Bring your own computers project in Kyushu university

Abstract

At Kyushu University, we have been providing students with access to computers for education of information processing since 1979. The computers have varied from general purpose computer to personal computers (PCs). The number of PCs increased dramatically for about thirty years. The number of lectures with PCs has also been increasing rapidly for information literacy, CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning), and so on. We have been always trying to arrange the PC rooms as many as possible to provide the good and comfortable ICT (Information and Communication Technology) environment for students. How-ever, we never have the budget to equip enough PC rooms. On the other hand, the price of PCs has been going down over time. As a result, our students of 95% in first grade have their own PCs around when they enter the university.In response to these changes, we have decided to abandon terminal rooms. We now expect all students to bring their own PCs and use them in their classes. After many meetings and committee discussions, we are going to start the new ICT environment for education in April 2013. It has taken almost two years to start up the Bring Your Own PCs (BYOPC) project.Following were the important steps to begin the BYOPC project in Kyushu University: -Gain agreement in the university -How to decide the PC model, Windows or Mac, in each department -Software (Windows, Office: EES contract with Microsoft) -Anti-Virus software (Symantec Endpoint Protection) -Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11n, 80% covered of lecture rooms and so on) -Firewall (P2P file exchange software) -Seminar for all newcomers (Software installation, network con-figuration and so on).We will report the detail and the result in the above points. It was a difficult and hard work. For example, I visited sixteen faculties and/or departments to explain the new policy and how to proceed on the project in order to get the cooperation and help. Ultimately, we had a great success on our project.