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Bring your own device (BYOD) - IT equipment

09th November 2017 09:02 by Anonymous (not verified)

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Dear all, I am in the process of drafting a BYOD business case and I'm curious if anyone has experience of implementing this within an arts HEI.  As background, UCA spend around 500+K per year on replacing the hardware in our mac studios.  Our own data shows the machines are only utilised around 25% of the time.  We believe this is largely becuase  students are using their own computers.  Therefore, it seems sensible to propose that we'd move to a model where students provide their own IT equipment as a matter of course and the 500k is spent on specialist higher-end technology environments that students are far less likely to have access to at home. I'm curious to learn if others have faced this, and if so, whether enabling schemes been set up... laptop loans, providing Adobe software, passing on supplier discounts to students etc?  Any information (good practice or lessons learned from mistakes) would be gratefully recieved.

Thanks,

Tim

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daniel.jagger@a... (not verified)

Hi Tim,

Very interesting question and model proposed - I'll be interested in the responses!

We too have a similar issue and we are finding that no matter how many workstations we provide, it is never enough (although how much they are actually used is somewhat of an unknown)! 

Our library has a laptop loan system (very small numbers atm) with some of Cc installed. I suspect that this will grow in the future.

Best,

Dan

matt-burton (not verified)

It is interesting and I feel a blend between the two models seems to be the best option.

 As for deals on laptops and software I feel this is something that could be improved upon, ideally subsidised by Gov and Edu sources but that’s easier said than done.

 The problem we have with laptop loans is currently its restricted to specialist use e.g. Needing to do something like location based projection mapping or controlling a high speed camera etc. For general use will simply couldn't stock enough and it cause’s issues over fairness of accessibility.

 I think moving forwards It would be nice if students could come and connect laptops to workstation screens, tablets and specialist mice, perhaps even GPU and CPU banks for rendering etc.

 Tim are you doing any wider research to see if the BYOD model is being implemented elsewhere?

 

Cheers

Matt