Sure 90-100 percent of all students on campuses have their own computers (source), but IT labs still need to provide access to specialized and niche software to students. These types of software are highly specialized, costly, and tricky to use. Most students rely upon the campus IT labs for use of these programs. Some labs even offer lab assistants who are skilled in these niche programs to help and instruct students as they use these programs.

However, a survey at the University of Virginia found that 95 percent of the time spent in student labs, was spent using “free” software such as Firefox, Internet Explorer, Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Microsoft Office (for which the campus has a student license available for $10). Whereas niche programs, such as SPSS, AutoCAD, or Cyberlink were only used 5 percent of the time by students.

Because of these statistics, which are not unique to the University of Virginia, most universities only offer niche software in smaller, special departmental labs, where they will be used most often by students in certain programs. For example a graphics design lab would not need to have AutoCAD or SPSS, but would most certainly need the latest Adobe Creative Suite and CorelDRAW.

But as a general rule, most universities offer the latest versions of these programs on labs campus-wide:

• Acrobat Reader
• Adobe Acrobat
• Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium
• Firefox
• Flash Player
• Internet Explorer
• iTunes
• Mathematica
• Microsoft Office
• Power DVD
• RealPlayer
• Visual Studio
• VLC Media Player
• Windows Media Player
• WinZip

It is interesting to see what software products are becoming more and more common, even though they remain niche. Programs like Adobe Creative Suite, Mathematica, and Visual Studio, while not in every lab, are installed on the majority of computers. These products have become so widely used, that even students who are not in specific programs that demand these software products, use these them on a fairly regular basis.

To find out exactly what software products your university needs more of or what it can afford to downsize in, use AppUse. AppUse is part of the Labstats suite that Computer Lab Solutions created to help labs track and monitor software usage.

As a whole, IT lab managers can expect students to need and expect more and more specialty software, no matter the department, and no matter the percentage of pcs and MacBook’s on campus.

by Shelley Daun for LabMonkeys.net

Shelley is the copywriter for LabMonkeys. Shelley recently graduated with her bachelor’s in English: Technical Writing, from Brigham Young University-Idaho. When she is not writing or editing for LabMonkeys, she enjoys reading, running, and playing the piano. Contact Shelley at sdaun@labmonkeys.net

 

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