Talking tech
The University of Glasgow has always been at the forefront of digital technology. In 1957 we became the first University in Scotland to own an electronic computer and today we work just as hard to ensure that our staff and students have access to the very best computing facilities.
Technology has come a long way since 1957. Today there are around 3,800 student computers on our campuses, which works out as nearly one computer for every six students! Rolling replacements for all of our computers means that you always have access to equipment that's well adapted for the demands of a modern university. In 2013 alone we will be installing over a thousand new high-spec PCs on the Gilmorehill campus, but don't worry, all our old computers will be recycled!
So why can you neve find a PC when you really need one? Well, thanks to some nifty new technology this may be a problem of the past. Our new remote desktop service gives you access to a ‘virtual PC' on your laptop so that you can take your specialist software with you wherever you are, whether you use Windows, Mac or Linux. We are also developing another clever piece of kit, a web-based Student App which means that you can now see all our PC availability before you leave the house, genius!
Why not use our Student Voice service if you have feedback about one of our services?
We know that you sometimes want to access the web on the move, right? To cope with this we are constantly expanding our WiFi system making it bigger, better and faster. Our IT services teams have been working hard to increase the amount of WiFi hotspots on campus so that you can connect through their laptops and mobile devices from even more locations. Search for the ‘Eduroam’ network which offers simple connectivity to a wireless network that is used in universities worldwide.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could access all your documents, information, schedules and news from one place? Well now you can! MyGlasgow is our student portal which allows a single sign on to all your vital University online services, such as Moodle, MyCampus, email, Library and Sport Online. Alongside this, you also have access to your own ‘MySite’, which gives you place to store documents and links, create blogs, wikis, web pages and RSS feeds, and share these with other students and staff. In the near future, MyGlasgow is also being redesigned and will feature direct access to all of your Moodle courses.
And whilst we’re talking about printing, watch out for another one our bright ideas being rolled out in the Library and Reading Room later this year, our new Laptop Printing Service, which will mean that students can use University printers to print documents from their laptops.Although we have installed many more printers in the last few years, at busy times it is still possible to get caught up in a pesky printer queue. However, our new ‘Pull’ printing system in the Library and Reading Room may take the pain out of printing. Using this system, the printer will only print something when the owner swipes their student card, meaning that documents will only be printed for people who are there to collect them. Switching to this process is designed to save people from losing their documents in stacks of uncollected printouts, saving trees, money and, most importantly, your time.
Feedback
We love to hear what you think abouit the service that we offer. We conduct a large-scale IT satisfaction survey, running from October to May each year that gets hundreds of ratings and comments per month: all analysed and read, and actions taken. In the meantime our Student Help Desk gets very high satisfaction ratings and is open with staff on hand (not just a remote service) for more hours per week than its counterparts in any other UK university for which we have information, and of course, you can find us online: http://www.gla.ac.uk/it/forstudents/