Laptop Initiative

Laptop Purposes and Benefits

The purpose of the Brigham Young University–Idaho laptop initiative is to increase the quality of the student experience. Students will be equipped with better tools to learn, communicate, organize, and complete assignments. In addition, expenses will be reduced over the long term as students have more access to less expensive learning material. By incorporating the laptop initiative into the BYU–Idaho educational experience, students will be better prepared for lifelong learning and employment in the information age.

Key benefits:

1. Improves the ability of students to implement the Learning Model by coming prepared, having read about and researched learning objectives prior to class.  Much, if not most of this material, is available electronically.

2.  Enhances the ability of students to make the best use of their time by allowing access to internet-based assignments, I-Learn, and other resources between classes while they’re on campus. Wireless internet access is available in several campus locations and should be pervasive by late 2009.

3. Allows students to add the laptop purchase expense to the total cost of an education for Federal Financial Aid and tax refund purposes.

4. Provides laptop access to specialized software such as Computer Aided Design, scientific analysis, and other “lab” software, currently only available in on-campus labs. Therefore, the number of dedicated computer labs can be reduced, and the space can be used for many types of classes. This flexibility will allow the university to serve more students.

5. Provides easy access to wireless printing from a laptop to a campus printer: www.byui.edu/wireless/printing.htm .

For more information from the Computer Help Desk, please go to www.byui.edu/helpdesk, or call (208) 496-9000.