NC State's submission to
US News and World Report Survey, Spring, 2005
Computers/Facilities/Services offered during the 2004- 2005 academic year:
Is every student required to take a computer course?
No
Is every student required to lease or own a computer?
No
Total number of computers available to all students:
2,845
Does your school provide Internet access for all students?
Yes
Does your school provide e-mail services/accounts for all students?
Yes
Computer equipment/network access for student use is provided in:
(check all that apply)
Computer Center/Labs Yes
Residence Halls Yes
Library Yes
Student Center Yes
Information Technology:
Number of open, wired network connections available to students:
a. In the library(excluding computer labs): 484
b. In classrooms: estimated 200
c. In computer labs: none
d. Elsewhere in the school/university: 2200
If you have a wireless network, please indicate in which areas in
the school your wireless network is available. (Please check all that
apply.)
In some of the libraries (excluding computer labs) yes
In all the libraries yes
In some classrooms yes
In all the classrooms no
In computer labs some
In administrative/faculty offices and work areas some
In some of college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing yes
In all college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing no
In all school buildings and on all school property no
If you have a wireless network, please indicate the total
approximate number of simultaneous users that can be accommodated in the
college/university. 2500
What is the recommended computer operating system on
campus(choose one): Mac Microsoft Windows Other
Windows, Mac, Unix and Linux OS are all supported
What percent of college-owned-operated or -affiliated housing
units are wired for high speed Internet access 100%
Are students web pages permitted? Yes
Is there online registration for classes? Yes
Describe all other computer facilities/services ( Maximum number of allowable characters is 4000 ):
Information technology is a ubiquitous and integral part of teaching, learning, research and student life at NC State. The university focuses on providing excellent, highly available, easily used, and robust IT facilities, systems and services to most effectively enable the real advance of its academic mission. All students, faculty and staff automatically receive computing accounts with e-mail, web publishing, and an allocation (300MB) of personal file space, and access to computing labs and more than 400 software applications. In order to meet the diverse needs of its wide-ranging academic programs, NC State supports a multi-platform (Windows, Unix, Linux, Macintosh) distributed academic computing environment.
Students can use a rich array of online student services beginning with the online admissions process, through financial aid applications and tuition payment services, course registration, class schedules, drop-add, grades, transcripts, advising, student government voting, and career counseling and resume services.
NC State currently serves over 500 distance education courses to approximately 2,280 locations for more than 5,600 registrants. 138 fully online credit courses were offered in fall 2004 in fields ranging from accounting to zoology, and online resources are integrated into teaching practices on campus.
NC State has one of the most sophisticated network infrastructures available in higher education. All classrooms have wired high-speed Internet access, and 61% have wireless access. The campus nomadic wireless system uses strong authentication protection. The campus network consists of a multi-link Gigabit Ethernet (GE) mesh among five main distribution facilities with almost all buildings having uplinks dual homed at GE. NC State is a Charter Participant in Internet2, home of an Internet2 Test and Evaluation Center, leader in the North Carolina Research and Education Network (NC-REN) and the North Carolina Networking Initiative (NCNI). NCNI now provides a Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing(DWDM) fiberoptic backbone with multi-10GE links and a core access point to the new National Lambda Rail R&D network.
NC State has an ambitious 10-year Learning in a Technology Rich Environment plan which focuses on the use of technology to advance student learning. New capabilities deployed to advance these goals include an enterprise storage management system with an initial storage capacity of 96 terabytes and a unique quota management system developed on campus that allows users to manage their own file space allocations among email and personal file space.Centrally-supported learning management systems, fully integrated with R&R student data, are being upgraded (WebCT-Vista) to enhance usability and learning outcomes.
The campus hand-held computing initiative includes technical and content delivery support; pod casting services are in pilot phase. New collaborative labs (“Flyspace") are equipped with laptop connectivity, phone and multimedia projection devices, etc. designed to enable collaborative learning. A leading-edge Virtual Computing Lab (VCL) project uses IBM blade computers to provide anywhere/anytime/anyone access to high-end discipline-specific software. In keeping with NC State’s commitment to IT accessibility, including students with disabilities, the VCL was designed with accessibility solutions built into the system.
Centrally-supported high performance computing (HPC) resources include an IBM p690 (32 Power4 1.3 Ghz processors, 3.5 terabytes of disk space), an IBM Blade Center Linux Cluster (184 dual Xeon processor blades), and more than 16 terabytes of mass storage); these are openly available and heavily used by students as well as advanced researchers.