DeVry Switches to HP for Intensive Student Computing -- Campus Technology

STEM and STEAM

DeVry Switches to HP for Intensive Student Computing

By Dian Schaffhauser
12/06/10

To accommodate the intensive computing needs of its technology and engineering students and faculty, DeVry University has completed most of a three-year computer refresh to move off of Gateway machines and onto HP Z Workstations and HP EliteBook Mobile Workstations. DeVry has about 80,000 students and 94 locations in North America.

According to Timothy Harrington, national assistant dean of DeVry's College of Engineering and Information Science, the upgrade process began in 2007. "Our first priority was student lab environments; but now we are close to having HP universally on both academic and administrative networks," he said.

The workstations are needed, he explained, to run industry-standard applications for DeVry's academic programs. "We support applications from National Instruments' NI Multisim and NI LabVIEW with connections to multiple devices to game program applications, such as [Epic Games'] Unreal [Development Kit] and Autodesk 3ds Max to the full spectrum of Adobe products for our Web design curriculum."

Also, as a faculty member, Harrington noted, he might have 40 files open at a time, including several applications. "If I want to look at a student's assignment for a few minutes, I don't want to shut everything down just to bring up that one application. The HP workstation functions extremely well under this type of heavy demand."

As part of its Game and Simulation Programming curriculum, the institution was exploring the use of Alienware computers in its game studios. However, Harrington said, DeVry found the performance of HP game-class computers to be "better and more reliable."

The HP machines currently run Microsoft's Windows XP Professional, but Harrington said the university is planning a migration to Windows 7 in July 2011.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

E-Mail this page

Printable Format

Featured

Research: LLMs Need a Translation Layer to Launch Complex Cyber Attacks

While large language models have been touted for their potential in cybersecurity, they are still far from executing real-world cyber attacks — unless given help from a new kind of abstraction layer, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Anthropic.
Georgia State U and Operation HOPE Program Fosters AI Literacy in Underserved Youth

A pilot program co-led by Operation HOPE and Georgia State University is working to build technical, entrepreneurial, and financial-literacy skills in Atlanta-area youth to help them thrive in the AI-powered workforce.
1EdTech Partners with DXtera to Support Ed Tech Interoperability

1EdTech Consortium and DXtera Institute have announced a partnership aimed at improving access to learning data in postsecondary and higher education.
Faculty Need Training, Time, and Tools to Make Course Content Accessible, Survey Finds

In a recent survey by Anthology, only one in five faculty (22%) said they consistently consider accessibility when designing course materials. And just 11% felt they had the right tools and training to create accessible course content.