Facilities

The Department is well equipped for teaching, and is continually upgrading its computer laboratories on a four year replacement cycle to ensure all equipment is up-to-date, and has the newest hardware available. Currently there are three Computer laboratories within the department:

  1. Linux Lab (Room 217 Faraday Building) 28 Machines, running SUSE Linux 10.1 on 2.8Ghz Intel Core Duo processors, gigabit network cards, 17" TFT Monitors, 1 network printer.
  2. Project Lab (Room 500 Faraday Tower) 20 Machines, running Windows XP Pro on 2.13Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processors, gigabit network cards, 19" TFT Monitors, 1 network printer.
  3. Open Access Lab (Room 216 Faraday Tower, run on our behalf by the LIS) containing 46 Machines running Windows XP Pro on Intel Pentium 4 processors with 17" TFT monitors.

In addition, students have access Apple computers, and specialised equipment such as VR glasses, scanners, Video Editing desks, DVD-writers, etc. Students also have access to a digital camera, digital camcorder, PDAs and phantom force-feedback arm for project work.

The laboratories contain a wide range of software including, programming languages, Pascal/Delphi, C#, C, Java, C++, etc, Microsoft Office packages. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, and many special purpose software tools, including graphical rendering and image manipulation tools; expert system production tools; concurrent system modelling tools; World Wide Web authoring tools; silicon chip design tools; and databases. Students can expect to have all the latest versions of software due to the favourable licensing terms available to the university. The Department is a member of MSDN Academic Alliance which provides students access to use Microsoft products on their home PC for study work using our licenses (e.g. Vista, Visual Studio 2005, etc).

In the background, the Department has a dedicated server room, containing a number of Dell Servers. This has a gigabit network with each machine connected individually to our network switches with either 100Mbit or 1Gbit network cards. All computers have access to the internet via JANET.

The main point of contact between staff and students will be lectures, tutorials and via the Student Support Office. The Department also communicates via e-mail, notice boards and pigeon holes. Students also have access to lockers and a meeting area within the Department.

Students also have access to campus facilities provided by the LIS.