The University is fortunate to own the Wytham Estate, much of which is available for field studies. There is now a considerable level of expertise in many IT related aspects of biology in the Department. As far as possible there is now a computer on the desktop of every member of staff, and most research students. Generally these are PC clones or Macintoshes, though a few Unix workstations are appearing in areas where intense computation is required. Most members of the department use the University Computing Service, if only for electronic mail.
Some groups also run their own file and mail servers with links to the desktop.
We plan to provide a Departmental electronic information service through a fileserver in the Library. There is an extensive high speed network throughout the Department. Apart from access to central computers and e mail, the network gives access to other local services such as library catalogues and literature databases, and to the Internet. The Department is justifiably proud of the provision it makes for undergraduate computing, and its integration into the course. There is a network of 40 Macintoshes with extensive statistical and other software.