St. Norbert's College Pilots Computerless Computer Lab With Its BYOD Policy
Students bring their own devices to connect in new supported lab.
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
As technology becomes more widely accessible and flexible, traditional configurations for use and access in educational institutions are changing. In one example of these changes, Inside Higher Ed profiled the “computerless” computer lab at St. Norbert’s College in DePere, WI, where students bring their own laptops and smart devices to connect for school work and studying.
The lab is the product of a campus-wide survey that found 98 percent of students bring their own computers to campus. The school also offers a laptop scholarship program for students who cannot otherwise afford one. The result is the new BYOD policy that allows students to bring their own devices to connect in a supported lab.
As St. Norbert’s finished refurbishing its Gehl-Mulva Science Center, it decided to take a second look at its plans for the computer lab. Krissy Lukens, director of academic technology for St. Norbert’s, told Insider Higher Ed filling the computer lab with traditional desktop computers just didn’t make sense at this point. She explained, “We had been noticing that students were beginning to use their own computers more. Even in their computer science classes, about half of the students would bring in their own computers.”
Enter the computerless computer lab.
With the rise in use of personal computers and smart devices, colleges must redesign the way they offer IT services. Eliminating desktop computers means IT offices can redirect their time and attention to other priorities, which can mean significant opportunities. The Campus Computing Survey found nearly two-thirds of the CIOs and senior IT leaders surveyed reported their offices’ budgets are still suffering the hit they felt during the recession. Approximately one-third said that this year’s budget was lower than last year’s.
The Bring Your Own Device policy closely monitors initiatives found in secondary education, where students are introduced to new personal technologies which, mostly, are owned by the students and households. However, the BYOD requirement is not possible at all institutions, since it places additional and often unrealistic financial burdens on low-income students.
But allowing their IT resources to respond flexibly to the changing reality of their student and faculty landscape has given St. Norbert’s College a new vision of its technology. As a caveat, however, while this kind of initiative saves money, earns good press, and helps students to enjoy the campus experience in a unique way, it also can increase networking and data security concerns, placing greater stress on IT staff and resources. It can also create issues of inaccessibility for some students who cannot afford necessary devices for specific majors requiring frequent usage beyond writing papers or research.