College Laptop Programs: my experience. (Score 1)

I am currently a student at the University of Wisconsin Stout. The university is 4 years into its laptop program, and believe it or not it is not that bad. Since my freshman year I have worked for the Telecommunications and networking department of UW-Stout at their computer helpdesk, and i've seen both the goods and bads of a campus-wide laptop program. The laptops are not actually owened by the students, and are instead leased to them. Every two years students go through a "refresh" program, where they return their old laptop, and are given a newer, more powerful laptop to use through their next two years of school. For software, the campus purchases a number of lisences for most of the expensive software, and uses a keyserver program to regulate their use. We have had some difficulties with this however, because off-campus ISPs will often block the ports which keyserver uses for one reason or another. I know many people who have had to spend hours on the phone with their ISP trying to convince them to un-block ports. This can be hell for users who are not very computer literate. As far as technical support goes, the university has two computer helpdesks on campus, and students can call or bring in their computers when they have a problem. When students have major hardware problems that take a long time to repair, they are able to check out a loaner laptop so that they can still do whatever work they need to while the laptop is being repaired. If the damage is caused by the student (because it was dropped, spilled on, ect), the student is charged a small fine to cover some of the repair costs. It starts at 50 dollars, and increases by 50 dollars with every subsequent incedent of student-caused damage. Software troubleshooting, and Re-Imaging of laptops are done at no charge to the student, as are hardware repairs which are not student-caused. Believe it or not, thefts of laptops are fairly uncommon, though they do happen. If laptops are stolen, the student is charged a 400 dollar replacement fee, and they recieve a different computer. The campus does have a wireless network which is available everywhere except inside the residence halls (there are ethernet ports in each dorm room, making wireless unnecesarry). The school regulates network usage using a Network-Registration system, which requires users to register the mac adress of every device they connect to the network, and students are held responsible for devices which are registered under their name. Ocassionally, the university will recieve complaints from groups like the RIAA ect. because of students illegally downloading material. In this case, the school uses the Net-Reg system to block network access to all of the devices that are registered to the "offender", untill they are able to take appropriate punitive action. I hope you find this information helpful, if you have any more questions about how the laptop program works, I'd suggest looking through the university's website. (www.uwstout.edu)