UVA & Public Computers

I have attended the University of Virginia for a while now, and have grown to cherish their public computing labs. However, as of Spring 2009, we were all notified about the impending retirement of the public computing labs. To say that this created an uproar would be an understatement. A poll was created to show support against the verdict. After talking to several students thereafter, a number had not voted in the poll because they thought it was a joke, "UVA isn't that foolish." As the saying goes, the young are naive.

This decision, coming "out of the blue" so to speak is further proof that student bodies are meaningless entities. The student councils were consulted on the manner, but they had no say. The decision was made by those that make the real decisions. I have served on governing boards before, and it is their sole point is to argue about non relevant issues. They have no authority where it matters. Student governing bodies do not address anything of serious interest to the students. This is why elected positions go unchallenged or even vacant. As far as I could tell, their only purpose (besides arguing) was to ticket expensive "leadership retreats" and wind up partying for a weekend (on my tax dollars most likely). UVA is no exception to this rule.

The decision can be read here: http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=7938 and http://itc.virginia.edu/org/reports/labstransition.html . Initially, it was done because UVA could "better serve its student body." Or something to that effect. Statistics had been gathered across UVA computers. It was determined that the computers were overwhelmingly used for web browsing, pdf viewing, and Microsoft word. I was under the impression that UVA was forbidden to spy on any student, though this does not apply to usage statistics (how did they collect those? Under what circumstances? How long? Over what period?) But I am digressing, that is an entirely different topic altogether. The point is, the statistics were never elaborated upon. They simply were given as evidence, and I had a few issues to pick with them. 99% of entering students owning a computer was believable, and I do not argue that number. But I do argue with the statement that "95%...[of]...students were running commodity or free programs..." or programs available on most personal computers. It is possible that, that number is correct. However where I argue with that number is "which area?" For example, is that the entire school in entirety? Does that include the law school? The college of liberal arts? Then I am surprised the numbers aren't higher. Of course those schools would use Internet Explorer, Adobe, Word, and the like heavily. Or was it just the Engineering School?

If the aforementioned statistics were just the E-School, then that number is bogus. Yes, many times I enter the lab and have only Firefox open with a chat window plus a few tabs for my courses and maybe some topic I am reviewing. Yes, that does happen. But many times, I also have MATLAB running, or MathCAD, or PSpice, or AutoCAD, or a secureCRT connection, or accessing my UVA home directory, or eclipse, or emacs, or occasionally some obscure software that only one class in the whole university uses for pedagogical reasons.

UVA computers also provide convenient access to different journals (such as IEEE), book sites (Safari is a case in point), and numerous other subscription services. Why? Because UVA has a site license for them. It is far more convenient to log on to a UVA public computer, with your computing ID, using the same version of Firefox / Internet Explorer across the whole University, than it is to use your personal computer with godknowswhat operating system and what browser version (heaven forbid, a Safari browser). It is also for practical purposes, we are granted a site wide license via IP addresses. I don't know how this would work for mobile laptop computers, which will likely be NAT'ed. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. Hopefully they have bothered to look into this. If not, future students will find out.

To further rub salt into the wound, this decision came shortly after UVA decided to outsource its helpdesk to some company in Texas, and lay off all the students employed in the helpdesk. A number of whom were good friends of mine. Yay! Am I bitter? Oh no, don't be silly. Who could be bitter about that. I personally love calling a phone number to some distant help center, probably with an employee who can barely speak English (that is, if I can get to speak to a human being, for all I know they are using a computerized system). And what was the added benefit of outsourcing? For the same price you can now have 24/7 service! Wow! That is amazing! We used to have service till about 11 o'clock. And it was personal and effective. But screw that! We now have service at 3 AM!!! Even during finals most people seldom stay up to 3 AM.

UVA's solution to the problem is profound. Whether they mandate it or not, all students will have to purchase a notebook computer. I, for one, do not like dragging around a full sized notebook all over the place. I use a netbook computer for the convenience (though I am still a big fan of the computing lounges). My netbook computer does run MATLAB under Linux, but it isn't the fastest. The UVA Public Computers are faster by a long shot. Additionally, I don't like installing all the crap that is on the UVA Public Computers on my personal computer. I don't want to deal with the administrative overhead of installing and maintaining MATLAB, MathCAD, autoCAD, PSpice, and all their torturous license server issues (any UVA student can attest to the difficulty of starting a UVA copy of MATLAB on their home computer).

And don't get me started about software version mismatches. This will be a living hell for the CS department. Different versions of Java, eclipse, "well it compiled on my computer just fine!" I ALWAYS use the UVA Public Computers for my final test before I submit ANY code. Period. Why? Because it is a standard! A template that faculty, teaching assistants, and students can compare against.

Even when I bring my netbook computer to the study lounge, I still use a stacks computer! Why? Because it has specialty software and a lot of extra RAM, CPU power, and a larger, crisper screen! I do different tasks on each box.

Printing, another massive issue. I am always printing essays, lecture notes, schematics, time cards, and who knows what else. Setting up a printer can be a massive headache.

And what happens when my notebook dies? Well, if I am in the computing lounge and one of the standard public computers fails, I simply switch to another computer. Guess what. It works. And since I save everything to my home directory, it is as if nothing happens. It is not uncommon for student computers to die, the first three weeks of this semester two close friends have had their computers die.

Now I ask a rhetorical question. Do employers require employees to purchase their own computers? Most certainly not. And do they mandate what software must be installed on the employee's personal computer? Of course not. UVA is requiring all students to buy computers. These computers are no longer personal computers. They are UVA Computers. They will have UVA software, UVA site licenses, UVA approved operating systems, UVA approved versions of every software, and to ease helpdesk requests, they will likely require a typical installation on all boxes. Any System Administrator will tell you the near impossibility of installing software on a heterogeneous collection of computers numbering in the thousands. It is far easier to install it on a homogeneous collection of computers.

I wish UVA would not lie to us. This will not improve service. It will not help students. It will make matters more difficult. It will add a further expensive bar to entering students. Yes, UVA claims their financial aid services will help disadvantage students. But how many people have filled out those forms? Do you have any idea how complicated they are to most people? And many times the results seem entirely arbitrary, or easily exploited by those in the know. Yech. UVA should come out and say they are doing this to handle budget cuts, stop lying to us about “improvements.”

-SynFin