Abstract

The Microlab, part of the the Health Sciences Library Learning Commons, is an essential computing facility for students in the Health Sciences and other nearby departments. In order to continue providing high quality service for our users, we are requesting 65 workstations to replace 4-year old equipment. We are also requesting funding to purchase a slide scanner and a transparency scanner to replace equipment which has failed.

Background

The Health Sciences Library Microlab is part of the Learning Commons. It was established in 1986 to support the common instructional computing needs of the six Health Sciences schools (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Health and Community Medicine, and Social Work). Today, many Health Sciences students use the Microlab as their primary computing center. In a typical quarter, there are approximately 15,000 student visits to the lab for drop-in use. There are another 3,000 student visits for classroom sessions.

The Microlab currently consists of a common drop-in area for general use (70 seats), two traditional lecture style computer teaching rooms separated by a folding wall that can be opened to create a larger classroom (20 seats each), a collaboratory-style teaching room (25 seats), a small Library Teaching Lab (13 seats), and an email area of 8 stations.

The lab is open seven days a week for a total of 79.5 hours. For approximately 85% of our open hours, the teaching rooms are available for general drop-in use. For the remaining time, averaging just over 2 hours/day, the classrooms are reserved for academic classes, workshops and equipment maintenance.

The Microlab serves over 4,000 graduate and undergraduate students in the health sciences and is open to all UW students. It is centrally located in the same complex as the classrooms, teaching labs and other instructional support services for five of the six Health Sciences schools (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health). The student breakdown of each school is roughly as follows:

Dentistry 299, Medicine 1487 (plus 1033 resident physicians in training), Nursing 637, Pharmacy 449, Public Health 640, Social Work 545.

In addition to our primary clientele, the lab is used by students in interdisciplinary programs taught by Health Sciences faculty, and other nearby programs such as biology, bioengineering, chemistry and zoology.

All Learning Commons computers provide access to the campus network, to the Libraries' public databases, to unique health sciences software programs not available in other computing labs, and to general-purpose applications (e.g., word processing, presentation graphics, spreadsheets, statistical software and email). Examples of subject specific software include tutorials in microscope use, laboratory safety, gram stain techniques and interpreting heart sounds and murmurs. Student use of the Microlab ranges from assigned course software (e.g. web-based educational modules, electronic course reserve materials, statistical programs) to self-directed information discovery and retrieval.

Laser printing in the Microlab is self-service and is provided on a cost-recovery basis. The current rate is $.10 per page, which is subject to change based on annual reviews of costs for printer maintenance and supplies. Print jobs are selected and paid for at self-service computer printing stations.

Benefits

The Health Sciences Library Learning Commons resources are highly valued by our students. Students appreciate the improvements we have made during past remodels and have come to rely heavily on our improved level of service. This comment, from our Fall 2006 survey, describes how many students feel:

The stuff here is outstanding! ... They go out of their way to help me here & at the main library. - Undergraduate student, Physician's Assistant Program

We conduct regular surveys to ensure that we meet the needs of our students. Results indicate that overall satisfaction is high. Based on comments from previous surveys, we developed questions in the following topic areas for the Fall 2006 survey: replacement of outdated workstations and malfunctioning scanners. We used responses from the 98 lab users who completed the survey to shape this proposal. See the survey and survey results at: http://healthlinks.washington.edu/hsl/commons/stf/.

Benefits of Dell Workstations:

The computers in the Microlab are used heavily by a variety of people from 7:30am to 9:00pm most days. This type of use contributes to significant wear and tear. To continue to provide high quality service, old equipment must be upgraded on a regular basis and new resources must be added to meet evolving student needs. To this end, we have been operating on a staggered 4-year replacement schedule for the workstations. One year the workstations in the classrooms are replaced. Two years later all of the drop-in stations are replaced. So, at any time, students have the option of using equipment that is less than two years old.

This year we are requesting 65 Dell OptiPlex 745 PCs with 1.86 GHz IntelCore 2 Duo Processors. These will replace the four-year old systems in the three classrooms. These high-speed systems will keep pace with technology and meet the needs of our students. The workstations that will be removed will be offered to the campus community via departmental transfer. Student use in other campus units will have priority. Any remaining workstations will be sent to UW surplus.

