Undergraduate computing facilities in the School includes over 450 desktop machines. Most of these are Pentium Pro machines running both Solaris and Windows NT and 150 special purpose educational computers designed by the School. In addition there is a range of specialist hardware, video and other special purpose equipment. Demand for places on the full-time undergraduate programme in computing run by the School is by far the highest in Ireland, and the graduates enjoy an excellent reputation. In addition to our own computing degrees and the shared programmes in Computational Linguistics, Mathematical Sciences and Electronic Commerce, the School provides a teaching input into some of the other degree programmes run by the University.
Research is seen as a vital component of the work of academic staff and is supported strongly.
Many of our staff are in receipt of outside funding from Enterprise Ireland, the National Software Directorate, various programmes within the EU, the University itself and from industry. The breadth of research interests from Faculty reflects the diverse and wide-ranging nature of our discipline and ranges from formal and theoretical aspects of computer science through to the enabling technologies underpinning the discipline, and on into applications of computing. Currently there are approximately 50 research students in the School supported by outside funding or through the resources of the University. Further details of our research interests can be found in the booklet on our Research Profile, and also on the school's website. The School's teaching and research activities are increasing substantially during the next few years in response to the recognised skills shortage in the country and the increased emphasis placed on research activities.