shuffle August 2007 content

[Magnus]

A visit to AUS
by Magnus

If there’s a place in the UAE made for
Mac lovers, it has to be the School of
Architecture and Design at American
University in Sharjah (AUS). It is only
natural that the computers predominantly
serves the school’s computer
needs. We spent a few hours touring
the school with Abdul-Hakeem Sanni,
IT Manager for the school. He told us
they have some 500 Macs in all, distributed
among students and faculty,
and ranging from old G4 iMacs (the
ones with monitor on a swinging arm)
to the latest Intel iMacs, MacBook
Pros and Mac Pros. The school’s main
working area is very cleverly laid out.
It encompasses three levels, with a
large opening in the middle so you
can see all the levels. At the bottom
are all the new students. They don’t
work with computers, instead they
work manually, the old fashioned way,
exploring their creativity with freehand
styles and designs. Then in the
second year they move up one level
and they get to work with computers.
The computers are a mix of PowerMac
G5 and iMacs, and it’s all laid out in
an open plan solution, with teacher’s
offices around the edges of the open
area. This should encourage participation
and dialogue between faculty and
students, which is essential in education.
In the third year, the students
again advance one level up, and into
different surroundings too. Then they
have their own MacBook Pro, and
they share a pretty big room with six
or seven other students, where they all
can work on their projects. The school
also have more traditional computer
labs with various types of equipment,
including special sound-proof video
editing suites. All in all, the school
has about 120 Macs in labs, another
300 or so portable Macs that students
have, and around another 80 Macs
for faculty and staff. In total, the IT
support staff serve around 500 Macs,
which should mean that the School of
Architecture and Design at AUS is one
of the largest, if not the largest, user of
Macs in the UAE. In total the school
has around 7TB of storage on servers,
distributed among G4 PowerMacs,
xServes with xRaid, Mac Pro, and
other types. The School of Architecture
and Design is accepting around
100 students back for their third year
in August, and they all have to buy a
MacBook Pro. EmiratesMac will try
to be present to distribute shuffle and
help the students out with any questions
they may have about their new
Macs. You can find more information
about AUS at American University of Sharjah and the
School of Architecture and Design at
School of Architecture and Design - American University of sharjah.