CSC Student
Terminal Area in Great Demand
By
Noel Laam
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If there is a word
to describe the Student Terminal Area (STA) of the Computing
Services Centre (CSC), `bustle' is probably the right one: you
always find lots of students in the STA, whether using the computers,
printing their course work, scanning images, plotting graphs,
attending lectures/workshops or just discussing with fellow
classmates via electronic means. A survey conducted some
time ago showed that the STA, except during term breaks, was
on the whole 70% full while the demand simply outnumbered the
supply during the pre-exam period. The latter was best
demonstrated by the terminal booking status during that period.
As you may know, the booking of terminals in the STA has always
been very tight during the pre-exam period as students are hurrying
to finish off their course work before the exams. In order
to help our students find out easily whether a vacant terminal
in the STA is booked or not, a `Check PC Booking' icon is placed
at the desktop of all PC in the STA. After entering the
workstation number (which is found at the top of each PC), the
booking status will be shown in the Web page telling if the
PC is reserved by another student. If yes, the first 6
digits of the student ID and the first 8 characters of the name
of the student will be displayed.
Our recent meeting with students also revealed their growing
need for the STA. Apart from doing their course work,
students use the terminals to access the Internet and to practise
new applications/software as the terminals perhaps are of more
advanced models or better equipped as compared to their home
PCs. They enjoy staying in the STA probably because of
its relaxed and friendly atmosphere that makes them feel at
home, and naturally it becomes a meeting point for them.
The CSC will continue to improve the services of the STA and
to provide a pleasant computing environment for our students
to work in, and any suggestions on the betterment of the STA
will be most welcome.