Open access rooms account for 14 percent of all computer rooms operated by Computer Lab Management. These rooms are never closed for classes and are intended for drop-in use. These facilities have both Mac OS and Windows based computers with the ratio favoring Windows computers to better reflect student computer ownership trends. The utilization for these facilities vary based on location as well as length of service. Open access facilities have proven to be very popular among users. The Station at 177 MU show above average performance throughout its open time. The 163 Shields facility was recently reclassified as an open access room and shows similar high utilization. Both show above average performance from 9 AM to 10 PM. Below is the utilization of each of the three open access facilities and the average performance of all open access facilities.

Quick Access and Print Only Stations

In addition to the open access labs, CLM provides computers at various locations for quick access or print only use. These locations are collocated next to existing facilities so no additional staffing is required to support them. The 15 Olson facility has four computers (2 Mac and 2 Windows) and the 1101 Hart facility offers six computers (4 Windows and 2 Mac) to provide such services. The 15 Olson computers can only be used to print a document. The 1101 Hart quick access stations can be used for any function as long as it is limited to 15 or fewer minutes of use. All computers at both locations are elevated and are intended to be used while standing up rather than sitting down. This provides additional disincentive to use the computers for a long period of time. Such stations are also deployed in the 177 MU (Station) open access lab and the 75 Hutchison open access lab.

The graph above shows the high utilization of these stations. In the past, the quick access stations in 1101 Hart considerably out-performed its print only counterpart in 15 Olson. This quarter, the role has reversed with a slightly higher utilization for 15 Olson. Success of these quick access stations imply that use of standup type computer stations will be highly successful on campus. The lowest utilized quick/standup stations were in 75 Hutchison. This maybe due in part to the large number of total computers available to students, especially when 73 and 93 Hutchson is not reserved for class.