Our facilities

The Department of Computing provides all the computing facilities needed by students on its undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as for academic research work.

The Department traditionally offers student computing facilities which are among the best in the UK, and academics, laboratory organisers and the Computing Support Group make sure that the most appropriate computing systems are available.

Computing support group

Full details of all systems and facilities can be found on the Department's Computing Support web pages, though for security reasons some of these pages are only viewable within the college.

Research groups within the Department also have extensive computing resources of their own and individual access to these may also be possible when students are doing project work.

Workstations 

The Department's teaching laboratories are modern and spacious, with around 200 workstations available for students to use at any one time. To ensure our facilities remain state of the art we renew over one-third of the laboratories PCs every year.

Operating systems

Students using these facilities can choose to use systems running Windows, Linux, or macOS. All our workstations have flat-screen TFT monitors and fast networking. Those students who prefer to use their own laptops also have access to high-speed wireless networking with dedicated special areas set aside for such use.

Printing

We also provide high-quality academic printing (both colour and black and white) through high-capacity laser printers and our systems are installed with an extensive range of the latest software. The Department is also a member of the Microsoft Imagine programme, allowing us to provide some Microsoft software for home use to all our students free of charge.

File storage

Other services provided by the Department to all students include file storage, email, personal web space, and high-speed Internet access. The workstations are supported by a range of the latest x86-64 hardware running Linux and Windows server operating systems. All students, like staff, have personal email accounts and the use of email and the internet in general is central to life in the department.