Most colleges have them: computer rooms with rows of PCs—generally loaded with expensive software needed for certain courses—where students can work on assignments. But will a new approach to IT services make campus computer labs obsolete?
North Carolina State University is one of a handful of colleges to set up virtual computer labs, where users enter it remotely, from their own computers in dormitory rooms or libraries. So if they need to use a 3-D modeling program for an engineering course, they can log into the virtual lab (a bank of servers in some room they’ll never see) from their laptop and use the program without even coming to campus. A free article in this week’s Chronicle outlines the university’s model, which is being emulated at other colleges.
Officials at NC State say they have no plans to close their computer labs, but they will no longer build new ones. It seems possible, however, that down the road colleges could decide that computer labs are as old-fashioned as typewriters.—Jeffrey R. Young