One Laptop Per PhD Student

Published 07 March 08 09:56 PM | robyn.owens 

I was at a national meeting this week where we discussed, among other things, aspirations for high quality facilities for PhD students. I made the suggestion that we (the University) should supply a new laptop on enrolment for all PhD students. This suggestion was met with gasps of horror from colleagues at other universities, somewhat to my surprise. It was clearly something that seemed way out of the realms of dreaming, and then shortly afterwards the arguments about why it would be a bad thing started.

  • Using laptops is bad for your health
  • Laptops get stolen
  • Laptops require back-up
  • Laptops would require set-up with necessary software
  • Licencing for software would be complicated/costly
  • What happens if the student takes longer than 4 years? - should the laptop be replaced?
  • Who owns the laptop at the end of candidature?

I know, however, that a number of Schools at UWA do supply their PhD students with a new computer (desktop or laptop, whichever is more appropriate or desired) upon commencement. This seems to me perfectly reasonable - I can't imagine how one could be expected to do a PhD without a computer, and if the research requires travel and/or fieldwork, then a laptop is necessary.

Is the One Laptop Per PhD Student an even wilder dream than the One Laptop Per Child? 

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# sky said on March 8, 2008 1:28 AM:

I did my first round of fieldwork without a laptop, and I'm still trying to catch up on digitising my field notes/recordings/etc so that they're easily searchable. Having a laptop makes a huge difference to my ability to organise my work (over 400 documents!) and tweak my workspace (dvorak!)

Of course, there are probably other ways to do it, like the provision of desktops in good workspaces, the use of external drives, and online backup systems. I think it's a good idea to explore, though.

# david.glance said on March 8, 2008 11:14 AM:

Most of those issues have been overcome at UWA - medicine gives each student a laptop when they do their rural year and back them up, put software on them and to my knowledge nobody has been injured using one (admittedly dropping one on your foot wouldn't be good)

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."

Thomas Edison

# maria said on March 8, 2008 4:20 PM:

I think it is fundamental for every phd student to have a laptop. How can you write your thesis without one?

Those arguments are ridiculous and probably comming from academics that, despite their huge salaries, have their schools providing them with laptop/desktops, paying for their printing and providing them with a desk space.

The issue of computer/laptops has been extensively debated in my school (anatomy and human biology) but unfortunately the school can not afford to give a laptop/student so most student offices have some desktop computers to be shared. And, although not ideal, this is not the worse case students face in this university: in some schools students have to pay for their printing (or have riduculously low printing quotas), have no desk space - let alone a shared computer!

I usually say this as a joke but now i really mean it "How can one work under these conditions?"

# Karen.Hall said on March 10, 2008 4:41 PM:

Like Sky, I found an enormous difference between research trips with information transcribed into hard copy or onto my laptop - the searchability in particular made writing up the related chapters and checking references so much easier.

However, where a 'one laptop' policy might make a real difference (in the humanities at least) is if there was a purchase option, like laptops for school teachers, where on completion you could pay a reduced amount to keep your laptop permanently. This would mean that in the gap between submission and finding work, which is usually accompanied by being cut off from the minimal resources provided, students would still be able to be able to work on publications etc.

Buying my laptop about halfway through my thesis (using my tax return plus tutoring money) was one of the best investments I ever made.

# Gav said on March 13, 2008 12:25 PM:

I agree that Notebook computers are important for students. However, 2nd-hand notebooks for most students, i.e. those who don't need the grunt of a powerful machine, are pretty cheap (even for poor students such as myself). Instead of requesting the university to provide them, we should be asking them to better manage their contracts for the provision (and support) of software for students to run on their notebooks.

Regarding the ownership comment - after 4 years of candidature the notebook will not be worth much at all. In fact, it may well be the same price as a litre of petrol the way things are going.

# Sanna said on March 13, 2008 3:46 PM:

I fear the phrase "let them have laptops!" can easily become the prefix for "...so we don't have to worry about providing study space for them on prime real estate". If postgrads must be given laptops then in some of the poorer schools at least the cost of laptops would most likely be deducted from existing entitlements. Postgrads in the Arts building have been feeling the thin end of the wedge recently, so I'm particularly touchy about the allocation of funds and facilities...

Laptops are great, but I do feel there are more important places to put the (potential) money - increasing funding for interlibrary loans for example, or at least working towards the possibility that university travel funding actually covers the cost of travel.

# pete.metaxas said on March 15, 2008 4:51 AM:

Yep, it's the research group who should provide computers using grant money. Although the gap is narrowing, it's in general more expensive to buy a laptop than an equivalently specced desktop. For some students, that gap might represent an investment of money which would be better spent somewhere else. Students have widely varying needs in terms of computing power and portability depending on their project and hence rolling out a bunch of clone laptops is not one of the smartest plans out there. If groups can't provide the necessary computing facilities they should be hesitating before taking on more students.

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About robyn.owens

I started my academic life doing a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics at UWA before going to Oxford to complete an MSc and a DPhil, also in Mathematics. I then spent three years in Paris at l'Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay, continuing research in mathematical analysis and going to lots of movies before returning to UWA to work as a research mathematician. I have lectured in Maths and Computer Science at UWA, as well as for short periods at Berkeley, The University of Canterbury in Christchurch, and Prince Songkla University in Thailand. My research has focussed on computer vision, including feature detection in images, 3D shape measurement, image understanding, and representation.