The first-floor CEBA computer lab will extend its hours during the two weeks before finals. But this time it won’t be for 24 hours.
The lab’s hours will extend from 11:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Sunday through Thursday. The lab will also open at 6 a.m. rather than 7:30 a.m.
Students this past week could use the lab 24 hours as they studied for midterms, following a Feb. 24 decision by Student Government’s Student Technology Fee Oversight Committee to attempt the pilot program.
The program was part of the committee’s effort to determine whether the lab should remain open 24 hours every semester.
Based on information that Information Technology Services, which handles the public access labs on campus, collect a substantial number of students used the lab after regular closing hours.
But the number peaked at about 1 a.m., said Student Government President Michelle Gieg.
“Based on what we gathered, we needed to keep it open earlier and later,” Gieg said. “The 24-hour lab is still a project we want to discuss. But we know there will be a 24-hour lab at the Union in two years.”
Gieg said the average number of additional students who came to the lab between the hours of 11:30 p.m., when the lab normally closes, and 1 a.m. was between 30 and 50.
Some said that number may have been larger if more students knew about the additional hours.
Malak Shah, mechanical engineering junior and weekly CEBA lab user, said he used the lab last week after hours. But he said many fellow students were not aware of the additional hours.
“I didn’t even know the computer lab was open later than usual,” Shah said. “Michelle [Gieg] told me it was going to be. But I completely forgot while studying.”
The lab, along with the public labs in Middleton Library, normally close at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday.
Shah said he and fellow students who need computer access past that time must go to the dorms. But computers in the dorms do not have the software engineering students need, such as the math program Matlab, he said.
“I understand why in the fall they close at 4:30 p.m. – because of football games,” Shah said. “But during the spring that shouldn’t happen.”
 
 
Contact Chris Day at [email protected]