Policy Recommendations I
Virginia Tech Cyberschool
"Requiring Computers for All Students"
Len
Hatfield and Timothy W.
Luke
Coordinators, Cyberschool
February 20, 1997
During our first meeting of
the Spring 1997 semester, the Cyberschool faculty addressed the
pressing concern of assuring individual student access to computers,
and we want to make some recommendations in support of an
institution-wide policy to sustain VPI&SU's leadership in using
computing/network technologies in higher education.
At this time, the entering
freshman class of the College of Engineering, the College of Business
and the Departments of Computer Science and Statistics are required
to have computers. Likewise, the College of Agriculture requires a
computer by the second year of enrollment, and the College of
Architecture requires one by the third year. With the exception of
Engineering, all of these programs issue specifications of hardware
and software, allowing students to acquire computers on their own.
Engineering has a special program with IBM run through VT
Services/University Bookstore. We strongly support the recent move by
all of the college Deans to "require" computers for the instruction
of all students in compliance with federal student financial aid
regulations that enable Financial Aid here on campus to enter a sum
of $3,000 for computers in the financial aid budgets of all entering
freshman and graduate students for the coming academic year. With
nearly 17,000 students (more or less, 11,000 undergraduate and 5,000
graduate) using this office's services, this change is important.
Nonetheless, it is only a
start, for it leaves nearly 8,000 students, or those not using any of
Financial Aid's services, without recourse to this computer access
option. Moreover, this interim arrangement only provides a fixed
dollar amount for individual students to purchase a computer, closing
out other access possibilities. Certainly, students are still free to
buy a computer and bring it to school. Still, this is not enough.
Since access, and not
necessarily ownership, is the desired end result, the Cyberschool
faculty recommend that the University move at once to insure access
for all 25,000 of its current undergraduate and graduate students by
using the existing VT Services/University Bookstore supply systems to
provide computers and peripherals through purchase, lease, and/or
rental options. In other words, we need to require access to
computers, and then provide an easy, one-stop, standardized menu of
supply alternatives to meet this institution-wide requirement.
VT Services/University
Bookstore do this now for 1,500 ± new Engineering majors every
year. However, this arrangement with VT Services to support the PC
initiative program in the College of Engineering has had its
difficulties because of administrative misunderstandings, special
funding arrangements attached to the program in support of College of
Engineering activities, basic hardware and software cost questions,
and additional understandings with IBM as the corporate source of the
PC initiative's system of choice. If these arrangements can be
improved, then VT Services' supply system might be scaleable for the
whole institution. If not, then the University could either solicit
bids from other outside vendors or establish a new closely held
corporation of its own to provide this service. With an assured
eventual market of 25,000 students, and probably hundreds more
faculty and staff, there should be great interest in the larger
marketplace in such a contract. If the numbers for this campus-based
market do not prove initially attractive, then the University should
leverage its position as a fixed gateway to other large computer-user
markets--Extension and Outreach clienteles, NET.WORK.VIRGINIA users,
and, most importantly, VPI&SU alumni who might want one-stop,
university-tied access to computing/network technology--to attract
vendors.
Implementing these
recommendations as soon as possible demands that a definite decision
be made immediately. When taken, however, this decision should
produce many important outcomes in support of several vital
University goals. These might include:
1) Recruiting Benefits:
university-wide computer requirements coupled with easy standard
access will indicate that VPI&SU has embraced decisively this
advanced technology in its instruction, making it easy to use, and
providing equal access to all--via purchase, lease, or rental
agreements--without saying students must own a computer to attend
VPI&SU.
2) Infrastructure Planning:
university-wide computer requirements would permit Educational
Technologies and the faculty and staff of all colleges and
departments to assume every student has basic PC access. This would
allow the university computing labs to shift their emphasis from
basic to more advanced services and access (since studies show that
universal student ownership of computers only increases campus lab
use). Thus, institutionally-provided computer labs then could be
organized around more discipline-focused software, more high-end
specialized work stations, and more flexible use arrangements.
3) Institutional Efficiency:
university-wide computer requirements should create even more
efficiencies through more widely established electronic publishing
(e.g., of the class time-table, etc.), greater use of net-centered
teaching methods, more digital library access, and common technical
support resources.
4) Curricular Planning:
university-wide computer requirements would end the current confusing
patchwork of departmental and college expectations, requirements,
recommendations, guidelines, etc. with one more standardized menu of
computer options that would allow computing-across-the-curriculum,
computer literacy, or cyberschooling initiatives to be fulfilled more
effectively.
5) Economic Development:
university-wide computer requirements will necessitate the
development of new services on and/or off campus to support these
larger numbers of computer users, which could provide new jobs and
economic opportunities to the area through private vendors, VT
Services, and/or some new closely-held University corporation set up
explicitly for this purpose.
6) Student
Retention/Success: university-wide computer requirements coupled with
NET.WORK.VIRGINIA access across the state would mean no students
would necessarily have to drop-out, scale-down, or leave the
University, because net-centered courses could keep them on track
toward a degree while on a coop or internship assignment, during
summer breaks, on reduced loads in outside work settings, or abroad
on university-supported international study.
7) Alumni Networking/Life
Long Learning: university-wide computing requirements would specify
fixed packages of commonly used machines and software that VPI&SU
alumni could purchase or lease for life-long learning experiences as
Cyberschool enrollees, Commonwealth Campus students, Continuing
Education learners, Extension and Outreach clients, or Alumnet
patrons, all of which could provide very useful new services to
University graduates.
8) New Fee Arrangements: university-wide computer requirements would permit Educational Technologies, CNS and the Library to plan more rationally for network expansion and improvements, technical support enhancements, and buying access to digital information, which may require some new fee (a technology, connectivity, digital information access fee) to be levied in the comprehensive fees or elsewhere to ease the budget crunch on these units. If services were enhanced by this fee, then students might see it as a value-adding increase in costs.
9) Teaching Innovations:
university-wide computer requirements would signal to faculty that
students must have personal access to computers, permitting teachers
to move more decisively, if they are so minded, to use
technologically-enhanced teaching methods in class as well as require
net-based research projects outside of class.
10) Administrative
Efficiency: university-wide computer requirements plus
university-provided access should permit students and their families
to plan their finances, be billed for all educational costs with
fewer invoices, and get computer access more efficiently and
rationally than they are at this time by setting out clear computer
access options, permitting fair advanced billing, and giving more
flexible access arrangements.
Of course, these are only some of the anticipated benefits of our recommendations. We recognize that some students will continue to buy their computers on their own at home, some students (like those that do not buy required textbooks now) will never buy, lease or purchase a computer even when it is required, and some students will still complain about the necessity of the requirement (like those that complain now about lab fees, insurance costs, book prices, etc.). Nonetheless, it is important that all students have the easy means to secure access to computing/network technologies by buying, leasing or renting a computer, and this decision needs to be taken now to get a supply system in place by Fall 1997.