Lewis and Clark College Discovers Unknown Capabilities in LabStats

Online, November 23, 2010 (Newswire.com) - David Dean, lab manager of Lewis and Clark College, recently delivered the presentation "Discovering Unknown Capabilities in LabStats" at the recent SIGUCCS 2010 conference in Norfolk, VA. The law and graduate school implemented LabStats when they were struggling with questions of which labs the school should maintain, which licenses they should update, and how to deliver accurate reports on computer lab usage of the students. Dean explains how LabStats helped them with this information and more, and how he was able to customize the LabStats software to suit needs not originally addressed by LabStats.

"Prior to implementing LabStats, we purchased licenses based on assumptions, and we didn't have the time or resources to get accurate information. We had expectations to fulfill, so we asked if we could pilot LabStats. It was perfect because it was a single package that was able to address many needs of our lab. It helped us get accurate numbers on why we needed certain labs and what they were being used for," said Dean.

Dean was able to demo LabStats for a month in a test lab using Macs. He used a virtual server, which he was happy to learn wasn't bogged down by the implementation of LabStats. Right away, Dean was able to see positive changes in his labs through LabStats.

"LabStats allowed us to track application launches, login statistics, usage statistics-it gave us what we wanted when we wanted it. The interface was easy to use, and the statistics reports were easy to understand." Previously, Dean set up statistics in an Excel spreadsheet manually, the labor of which took about a week to get all the necessary numbers together.

Another popular feature utilized by Lewis & Clark College was AppUse, which allows lab managers to track application launches. The program aided Dean in learning which applications were most utilized by students, and thus which licenses to renew when necessary. It also helped Dean when professors requested new software-Dean simply installed test software and AppUse told him how frequently students were using it, and whether or not to consider purchasing licenses for that software.

Dean was surprised to learn that LabStats could help him work out rogue printing issues. "We'd have a client sending print commands over and over again to our printers. Before, we'd have to reboot a whole lab to get rid of it, but with LabStats, we were able to narrow down the problem. We were able to find the username that had sent the command, which machine they'd recently been on, and find the exact client that was sending the command and reboot that one machine rather than the whole lab," said Dean.

Features Dean also didn't expect from LabStats include being able to track security violations and inappropriate lab conduct. Dean was able to pinpoint users who were conducting illegal downloads and surfing websites not approved for viewing in a public lab.

LabMaps was another product Dean was able to utilize from LabStats. LabMaps can be displayed on a large screen at the entrance to a computer lab or building to show which computers are currently occupied and which are open. It also shows which computers are experiencing technical issues - a great help to Dean since it shows him which computers need help right away, rather than waiting for a student of staff member to bring up the issue to him.

To see the Lewis & Clark College "Discovering Unknown Capabilities in LabStats" presentation in full, visit http://www.computerlabsolutions.com/blog/post.cfm/lewis-clark-college-discovering-unknown-capabilities-in-labstats.

For more information on LabStats, visit http://www.computerlabsolutions.com.