Action Item 9.01
Training for students in technology should include highly sophisticated programs and access to appropriate equipment.
Increasingly, graduate and upper level undergraduate students should work in highly technical applications. Professors do not have the time and expertise to teach both the class material and the underlying skills necessary for course success. Students should have experts available to train them as well as time on the equipment to practice their newly acquired skills and complete assignments.
Action Item 9.02
LSU should develop a program of incentives to increase student ownership of computers, including some combination of direct financial assistance, negotiation of institutional discounts for student purchases, on campus sales and support, and maximum communication with prospective students about options for computer ownership.
While acknowledging Action Item 7.02 recommending that a discipline specific laptop program should be mandated for all students, the key to implementing such a program in a manner palatable to students and prospective students lies in a concerted effort to make acquisition of computer hardware easier and as inexpensively as possible, and to provide a variety of incentives and programs to facilitate that acquisition. Regardless of whether a laptop requirement is mandated, LSU must embrace the fact that students must be IT-enabled. The institution must develop ways to encourage laptop/computer ownership and ITS should be charged with developing, implementing, and operating such a program on the University’s behalf.
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Action Item 9.03
LSU must recognize that IT plays a role in the student life experience beyond pedagogical aspects. ITS should continue to work closely with students to evaluate new technologies and IT-based services that could be adopted to improve not only the academic aspects of technology, but recreational ones that support the overall student life experience at LSU.
The life experience of a student at a flagship University involves more than just their academic experience. Information technology—and technology in general—has become an underlying component in all things in the twenty-first century. Indeed, the adoption of IT in classrooms and throughout campus as part of teaching and learning is critical to the student life experience; but also of interest and potential value are the recreational aspects of college life that are IT enabled. ITS should explore new and creative uses of technology that better the overall college experience, including those involving such things as music/video download services, and other forms of recreational technologies. It will always be the case that students will need to elect which such college-life-enhancing technologies they adopt either as individuals or as members of the LSU student community—and elect how such technologies are funded. But the role of ITS should be to explore and introduce these technology options to students, and present an attitude of advocating their adoption, and support such adoption in line with student interests and resources.
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Action Item 9.04
The University should provide a top quality, IT enabled, living and learning environment – ubiquitous wireless, network capabilities, and support for residence halls, Greek housing, and campus common areas. The IT enabled environment should be consistent across living and campus spaces; ITS should be charged with working to establish a seamless IT environment across all parts of the campus.
Many students live on campus and have their IT needs provided by either Residential Life or through off-campus service providers. Students want consistent, ubiquitous service across campus. ITS should explore offering Internet access to leased Greek Houses. This would present a possible resource for revenue or cost-recovery, and would provide consistency to this constituency. Wireless services should be accessible across campus, without necessitating a switch when traveling from one point to the next. The campus community wants IT to work flawlessly and effortlessly. Mobility and the ability to check the Web, conduct business, and stay connected to LSU are important to today’s LSU student and employee alike.
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