Unification of software programs in all university facilities
Passed: 24/02/15
Unification of software programs in all university facilities by either buying the required licenses for all computers that have specific software or withholding some computers from updating until the end of the year, or until all can be updated.
A bit of background on this one: currently such software as for example unity gets updated differently in media city and in centenary. Media City has the full license with all updates included, Centenary doesn't, so it seems. If Media City hits unity 5.0 for example, while Centenary gets left with Unity 4.6, our projects would automatically update to 5.0 if we use the machines in Media City meaning that our projects would no longer even run on Centenary machines.
Furthermore on this topic, university should try to either use more free programs in the curriculum, or make sure that programs get installed on more than just a few machines in a specific room. Students can not afford to buy licenses for home use and it really becomes a problem when everyone is trying to do their work for the semester in the same room as a different group of students that at the same time are having a lecture.
I would like the Union to lobby the university to ensure that:
1) The University will provide the software that is safe to use no matter on what machine the student is on. The student should not have to think whether this particular machine will update their project and make it stop working on other machines.
2) The University will provide a sufficient amount of licenses and ease of access to the machines. Meaning that if more than one course will have to be using the same machines for the same software, university should issue a time table with time slots pre-booked for courses that require said licenses.