Information Technology Issues

IT Infrastructure

The Global Lounge has the IT infrastructure that helps with the development of the organisation as well as for the users.

Computers

Hardware:
Overview

There are approximately 8 computers in the Global Lounge, where 2 computers are for public use, and the rest of them are for staff use. There is only one type of hardware, computers itself, available for public use, whereas printers and scanners are available for staff use only. All computers were purchased through HKU Computer Centre.

2 public computers in Global Lounge-->

Maintenance

Computers are bought through HKU Computer Centre's annual package from the tender. Since the Lounge was opened just one year, all computers are still in warranty period. The staff do not take the responsibility to maintain the computers within the warranty period, but they shift the maintenance responsibility to the tendered company—Dell Inc., and HKU Computer Centre.

Security

Public computers are physically sealed in a box by the Global Lounge, which does not allow users to use the USB drive. So far the computers work just fine with good internet connection speed. Staff and student ambassadors of the Global Lounge, as well as HKU Estate Office are responsible to take care of the computers’ safety, not to be stolen by any party.

Purpose and user needs

The purpose of having such hardware is to satisfy users' information needs. There are totally 3 types of users in the Global Lounge.

1. Staff—their information needs is mainly for facilitating their work. For instance, they need to create posters, communicate with their responsible departments (Registry in HKU, which runs the Global Lounge) and other departments through e-mails. Hence, the existence of computers, printers, and scanner in the office area can help them facilitate their work.

2. Students—their information needs are mainly for completing their assignments and projects, using e-mails to communicate with their friends, surfing the net for leisure purpose. Therefore, only public computers can help with satisfying students' needs to a certain extent.

3. Outsiders—their information needs are mainly surfing the net, and e-mailing with known people. In this sense, public computers are able to satisfy them.

Critics

The hardware may not be enough for public use. Since the mission/vision of the Global Lounge is to connect people in different nationalities together, it does attract a lot of students and staff to come along. However, I observed that users often had to wait for using the computers, and some of the students admitted that the number of computers were not enough for them. Although students are welcome to bring their laptop computers here (the Lounge supports HKU Computer Centre wireless internet access), students will be benefited of having more computers available in it, especially when the Computer Centres (located in Run Run Shaw Building and Old Library Building) are far away from the Global Lounge.

As student's information needs are mentioned above, completing their assignments and projects is one of their purposes to stay in the Global Lounge. Students usually may need to print out or scan their assignments into hardcopies/softcopies, but only desktop computers are available for them to use. This might bring inconvenience to them. It also implies that the Lounge cannot fully satisfy students'needs. Therefore, it will benefit the students if it can install printers and scanners in the near future.

Software:

Overview

All computers in the Global Lounge use Microsoft products. Take the 2 public computers as an example, Windows XP, the operation system is preinstalled; other basic programs such as IE, Mozilla, MSN MESSENGER, GOOGLE TALK and GOOGLE EARTH are also preinstalled with Guest mode (no password is needed to login the computers). However, word processing software like Microsoft Office, graphics and web development software like Macromedia are not available in public computers at the moment, because the management is reluctant to purchase the license. Furthermore, the Global Lounge allows users to install any software from the internet. It shifts the flexibility of using software to users.

User needs fulfilment

Users, especially students would like to produce normal files in Word, PowerPoint, Excel and so on. However, public computers in the Global Lounge are neither preinstalled Microsoft Office nor Macromedia products such as Flash, Firework, Dreamweaver, etc. Therefore, it requires updating the variety of software in computers regularly to fulfil users' continuous needs.

Controls

The Global Lounge has set the integrity control in all computers to a certain extent. For staff computers, staff can make their own integrity control measures inside their own machines, like backing up their computers, making password and access block, and having administrative control. On the other hand, public computers have been set the password/access control only. There are 2 groups of passwords available in the public computers to distinguish the different access and use between administrator (Global Lounge staff) and users.

Furthermore, there is no effective security control in all Global Lounge' s computers. For example, firewall like Norton is not installed into the computers, which can cause security threat (being hacked by other computers) to them; computers are allowed to download and install any software into the local machine, which is also possible to cause virus infection. Hence, personnel in the Global Lounge can consider setting security controls like installing firewall, blocking the software installation from unknown companies; and having contingency control such as installing some hard disk recovery software like Ghost for disaster recovery (bring the hard disk back into uninfected state).

Database

There is no database available in the Global Lounge. Although there is a database for making statistic analysis of the number of users entering, it did not make such analysis anymore after the opening of Pacific Coffee inside it. Security gate-->

Computer Network
The Global Lounge uses the star network topology provided by HKU Computer Centre. Star network, a computer network topology, consists of one central switch, hub or computer which acts as a router to transmit messages (Wikipedia, 2006). Students and staff who have registered for the service can enjoy free access to the internet, and communicate with other computers (staff only) through cable or wireless/Wi-Fi in this type of network topology. The wireless signal received in the Lounge area is always good or excellent. The management does not need to pay a single cent to receive this service.

The advantages of using this network topology are:

1. Computer Centre can support the maintenance and cost of carrying out this network, where the huge cost and new hardware of creating this network can be ignored.

2. The performance of this network is good, as it can transfer the data faster than other network topologies like bus or tree network.

3. It is reliable for the Lounge to use, because the broken/disconnected computers cannot affect others' works and performance.

4. Replacement of hardware is easy, as installing or removing hardware does not affect other computers within the same network.

Gym Facilities

Overview

There are totally 9 gym facilities for users. All of them are high-end products and very expensive. There are treadmills, dumbbells, weight lifting machines, lockers and shower facilities. The purpose of having such facilities is to satisfy users' need of having exercises within the main campus. Beside the Global Lounge, the nearest gym room is in Flora Ho Sport Centre. Some of the facilities are from donations, and others are from Institution of Human Performance (IHP) in HKU. Equipments there will be maintained by IHP staff from a time to time basis.

<--Only qualified users (trained by IHP) are allowed to use the facilities.

Click here to view the gym room virtually.

Maintenance

All facilities are co-maintained by IHP and the Global Lounge. The cost of maintenance is from 2 sources: IHP and the HKU Registry. The reason of having 2 sources of financial support is due to the fact that these facilities are co-owned by IHP and the Registry.

Other Facilities

Televisions:

There are currently 12 medium 25 inch display TVs and one large 41 inch LCD (liquid crystal display) TV. All of which are primarily owned by the Registry. The Lounge is responsible for running and controlling the use of the machines, where TVs are set to mute. If anyone wants to enjoy the channels with sound, they can borrow wireless headphones from the student ambassador. The maintenance will rely on the source of purchase, and there is currently no cost of maintenance (all of which are still under warranty). There are 6 paid TV channels such as Star, ESPN, Phoenix, CCTV, Fashion TV and NHK sponsored by the television channel providers. This type of facility helps to satisfy users' information needs of knowing updated news in all aspects.

Development of IT Infrastructure in Global Lounge

Present:

Since the mission of the Global Lounge is to connect different nationalities' HKU members together, the present development has been done very closely with users' needs like the availability of 2 computers for public use, gym facilities and televisions. To cope with the ever-changing demands, it requires updating its IT infrastructure to meet new challenges.

Future:

In the near future, a new website for the Global Lounge will come to life to announce upcoming events in the Lounge, to provide an online communicating platform for HKU members, etc. Although this does not focus on the development in hardware and software, it is still a benefit to the future development of the Lounge in terms of IT infrastructure.