Designing a Versatile Dedicated Computing Lab to Support Computer Network Courses: Insights from a Case Study.

Introduction During the past two decades, the computing function within organizations has evolved from a support to a strategic function that can provide a competitive edge to an organization. As a result, the need for technology-savvy personnel has increased exponentially, and colleges and universities have expanded their CS, MIS and related programs to meet this personnel demand. This growth, in turn, has resulted in the need for more faculty and support resources (Barker, 1999; Cherry, Phillabaum & Valero, 2000; Madison, 2002). For many small US and international colleges and universities, introducing new computing programs and courses typically implies developing additional computing labs to support these programs. However, in developing these labs, the institutions normally encounter significant obstacles, such as budgetary constraints, lack of physical space to house the labs, conflicting computing support needs of different courses, and rapid obsolescence of technology (Borkowski, Elvove, Higgins & Kueppers, 2004; Jones, Tunc & Cherry, 2000; Lovgren, 2001; Madison, 2002; Walters, 1993; Wilson 2002). These obstacles become even more pronounced in the case of dedicated computing labs. A dedicated computer lab for a course is warranted when a general lab cannot provide adequate computing support for the course (Agarwal, Critcher, Foley, Santi & Sigle, 2001; Dubose, 2000; Hill, Carver, Humphries & Pooch, 2001). Conceptually, a dedicated lab is designed to support a specific course; normally, however, such labs support multiple courses (Belles, Gorka & Miller, 2002; Belles & Miller, 2002; Corbesro, 2003; Wooley, 2003). Consequently, it is imperative that the design and configuration of an under-development lab must be (1) versatile--to accommodate diverse and conflicting computing needs, (2) flexible--to efficiently support different courses, and (3) modular--to easily incorporate new technologies or allow lab reconfiguration (Giebel, 1999; Madison, 2002; Weeden, Scarborough & Bills, 2003; Wilson, 2002). The Management Information Systems (MIS) program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL) has faced similar challenges since its inception in mid 1990s. Recently, the department developed a dedicated lab to support graduate and undergraduate courses such as computer networking, computer network security, host security, client-server system design, and system administration. During the lab design and development process, many choices were made to ensure versatility, flexibility and modularity of the lab to support multiple courses simultaneously. Drawing on their experiences in the design and development of this lab, the authors present a model of a computing lab to specifically support computer networking and related courses. This model presents both physical as well as logical layout design considerations. It is believed that this model will prove a helpful reference for institutions that are undertaking development of such new labs. Physical Layout of the Lab Figure 1 visually depicts the physical layout of the lab, and this section describes this layout in detail. The lab encompasses an approximately 2000 square foot area and is furnished with twenty-four desks each supporting one workstation, but capable of accommodating two separate workstations. With two seats per desk, the lab is capable of seating forty-eight students. The desks are arranged in a lecture-hall setting. At the rear side of the lab, racks are installed to house networking equipment and devices such as routers, firewalls, switches, hubs, a telephone switch (PBX) and patch panels. Another rack is utilized to house servers to be built by students. Ample space in the racks is provided for installing additional equipment as needed. The rack-based equipment is kept in the lab for students to perform hands-on experiments. There are two categories of server computers utilized in the lab. …