The Globe and Mail
Tools for E-Business
What's black and sleek and helps turn university graduates into serious Webmasters? Canada's largest community college says it's an IBM IntelliStation desktop computer.
Seneca college in Toronto has purchased 48 them for its new Web Master Technical and Web Master Content courses. The school swears by the technology and the effect it has on students.
It's a lesson we learned watching the new students as they first caught sight of the equipment they'd be working on," says Doug Martin, Program Coordinator for the Web Master courses. "They liked the idea of working with IBM technology and they liked the sleek black design."
Tony Tanner, Dean of the Faculty of Technology, couldn't agree more. The program is open to university and college graduates and tuition is $6,250 for a 14-week term. The cost had to be justified by solid value in the quality of instruction and the technology used.
"Part of the way to sell the program is by using top of the line equipment as opposed to a bunch of beige boxes from an unknown clone company," Mr. Tanner says. "Students know why IBM. They see those black desk tops and they know we're serious."
Serious, indeed. Senate and is always on the lookout for courses that would be valuable to both industry and students seeking rewarding careers, courses in areas where few or no formal educational programs are available. The Internet, especially the creation and maintenance of web sites, was an obvious choice.
"To date, most people who wind up designing or maintaining corporate web sites simply have the job thrust on them.
They might have a background in computer science or graphic design, but no real professional training," Mr. Tanner explains. "At the same time, more and more companies are realizing profits -even survival - depends on a Web presence. There's a huge potential market waiting to be filled.
That's what Seneca's Webmaster courses are all about.
The content course takes college and university graduates and teaches them the design and creation of sites; the technical course shows how to maintain and support the sites.
The text term starts in January. By next September, a total enrollment of 40 students is expected. That's why there are 48 IBM IntelliStations on brand new desks in a refurbished Digital Media Center at Seneca's campus in northwest Toronto. Mr. Martin says this term's students are already impressed with the equipment.
"They are special multimedia versions, running state of the art graphics, and are fully networked," he says. Specifically, they're Pentium II technology a 350 MHz models with 64 megabytes of RAM and 5. 2 gigabytes of hard drive, running on Windows NT version 4.0. Each carries software such as Microsoft Front-Page, Adobe Photoshop and IBM's Java Suite.
There are also 2 IBM Netffinity 3500 servers for each class. A fifth hosts the courses' Web site at http://webmaster.seneca.on.ca as well as sites that the students create.
The Netfinity servers - supplied by the on campus Seneca college computer store, an IBM Business partner-are the heart of the technology that supports the course. "We bought them both to be consistent and for their amazing scalability. We knew there'd be ever increasing demands on performance, hard drive capacity and memory. "The servers are 350 Mhz models with 128 megabytes of RAM and a 16 gigabyte hard drive.
Important, too, is the ability of Netfinity servers to handle both Unix and NT. "The web world is still strongly Unix based. We felt the students needed experience in both."
Mr. Martin and Mr. Tanner heap praise on the reliability of the Netfinity servers. The college does its own technical support, chiefly through the services of one student in a co-operative program. "We can't expect him to know everything," Mr. Martin says. "So, if things stop working we want to be able to call somebody and get immediate service." He notes that the servers, come with a three year, on-site warranty.
Equal praise is directed at IBM as a good corporate citizen.
"We've had a long relationship with IBM," Mr. Tanner says. "What's great is that they wanted to work with us creating this program. They gave us excellent prices on the equipment and work closely with us to get it up and running. Their leadership in Internet technology is important to the students. It helps create confidence in what they're doing."
The relationship will continue, he says. "In fact, besides supplying the equipment, helping with support and service, IBM even has a permanent seat on our industry Advisory Board."