Computer lab scheduling problems continue

By LESLIE-ANN HOLT

Many students depend on the university computer labs to complete their school work, especially during two of the busiest weeks of the quarter: dead week and finals week.

Despite students' needs, computer labs in Orradre and Kenna closed early during finals week. The labs are normally open until 12 a.m. or 2 a.m., Sunday through Thursday, and close between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on the weekend.

Students expect labs to remain open longer during finals week. The labs were also closed at times during the day when students expected them to be open. The schedule changes were last minute, and changes were made hourly. This compounded the problem of limited lab hours by not allowing students to plan ahead.

At the student senate meeting last Thursday, Lab Manager Ross Dykes answered questions about the challenges with the labs. He said that the labs did not close earlier than 10 p.m. before Thursday during finals week.

The lab assistants keep an hourly log of how many students are in the lab and what type of computers they are using. According to statistics from previous quarters, labs are busiest during dead week.

The limited hours of operation came as a result of several problems that Dykes and Information Technology deal with frequently.

"There is a lot of time and background work [to running the labs] that students don't see," Dykes said.

One of the main problems is that the labs do not have enough assistants. All of the assistants are students, which makes it difficult to find staffing for early and very late hours. There is no budget to hire assistants who are not students.

Computers also break down, which creates a limited number of functioning machines. Dell will fix machines with hardware failures within 24 hours. In the event of software difficulties, assistants are trained to fix many of them. A computer should not be down for more than 48 hours, according to Dykes.

In addition to scheduling difficulties and equipment failures, those who run the labs must take care of maintenance, upgrades, paperwork and other tasks and problems.

Senior Paul Webber was one of the many students affected by the early closures. Working on a computer in the lab one night during finals week, he was surprised when the assistant announced the lab would be closing at 10 p.m.

"It was like, wait a minute, this is finals week, it's got to be open past 10 p.m.," Webber said. "During the regular week it's open until 12 a.m. Why would it be closing early during finals week?" Sophomore Paulina Flint was also frustrated by the limited hours.

"I expected the lab to be open until at least 12 a.m.," Flint said. "It's just a real inconvenience when you have a thought process going on and you have to stop typing."

Flint pointed out that many universities have labs and libraries open 24 hours.

Junior Michael Case works at the computer lab and said shifts are usually about four hours.Case believes non-students should be hired to work late hours.

Information Technology is in the process of trying to improve their scheduling system. Dykes said he hopes to have the lab schedule for finals week out at least a week prior to finals.