This session was run by Toshiba, relating to the issues surrounding the use of mobile computing.<\/p>\n
A quick summary on where we are:<\/p>\n
Student Support<\/b>
\nVaried tradition, but most don’t support laptop users
\nSome have contracted for support (e.g. Middlesex, Warwick)
\nSome have encouraged laptop use without support provision
\nGood planning minimises problems (e.g. Edinburgh and Bristol)<\/p>\n
Experience shows that the expected problems do arise, but these are not new problems (viruses, abuse of privileges)<\/p>\n
Student Laptop Management<\/b>
\nAccess to the network: wired\/wireless\/dial-up\/internet?
\nConfiguring laptops for network access
\nCharging, storage and security<\/p>\n
Toshiba now offer a secure storage unit which allows students to leave laptops to charge while they get lunch etc. This is coin operated. Definitely like this idea – where can we get one?<\/p>\n
Then two brave souls stood up to outline their own solutions to some of these issues – I’m paraphrasing them here:<\/p>\n
University of Sussex<\/b> have now got a ‘self registration’ scheme for wireless connectivity, using a VLAN and Firewall. The main challenges they faced were:<\/p>\n
Providing documentation
\nHelping people to read the documentation
\nwireless connection kit (held at user support desk)
\nproblems with peer-to-peer file sharing application and some personal firewalls<\/p>\n
Security is dealt with in the following way:
\nSelf registration
\nPrivate network behind firewall
\nWEP
\nMAC address authentication on firewall
\nUser authentication to web proxy
\nRestricted applications\/ports<\/p>\n
University of Stirling<\/b>
\nStudents want access from study bedrooms, labs and wireless zones using their equipment<\/p>\n
Problem:
\nEnable students authenticated access to University network from a virus free PC. Problem compounded as students have divers range of equipment and IT skills<\/p>\n
Solution:
\nVPN plus antivirus software<\/p>\n
Solution – first pass
\nStudent installs approved antivirus software
\nStudent sets up VPN under Windows 98, Millennium, Windows 2000 & XP (Home\/Pro)
\nWe prodcued written documents describing process<\/p>\n
However – students fail to or can’t folllow instructions and come to Information Centre for individual help
\nThis is very time consuming an obviously not scalable
\nNo guarantee that antivirus software is installed<\/p>\n
So – wrote software which did the following:
\nEnsure Symantec antivirus is running on host PC and offers to install when not
\nRequests username
\nSets up appropriate VPN (on\/off campus)
\nOptionally set up desktop link to student’s home folder and adds the printer driver for central print system<\/p>\n
This resulted in many more students using campus network
\nHugely reduced problems at Information Centre (helpdesk) – and in general only ‘odd’ PCs cause the software problems (static IPs, firewalls, network bridges)
\nMinimal intervention on student PC<\/p>\n
The necessary software is installed from a CD, which can be borrowed from the library.<\/p>\n
Interesting to see that both had the same issues (students can’t\/won’t read\/understand documentation). This doesn’t exactly suprise me. Anyway, they solved this in different ways – employ more people to help students, write software to do it for them. The second seems like the better solution to me (although there are support issues here – what seems suprising is that MS aren’t providing better software\/functions for this in Windows I guess).<\/p>\n
Anyway, I’m not convinced that either of these is the ideal solution (I really want to sit down, switch on my laptop, and be online) – but perhaps we have a way to go before we get to this kind of solution (not just for Universities, but for the whole ‘wireless’ access issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This session was run by Toshiba, relating to the issues surrounding the use of mobile computing. A quick summary on where we are: Student Support Varied tradition, but most don’t support laptop users Some have contracted for support (e.g. Middlesex, Warwick) Some have encouraged laptop use without support provision Good planning minimises problems (e.g. Edinburgh […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-ucisa-2004"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}