Dell can help you plan and deploy a successful student computing initiative. We'll help you answer the difficult questions like:
- Should notebooks be required or recommended?
- What kinds of systems and configurations are necessary?
- How do students purchase the systems?
- Who should support the systems?
- How do you set up and maintain digital dorms?
- How should you implement secure wireless solutions?
Designing Your Solution
Wireless Networking
Dell Helps Students Learn
At today's colleges and universities, learning happens in and out of the classroom. Wireless local area networks (WLANs) enable students, faculty and staff to stay connected virtually anytime, anywhere. Students can create collaborative study groups, take advantage of project-based learning and enjoy easy, efficient Internet access.
Dell™ wireless solutions and technology are designed to help students go wireless quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Dell Professional Services can help pinpoint potential vulnerabilities and design preventative measures.
Dell Helps Students Play
Many institutions now feature state-of-the-art theaters, coffee shops and dorms that extend the connected student experience. Look to Dell to provide the equipment and services you need to make the setting ideal for hanging out.
Dell Helps Students Make the Most of Their Hardware
Even with today's tech-savvy students, many still need simple training. Dell has hundreds of courses available online, which can help students get familiar with their systems, learn how to connect to campus networks and take advantage of extended service and support options.
Curriculum Management
Today's lecture halls can be truly engaging for students and faculty. With partners like Blackboard, Microsoft and Angel Learning, Dell curriculum management solutions can help you add dynamic interaction into traditional coursework. And they can help you support new online learning initiatives.
"Technology is the new liberal art. It’s likely that 90 percent of all jobs today are related to technology in some way. Our goal is to prepare students to excel in that environment." — Dr. Dennis Trinkle, Chief Information Officer, DePauw University
With curriculum management solutions, instructors can:
- Deliver lessons, assignments and assessments over the Web.
- Promote standards-aligned curricula.
- Provide content customized for groups or individuals.
- Enable students to submit assignments online.
Information Portals
Technology should improve access to education, not make learning a daunting task. As schools provide more information and services online, Dell and Microsoft can help bring it all together. Instead of multiple, disconnected sites, portals aggregate content access and streamline information flow.
With Dell technology and Microsoft® SharePoint® Portal Server, you can create a central access point for multiple online resources. Students, faculty and staff can tap into management tools for multiple courses, discussion groups, self-service functions, online applications and universally used services like campus directories all through a single portal. Plus, you can:
- Extend your school's Web site functionality.
- Enhance students' learning experiences with profiling and personalization.
- Implement coursework catalog management.
- Integrate online registration processes.
- Add ecommerce capabilities
Dell Professional Service can help you through each phase of creating an information portal. Our complete project management expertise will help ensure your portal meets your institution's needs, utilizing your existing IT resources whenever practical. We will also help minimize the disruptions to your business operations.
Dell University Program
Dell University gives your students access to purchase Dell laptops and desktops, and also delivers a dedicated account team to custom build a plan that meets your institution's needs.
"We understood that by encouraging students to purchase a notebook PC, we were giving them access to technology that would become the foundation of their learning experience." — Frank Moore, Assistant Vice President of Instructional and Institutional Technology, Longwood University
With Dell University, you can rest assured that your students, faculty and staff will get an exceptional value on their system. The program features:
- Exclusive discounts on Dell systems
- Higher education-specific sales, project management and online resources
- Special promotions on printers, handhelds and more
- A dedicated account team that has worked with hundreds of campuses nationwide
- Sales consultants who can assist students with purchases
- An online purchasing site that's customized for your school
- Customized marketing tools for relaying configurations and prices to students
- Flexible ordering and delivery options
- Academic pricing on software, such as Microsoft Office 2003
Student Computing and Security
Campus security is just as vital for your technology as it is for your students, faculty and staff. With that in mind, you'll need ways to protect systems from theft, ensure secure access to data and safeguard services from viruses and other malicious attacks. Dell has solutions you can trust to keep student computing secure.
"Our Dell University program has been very successful. Parents do not have to worry whether or not their students have the right equipment." — Robin Allen, Assistant Director for User Support, Villanova University
Physically Safe Systems
A computer's most obvious vulnerability is physical access to the equipment. To thwart theft and tampering, chassis intrusion alerts provide notification to either the system's owner or an IT administrator in the event that a system chassis has been opened. Configuration change alerts provide notice when system components, such as hard drive or processor, have been altered.
Additionally, Dell can equip systems with ComputracePlus™, a PC-tracking and loss control service from Absolute® Software. ComputracePlus monitors asset location and can help law enforcement recover stolen systems. Absolute Software manages the recovery process, freeing system owners from the associated time and inconveniences.
Protected Connections
Networked systems are exposed to each other and, through the Internet, the world. Dell hardware and Microsoft software products integrate secure networking protocols and standards to help protect internal and external networking. Dell PowerEdge™ servers are ideal for running virtual private networks (VPNs), a method helping authenticated remote users to securely access a private LAN through a public network.
