University Strategy of Use of Computers in the College - Essay Example

A REPORT TO THE VICE CHANCELLOR LARKING ON USE OF IT Introduction Information technology has become one of the most important parts of themodern life. The world is being driven by information technology and even the education sector has moved fast and embraced the idea. The increased usage of internet has revolutioned the learning technology and currently the tradition seminar lecturing is being outdone by increased learning through the internet. (Hauptman 1997, p. 8; Howe 2000, p. 216) Larking universities has also made some steps toward that direction. The college has purchased PCs and software which has been one of the steps towards ensuring that there is increased delivery of services to the students and the work is made easy for the staff. Majority of the PCs in the college use Microsoft Operating System although some of the computers are still running on Office 97. The college has achieved a milestone in networking all the computers although not all PCs have been networked but there is increased trend of networking them. With a population of about 3000 students, the University has been thinking of providing laptop to the student the expense of which will be reduced from their fees. There has been increased pressure to make sure that the students accept the offer of the laptops because whether they accept them or not, they will still be charged in the school fees. This has been in line with the introduction of my Course system in the university website which is used by lecturers to post notes and exercises. There has also been declining number of student who are attending lecturer since they can download everything from the internet. How can the college achieve a competitive edge through the harmonization of the usage of the internet University strategy of use of computers in the college The aim of the university in introducing the use of computers has been to ensure that there is efficient delivery of services. Therefore it has come upon with a strategy of ensuring the all the administration staff and the lectures use the same minimum IT/IS platform which is Intel PCs with 1GB memory and running XP and Office 2003. The University also aims at connecting all of them to the internet and Outlook email service. In evaluation this is one of the most important strategies that the university can use in order to achieve maximum use of computer technology in the university. If the university chose to sell the existing PCs and buying new ones, then the first step would be to find a way of storing the data based in the computers and then selling all of them. Then they would come up with a procurement procedure that will ensure that all the constituent colleges buys from one supplier. With a central supply system the university will be able to standardize the computer which is supplied to all the colleges. The university would then install all the computers with the require programs. This strategy would lead to loss of most of the data which may lead to distribution of the system though this may be the most efficient way of achieving the strategy, it will come with many disadvantages. However the greatest risk to the option remains in the way the university will be able to handle the risk of loss of the data contained in the PCs. One of the advantages with the option would be that the university will be able to acquire standardize computers and hence it would be easy for maintenance since the same company can be hired for the operation. (Bardini, 1995, p. 43) But on the other hand the university can choose to upgrade the current PCs that they are using in order to come up with new ones. The will involve increasing the various component of the computer instead of buying new ones. Therefore the best strategy would be hiring of IT specialist who will upgrade the PCs to use more upgraded memory and operating speed One advantage with this strategy will be that it will be easy to handle the database since it wills income upgrading one computer at a time. Therefore the data can be transferred once the computer is upgrade. This would lead to reduced risk of loss of data. However this has a disadvantage in that it would take time before the upgrading process takes place. The option will also be costly and in some cases some of the computers may be beyond the upgrading procedure hence the university would be forced to buy new ones. However this remains the best option for the university since it would not disrupt the running of the programs in the university more so when it comes to the handling of the data. Training of the staff Therefore the new system is likely to come up with new procedure that the staff may not have been used to before in this regard they will need to be upgraded on the operations of the new system if they will have to use it very efficient. Though the computers are considered to be use friendly, sometimes it takes time before one can get used to the new system. If you compare the Office 97 and office 2003, there are still new procedures that the users may not be familiar with. Through there is no great difference between the two office suits, it is good to give the staff a minimal training in order to make sure that they adapt to the new systems. There can be no frustration to a worker than the change of procedures as they have been using before. This ends up making the workers become more frustrated in their work and this may affect their performance. It will be difficult for some workers who have been using Lotus email to suddenly change to the Microsoft Outlook and expect them to use it with the same easiness that they have been using