Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) Labs

CSE is considering the introduction of a small number of BYOD labs, as an alternative to labs in a standard Lab room (e.g. Oboe) with CSE computers. We wouldn't do this in all courses, but might consider it for e.g.

• COMP2911 (Object Oriented Design and Programming) using Java and Eclipse
• COMP1927 (Data Structures and Algorithms) using C and gcc

The benefits to you in attending a BYOD lab would be that you can work on your own computer and its familiar environment, the lab environment might be slightly more informal/flexible, you wouldn't need to move from a tute room to a lab, etc.

We aim to ensure that students are not advantaged or disadvantaged by whether they attend a BYOD or standard lab. In particular, you should only consider enrolling in a BYOD lab if you have a recently purchased laptop with sufficient RAM that would be comparable in power to the CSE computers. You would have to configure and maintain the software on your device yourself.

There are various options for setting up the software required for a BYOD lab. We would like your opinions on this, and any general issues you think might arise with BYOD labs.

This survey is arranged as a collection of Polls:

• would you consider taking a BYOD lab?
• would you prefer a BYOD lab over a CSE lab?
• how would you prefer to manage software?
• what kind of laptop do you own?
• which operating system do you run?

Each of the above links opens a new browser tab. The simplest way to navigate through the survey is to click on one of the links, fill out that question, return to the tab holding this page, and click on the next link.

Finally, if you have any general comments on the idea of BYOD labs, please put them in the comments below.

Thanks for your assistance, jas