford these applications, even with a student discount.
Make sure you have A LOT on scanners. We had 2 scanners per lab of 100 and they were occupied by students. Make sure the scanners have feeders so students can easily scan a bunch of papers (thesis anyone?) at once.
Students will often have to work on group projects together that require a computer at some point, so I highly recommend having small workstations that are sectioned off from the rest of the lab so normal users aren't bothered with the noise level of groups working together. I like to think that a computer lab is often like a library where the noise level is generally hush-hush, but some areas are designated for talking and group projects. In these areas, you will want to have a lot of outlets so students can bring in their own laptops to work together in the group.
Additionally, you will have professors that will want to teach classes in your lab, so it's a good idea to have a room or two in your lab dedicated to such things.
Your lab will be busiest between classes as students scramble to print essays and homework before their next class starts. Printing is mostly what your lab will be used for, so make sure you have good printing queue software and A LOT of printers. Also, I recommend having a couple of printing kiosks right outside the lab so students don't have to come in and sit down. Prime time to print is typically before and after classes, so be sure that you can handle crowds suddenly gathering and leaving on the hour.
To be honest, if you have a lot of extra money, I would use it to buy a bunch more computers. When I left, our university served about 20,000 students, and we had about 10 computer labs, with somewhere between 100-300 computers each. This was not near enough. Your students hate standing in line waiting to use a computer, so they will always trek to your school's biggest computer lab, as long as it's within walking distance. If your lab has a lot of neat technology in it, no one is even going to get a chance to use it if your lab is always filled to the max, because, like I said before, most users will use the lab just to print. So that workstation connected to that nifty 3D printer will always be occupied by some student just printing out his essay.
If anything, I would look for ways to expedite printing. Maybe assign a different printer at every computer? We had 4 industrial printers for most of labs, and for the most part, they could keep up with the demand, but sometimes, particularly when a user wants to print 3 copies of their 300 page thesis during peak time, the printers will build a very large queue and there is a 5 minute wait for printouts. 5 minutes is too long for most students since they come to the lab between classes and can't sit around for long. If the wait is too long, then students eventually give up the wait for their print outs so they can get to their next class in time, which is a lot of wasted paper IMHO.
posted by nikkorizz at 3:11 AM on August 3, 2012
Widescreen monitors that you can use with a laptop. Many students would rather use their own laptops and having some work space they can plug into a bigger monitor is all they need. Hooking into a printer network with a laptop/ipad would be a plus.
posted by JJ86 at 6:59 AM on August 3, 2012
posted by JJ86 at 6:59 AM on August 3, 2012
Thank you for the suggestions so far. I certainly have my own ideas but this is the type of thing the hive mind excels at in my opinion. Keep them coming.
We have other computer labs that I inherited but this is my chance to do something different, which is why I said anything goes.
posted by Silvertree at 7:17 AM on August 3, 2012
We have other computer labs that I inherited but this is my chance to do something different, which is why I said anything goes.
posted by Silvertree at 7:17 AM on August 3, 2012
If anything, I would look for ways to expedite printing. Maybe assign a different printer at every computer? We had 4 industrial printers for most of labs, and for the most part, they could keep up with the demand, but sometimes, particularly when a user wants to print 3 copies of their 300 page thesis during peak time, the printers will build a very large queue and there is a 5 minute wait for printouts. 5 minutes is too long for most students since they come to the lab between classes and can't sit around for long. If the wait is too long, then students eventually give up the wait for their print outs so they can get to their next class in time, which is a lot of wasted paper IMHO.
I agree with this. There is a bit of an art to provisioning printers, and the old-school university way of buying a single $250,000 printer that prints everything for everyone is not particularly convenient. At the end of the day, yes, it might be the fastest and most economical option. But only when measured over days or months. Not when your single page document is waiting in line behind the 6-ream thesis. (Although I do sort of miss the smell and peculiar print quality of those massive old IBM printers.)
I would suggest setting limits and roles for machines. Whether that is inside the printroom (devote one printer to print only small documents and another to long ones) or outside the printroom (charging less or nothing for print jobs that can wait to be printed overnight, setting page limits on slower printers).
Doing this might involve reinventing CUPS, however.
posted by gjc at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2012
I agree with this. There is a bit of an art to provisioning printers, and the old-school university way of buying a single $250,000 printer that prints everything for everyone is not particularly convenient. At the end of the day, yes, it might be the fastest and most economical option. But only when measured over days or months. Not when your single page document is waiting in line behind the 6-ream thesis. (Although I do sort of miss the smell and peculiar print quality of those massive old IBM printers.)
I would suggest setting limits and roles for machines. Whether that is inside the printroom (devote one printer to print only small documents and another to long ones) or outside the printroom (charging less or nothing for print jobs that can wait to be printed overnight, setting page limits on slower printers).
Doing this might involve reinventing CUPS, however.
posted by gjc at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2012
When my group's computer lab was reconfigured, all the technology got a lot of thought. But other critical things were ignored: desk space, space for backpacks and wet coats and umbrellas, a couch for hanging out, place for recycling and paper storage and places to hold all the various cables and other bits. Definitely couches and comfortable chairs. Oh, and white boards. We missed all of these things terribly, and our very productive, social, happy lab basically fell apart once it turned into just a room full of high tech things. There was no room for photos of family, snow globes, even the coffee maker. It was sterile and boring, and we stopped working there.
The lighting is also really important. Someone thought that dim, indirect lighting was best, which it usually is. But often you're looking at something written (instructions, a book, whatever) and without desk lamps too it caused eye strain. Also, it's best to have some place to look that's far away, and windows with views of natural things are super important for sanity. Natural light is humanizing, and then you can also have plants, which is also humanizing. Again, we were moved from a room full of windows to one in the basement with none, and although it was incredibly cool looking, no one wanted to be there. We should have just staffed it with robots. Quirky rooms lead to creative thoughts. Sterile rooms lead to people going away.
Plastic mats for rolling chairs are nice, but bamboo are better. While you're at it, a soothing Japanese garden would be nice :)
posted by Capri at 12:12 PM on August 3, 2012
The lighting is also really important. Someone thought that dim, indirect lighting was best, which it usually is. But often you're looking at something written (instructions, a book, whatever) and without desk lamps too it caused eye strain. Also, it's best to have some place to look that's far away, and windows with views of natural things are super important for sanity. Natural light is humanizing, and then you can also have plants, which is also humanizing. Again, we were moved from a room full of windows to one in the basement with none, and although it was incredibly cool looking, no one wanted to be there. We should have just staffed it with robots. Quirky rooms lead to creative thoughts. Sterile rooms lead to people going away.
Plastic mats for rolling chairs are nice, but bamboo are better. While you're at it, a soothing Japanese garden would be nice :)
posted by Capri at 12:12 PM on August 3, 2012
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posted by askmehow at 8:11 PM on August 2, 2012