before. (Steely 2004, p. 76) Therefore though the university may consider it an added cost to the upgrading procedure, there will be a need to train the staff on the procedures for the use of the new upgraded system. In this regard the sot the will be used to train the staff may be translated later making it efficiently in the use of the use of the new systems. This would lead to efficiency in the delivery of services for the university and also lead to motivated work staff. This would be also an important step in helping the university to achieve its aim of upgrading its system. Offering laptop to students The university has come up with one of the most important strategy in the fulfilment of the need to use information technology in the university. It has recognized the efficiency of using laptops in the learning process. In this regard, the university has found it necessary to advice all the student to own laptops and an important electronic book. In order to enjoy the economies of scale, the university has found it necessary to purchase the laptops in bulk and then distributed them to all students. Then the cost of the laptops would be factored in the fees of the student. However the university has made it clear that whether the student accepts the offer or not, the cost of the laptop would be factored in their fees. This is in disregard of the fact that there are some students who already own laptops in the university. (Clarke 2006, p. 9) There is not doubt that a student will need to have a lap top by their side if at all they will have to be efficient in learning. Any student will find the lap top to be one of the most important tools that one will need to use in learning. In case a student has been using files and papers, they understand the challenge that they face in dealing with the volumes of papers that they handle on daily bases. Therefore given the option of using a laptop, most of them will not decline the offer. However there is a problem in the way that the strategy is being implemented in the university. This is in the sense that it is being made a mandatory choice for the students to accept to be given the laptop. Though they may be accepting the need to have the laptop, enforcing it on the students will destroy the initiative. The fact hat the university wants to charge the cost of the laptop on the fees of the student whether they accept it or not makes it appear like a marketing tool for the laptops. (Robinson 2005, p. 7) There are also various issues that come along with issue of owning the laptops. One of the issues is in the way the laptops will be stored in the hostels. In one way the idea of the administration ensuring that all the students owns laptops is helpful in the sense that it will reduce cases of sharing of laptops. But this would come with the need to improvise storage devices. It would also mean increased use of power in the university. The university would factor in cost of increased power in their body and provision of storage devices for the laptops. It will also mean that they're will be a system the will ensure that there is continuous support fro the students since most of them may not be efficient in the use of computers and hence they may prefer to use note books. The support system would also mean having a clear system of repair and maintenance of the laptop. Therefore the administration must factor in all these issues before thinking of implementing that strategy all the students owning a laptop in the university. Attendance of classes and my Course Since the university put in place an intranet system my Course where the student can access the entire lecture notes and exercises, there has been reduced rate of attendance of students to classrooms. In this regard, students have found it more convenient to download all the lecture materials from the site and later doing their exercise and posting them on the same site. This has reduced the level of student lecture interaction which has an effect on the efficiency of learning in the university. (UGP, 2004) Like in many other universities, there is need to increased the resource that the students can get from the schools website and from the lectures site. This is because lectures may be committed else where and the mere fact that they are comment does not mean that the student will not finish their module. But at ht same time it does not mean that because the universities have put up such a facility that student will not be attending their classes because lecture can give all the lectures materials through the sites. This will mean giving guidelines to lecturers on the course materials that they will need to post on their sites and at the same time introducing penalties to students for failure of attendance to classes. In this regard the university should take an approach that has been taken by other universities where actual attendance to lectures is considered as the part of the final assessment. (University of Florida, 2008) Bibliography Bardini, T 1995, Construction of personal computer user, Journal of communication, 45 Clarke, P 2006, Computers and Learning, A Press, London Hauptman, O 1997, The influence of computers in communication, Communication Research, 23 Howe, N 2000, Milenial Rising, Vitage Book, New York Robinson, L 2005, Basic Application of handheld computers, Quill & Scroll, 79 Seelye, K 2004, One possible cost of Technology, The New York Times, January 2004 UGP, 2004, Policies on Use of computers, Retrieved from http://www.uga.edu/compsec/use.html on 26th April 2008 University of Florida, 2008, Acceptable use, Retrieved from, http://www.it.ufl.edu/policies/aupolicy.html on 26th April 2008 Read More