If you haven’t noticed yet, Wittenberg has been sporting some new computers around campus this year. With the big, sleek screens and updated Windows 7 operating systems, the overall function of the computers far surpasses that of what we have used in the past few years.
With the financial crisis Wittenberg has currently faced, many questioned why or even how Wittenberg was able to buy these new computers. Rick Mickool, the chief information officer, said “[the] majority of the funding is coming from the student technology fee.” As to why they would buy them he said that “the aging of the majority of technology on campus was increasingly creating performance and support challenges.” The old computers from last year were operating on Windows XP which was released to the general public in the early 2000s. Seeing that within the past decade three different Windows operating systems have been released (Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8), Wittenberg finally approved for an upgrade.
Mickool said that the Wittenberg Board of Directors approved his team’s “five-year IT Modernization plan” last October. He said that the school needed to replace 600 machines that ran on XP because Microsoft will stop support of XP in April of 2014.
The point of the plan, said Mickool, is to prevent an overwhelming amount of out of date technology in the future. They are trying to implement a managed replacement cycle that will keep all technology on campus compatible with incoming software and devices. This should amp up the learning experience by having computers that run smoother. They plan on updating computers in dorms and other academic buildings during the summer next year.
