Constraints on computing resources take two forms, limits on the available time of computing support staff and limits on funds for purchasing hardware and software. These constrained resources must be allocated to support computing by faculty, staff, and students for research, teaching, learning, and administrative activities. Most faculty members use a single workstation for a mix of research, teaching, and administrative activities and access to the electronic workplace. Given the power of modern workstations, a single computer and the general accounts are sufficient to handle the computing needs of most faculty members. Many faculty members use external or internal research grants to purchase a computer for their office and the Faculty shares the cost of connecting these computers to the campus network.
Some faculty members require centralized computing facilities to conduct their research.
This may result from factors such as large disk space requirements, intensive CPU usage, centralized databases, or extensive support services. The objective of this policy is both to quantify typical charges so that researchers can then include in new grant proposals, and to provide a means to recover the cost of providing centralized support services and computing resources for computer-intensive faculty research. Funds collected from this policy will supplement existing budgets to purchase hardware and software to support research computing. This policy recognizes that while the Faculty of Arts has a responsibility to provide computing support for research, there are constraints on the resources available for computing and most research computing in Arts can be carried out efficiently on a desktop workstation. The Faculty of Arts recognizes a responsibility to provide computing infrastructure and access to the electronic workplace to support research.