In our Fall 2006 survey, we asked students what they thought of our replacement schedule. Of the 96 students who responded to this question:

2.08% said “equipment should be replaced more frequently;”
89.58% said “the replacement schedule is just about right;”
5.21% said “equipment should be replaced less frequently;” and
3.12% included a write-in response.

The overwhelming support for replacing these workstations demonstrates that students receive tangible benefits from new equipment. These results are similar to the responses from previous surveys.

The workstation features we’re requesting (e.g. flat screen monitors, CD/DVD burners, and optical mice) are based on responses from older surveys.

Results from current and surveys are linked from http://healthlinks.washington.edu/hsl/commons/stf/.

Student Access

Learning Commons workstations are open to all UW students with UW NetID logon. Health Sciences students have ready access to computing resources at a location that is convenient to their classes, labs, and patient care responsibilities. The library is open 79.5 hours/week, spanning the hours when students generally come to campus. Other campus computing facilities are located too far from the Health Sciences complex for drop-in use between classes and lack the specialized software needed for Health Sciences student assignments. We’ve found that many non-Health Sciences students who have classes in the Health Sciences Building or in neighboring buildings also take advantage of the convenience of working here.

Available Resources

The Health Sciences Administration provides funding for day-to-day operations and the Health Sciences Library provides overall lab administration. Support for daily operations of the Microlab includes the contributed time of a librarian and library support staff, a 1.0 FTE senior computing specialist, and 4.0 FTE student assistants as well as funding for ongoing customer service and technical training for Learning Commons staff.

Learning Commons staff install new equipment/software, provide routine maintenance, and assist students in using the lab. Staff also provide security for the equipment by being present in the area while the library is open. All doors are alarmed and centrally monitored while the library is closed. In the unlikely event that STF equipment is vandalized or stolen, insurance is funded by the Health Sciences Library.

HS Administration and the HS Library also fund many of the educational licenses for software and computer manuals, workstations for the Library Teaching lab, and the Microlab email stations. The Health Sciences Library also has an agreement with Microsoft that supplies us with the latest MS operating system and Office products for the lab as part of the fees we pay to support our staff workstations.

Since the Spring of 2001, the Health Sciences Library has spent over $100,000 for software, servers, and upgrades to the server room. In the past two years, the Library has upgraded server hardware and migrated to a more secure subnet.

Installation Timeline

If funds are awarded before the end of May 2007, the proposed services should be operational before the start of Autumn Quarter 2007.

Departmental Endorsement

In addition to the departmental support described in the resources section, this proposal is supported by the following deans:

Karen I. Fredriksen-Goldsen, Ph.D.<br/>
Associate Dean for Academic Affairs<br/>
School of Social Work<br/>

Nanci L. Murphy, Pharm.D.<br/>
Associate Dean of Academic & Student Programs
<br/>
School of Pharmacy<br/

Thomas E. Norris, MD<br/>
Vice Dean for Academic Affairs<br/>
University of Washington School of Medicine & WWAMI<br/>

Susan L. Woods, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN<br/>
Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Programs<br/>
School of Nursing<br/>

Student Endorsement

A statistical summary of the survey results demonstrating student support for these enhancements is linked from:
http://healthlinks.washington.edu/hsl/commons/stf/

As part of our Fall 2006 survey, we asked students the question, "May we use your name in our Student Technology Fee funding proposal?" In response to this question, the following students have agreed, as individuals, to support STF funding for the Health Sciences Microlab.

Mike Holm, Dentistry<br/>
Debie Vu, Medicine<br/>
Angela Peck, Epidemiology<br/>
Magaly Blas, Public Health<br/>
Aaron Jacob, Occupational Medicine<br/>
Taylor Leischman, Nursing<br/>
Paul Horn, Rehabilitation Mediciine<br/>
Dwayne Hammond, Medicine<br/>
Quy Nguyen, Microbiology<br/>
Moz Benado, Nutritional Sciences<br/>
Megan Roseman, Pharmacy<br/>
Diana Spencer, Pharmacy<br/>
Joseph Ravet, Civil Engineering<br/>
Tim Richardson, Dentistry<br/>

Items

Below are the items making up the current proposal. The asterisk (*) beside items signify that they were approved by the committee. This however was not implemented correctly for our database before 2005, so earlier years may not show this.

Click an item's title to view details on that item, or show all item details.