Student Computing Services at UNT and Other Texas Universities

The Academic Computing Services department of the Computing Center is constantly working to improve UNT's computing services to the students of the University. In order to determine how our services compare to other large state-supported universities in Texas, a search of some peer institutions' Web sites and catalogs was conducted late in August, 1996, for information about student computing labs, fees for computing, and dial-up computing services. The tables on page 3 and 4 report the results of that study, but it should be noted that the tables may not be totally accurate since the universities' Web data may not be current or complete. A concerted effort was made to gather all of the information available, though.

Compared to peer institutions, the University of North Texas has extensive and excellently-equipped services for student computing on its campus. Unlike the other state-supported universities that are of UNT's size or larger, we provide moststudent microcomputers through a large system of general access labs rather than through specially-dedicated labs (to only chemistry students, for example.) Our system makes it easier for students, particularly those who haven't established a major, to have better access to a microcomputer when they need it. In addition, our ratio of students to available microcomputers is lower than all but one of the five largest state-supported universities in Texas. While data on the types of computers in all of the labs weren't available, UNT would undoubtedly compare well with the institutions listed since almost all of our labs' computers are Pentium 90's (or better) or are high-end Macintoshes.

Student-access Computers in Labs

**Texas A&M's undergraduate catalog says that there are "over 20 generally accessible computing labs and help desks on the campus," that "about 1,500 ...microcomputers are strategically located around the campus in facilities that are open to all students," and that "construction has begun on a 600 seat student microcomputer facility", but information on the labs are not available on TAMU's Web site. The data about the labs shown in the table above were taken from a Web page that says that "a CIS Help Desk is located within each Open Access Computing Lab..." and that lists six such labs.

UNT provides its superior computing access services at generally lower fees to students than the other universities. UNT's student computing fees support the General Access Computing Labs, the cost of credit-card registration, and some of the costs associated with the ASSIST telephone registration system and other student registration computing services. Other universities have similar uses for their student computing fees. The data in the table belows show how UNT compares.

Computing Fees

UNT's dial-up access to campus computers and to the Internet have been a point of increased interest on campus recently since the number of free dial-up lines was decreased on August 1, 1996. (See the article "UNT Computing Dial-Up Services" on page 3 for an explanation of that change.) Here, too, UNT compares favorably to other Texas universities in terms of the number of lines that are available. Our charges for the Premium Access lines are roughly comparable to Texas Tech's, but two other peer institutions, the University of Houston and Texas A&M, provide free dial-up, albeit with fewer lines per student than UNT. Here are the data about "Internet" lines into the campuses:

PPP Dial-up Access to Campus

The conclusions that one can draw from the tables shown above are that UNT's student computing services are at least as good as other large universities' in Texas, and in general are provided to students at a lower out-of-pocket expense to our students.

Table of Contents Next Article

If you have problems or questions about this server, please contactme as soon as possible. You can send mail to the following address:www@unt.edu