Need to find an available lab?
Ever need to use a particular computer lab, but there’s class going on in it?
A good idea suggested by Ashley McCully (SRA student) today is to create a website that lists all IST room schedules. Instead of walking through the building looking on all the paper sheets tacked on the doors, you could easily check the site to find an available computer lab. The site could also include a listing of available software programs in each lab.
Over the past few weeks, many of us, SRA students, have been tackling a project using Analyst Notebook. Unfortunately, most of us thought it was only loaded in the Mac lab. Found out today it’s available in room 206 and 208, too. This knowledge would have been helpful when I woke up at 7am to use the Mac lab before class started for the day.
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Tags: analyst notebook, ist building, SRA 231, Suggestions
Categories: Suggestions
10 Comments, Comment or Ping
Mitchell Rukat
That would definitely help out some students, in a way it is kind of like Lion Schedules, but with IST rooms…
Apr 15th, 2008
Steve Sharer
ITS has a site that gives a live update of lab usage for their labs:
https://clc.its.psu.edu/CurrentLabUse.aspx
I don’t know how difficult it would be to set this up in conjunction with an actual general lab schedule for the rooms in IST. I just thought I’d mention this because its pretty cool. Anyways, I can definitely see a website like the one that Ashley envisioned would be useful. The fact that it might also include software in individual labs would be a terrific tool.
Over and out,
Steve
P.S. Stay tuned for my new blog about Tech, Security and Penn State.
Apr 15th, 2008
Caroline Furey
We’re thinking a cool flash app would be perrrfect.
Apr 15th, 2008
Brian Reitz
I can’t imagine this being too complicated. It really is just a database and a front end. I like the idea of a Lion Schedules-esque display (think AJAX so you could dynamically update the information rather than Flash, which you’d need to refresh every so often).
Mostly, you’d just need the data from ITS when a computer is logged on (i.e. makes a connection to the domain server). I guess it would get slightly more complicated as far as whether a class was scheduled or not. It’s only slightly beyond the scope of an in-class IST project, I think.
Apr 15th, 2008
Garrett Miller
AJAX is sweet stuff, and infinitely more flexible than Flash. Getting the data as to whether a computer is logged on or not would be helpful just to see the degree of usage a lab is under, but, as Brian said, wouldn’t exactly tell you if a class was in session or not, as everyone’s not usually logged in.
Perhaps we could get whoever does the scheduling sheets to just post it online?
Apr 15th, 2008
Caroline Furey
Yes, Peggy Stanton in IST is in charge of facilities, including room scheduling, and might be able to help us out. Do we want to actually create a sample site?
Apr 15th, 2008
Tom Bierly
I know the backend database is already in place, the issue is getting access to Penn State’s outdated mainframe… they don’t like people touching it and thus when you reserve the room you’ll notice the lady working through a dos prompt to find if it’s available.
as for analyst’s notebook, you have got to be kidding me! it’s in other labs too!?!
Apr 15th, 2008
Dan Flynn
In Lion schedules you can access the class usage by room. That only covers classes (not meetings) but at least it is better than nothing. I do think that this would be a good idea and could be something that they could use the giant touchscreen tv’s for, instead of the office directory which is relatively unused. Also just as a note if you only need to access a saved file on those machines you can remote desktop to them.
Apr 16th, 2008
Brian Reitz
@Dan Flynn: For those who aren’t aware of that feature, you simply remote desktop to vlabs.3c.ist.psu.edu; from there you can just log in as if you were sitting at a laptop in the IST building.
Apr 16th, 2008
Matt Maisel
@Brian Reitz: The vlabs rarely have the programs that you need to use.
Apr 16th, 2008
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