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Science & Tech

Computer usage displayed on campus monitors

Rebekah Hammond - Science & Tech Editor

Finding available computers in TRU's computer labs is now an easier task.

No longer do students have to race around campus looking for an available computer to madly type up essays due next class.

Since November, TRU's TV monitors now display computer lab usage graphs every few minutes, showing how many computers are free in each public lab.

"There's a client installed on every workstation in the lab and then there's a [main] server that's over in the Open Learning building," said Karen Wiens who works at information technology services (ITS). "It reads that data every five to ten seconds, so it's pretty up-to-date. If somebody gets off, the numbers change."

Students are still learning about the tool.

"This is awesome. That's very helpful, I can stop bringing my laptop," said Panashe Bwoni a BBA student. "I didn't know about it. I use [the labs] sometimes when I need to do some work. I sometimes have trouble finding a computer when they get full and busy." "Since I happen to belong to a [program with a] dedicated lab I don't really have to worry about finding an open computer, otherwise it could be useful," said Aryck Giesbrecht a CSOM student.

The feature had been available as a link titled "check current computer lab usage," on TRU's computers' desktops for a while. Lab Support decided, however, to expand the practicality of the function.

"So then we put it on the [campus TV] monitors after that because we thought, 'Well, if people want to know if there's computers available in the labs, it means they're not on a computer to check.' So we wanted to put it on the monitors so they could just look on there,' Wiens said.

When the desktop link is clicked, a page pops up showing bar graphs of all TRU's public computer labs and the number of computers available and in use.

Students can also click on each labs' "map" link and see an active diagram of the lab.

"It has a little guide, the little blue ones are in use and the rest of them are available," Wiens said.

Students who are tech-savvy and looking for a campus computer can pull out their cell phone, Blackberry or iPhone and use the mobile application.

"It was decided that it would be really great if it could be shown on mobile applications," Wiens said. "If you [go] to http://www.mobile.tru.ca, you click the mouse for the lab usage, and it will show you a list of the buildings and you see a similar page," Wiens said.

The lab usage feature is part of a program called LabStats that ITS bought a couple years to keep track of statistics for the computers and lab usage.

"[The program is used] so we can monitor lab usage and make decisions based on that," Wiens said. No large changes have been made yet, but, "If a lab is not being used very much, then maybe we might think about moving computers to a different area," she said.

TRU's computer usage has grown as the population of students also increased.

Lab Support facilities expands as needed, said Wiens, including that the new House of Learning will have about 100 more computers.

"There are labs in all the buildings, but I don't think some students realize that...But Old Main is central, so [students] just want to come here, they don't want to walk to the other buildings."