Standard Operating Environment
The Douglas, Cairns and Mackay campuses house a total of 23 General Access Teaching Computing facilities, including the Libraries in Townsville and Cairns. There are a total of 731 desktop units, of which there are 117 Macs and 614 Intel based PCs.
The GATCF Lab model provides at minimal capital cost and minimal support cost, computer hardware and software to support students in their academic endeavors.
Only current staff and enrolled students have the right to use the computers located in the GATCF Labs. Students and staff are presented with a login box on the computers where they must enter their JCU Login-ID and password. Authentication is managed via Windows Active Directory. User and Desktop management is controlled via Symantec's Altiris for PCs and MacOSX Server software for Macs. On login, Users have access to various network resources depending on their student subject group affiliations, and in the case of staff specific software associations.
The Managed NetPC is the model used for the desktop. The NetPC is a PC with local storage and drives but functions such as asset control, hardware diagnosis and software update are managed centrally. The Managed NetPC allows the following:
The solution is robust and tolerates network and server failure as most applications are stored on local storage. Temporary failure of a server or the network does not preclude Users continuing to use core applications.
Applications developed for teaching purposes that are difficult or unable to be served can be deployed to students on local storage.
Specialist School Software can be made available to students based on their enrolled subject groups
The environment is sophisticated and strictly controlled to
Minimize inadvertent or intentional tampering and concomitantly minimize support,
Maximize availability of resources for teaching and learning at JCU.
Standard Software
There is a range of Software applications and utilities that are installed on all GATCF workstations forming what is commonly referred to as the GATCF Standard Operating Environment. Students and staff have access to all of these packages after successfully logging in on a GATCF computer.
ITR staff are responsible for the installation, maintenance, and availability of software installed as part of the Standard Operating Environment
PCs
Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 operating system
Microsoft Office 2010 Suite - Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Publisher
SPSS v21
Matlab R2012b
SPlus 8.2
Adobe Master Collection CS6
Firefox 9.0.1
Internet Explorer 9.0.8112
Adobe Flash Player 11
Shockwave Player 11.6
Sun JRE 7
K-Lite Codec Pack Corporate Version
QuickTime Player 7.7.1
Microsoft Silverlight 5.0.6118
PuTTY Terminal 0.6.1
IZArc 4.16 Zip/Archive Utility
Endnote X6
Adobe PDF Reader X
Ghostscript 9.02
Ghostview 4.9
Ashampoo Burning Studio 6
Windows DVD Maker
Audacity 1.3.13
Windows Media Player
Power DVD Player
VLC Player 1.1.1
Sophos Anti-virus
MACs
Mac OSX 10.6.8
Apple Development Tools & iPhone SDK v5
Terminal
Microsoft Office 2011 - Word, Excel, PowerPoint
SPSS v21
MATLAB R2012b
Adobe Master Collection CS6
Safari 5.1.2
Firefox 3.6.23
Adobe Flash Player
Shockwave Player
VLC Player
Stuffit Expander 15.0.4
Endnote X6
Fetch FTP 5.7
Adobe PDF Reader X
iTunes 10
iMovie11
Apple Burn
Google Earth 6.1
Sophos Anti-virus
Teaching Software
Academic Staff who require specialist teaching software in the GATCF Labs (PC or Mac) should contact their IT Support Staff person
IT support staff have rights to install software onto the GATCF computers. If you are unsure of the software that is available in a particular GATCF Lab your IT-support person can assist you with information on how to login to display the software that is available.