NUI Galway has been named as one of only seven European universities to be funded by the Hewlett Packard (HP) sponsored Mobile Technology for Teaching Grants Scheme. The award, worth $100,000, consists of 40 state-of-the-art wireless enabled laptops, tablet PC devices, and mobile computing network infrastructure.

All second year B.Sc. (IT) students will have use of a laptop, and will have full access – using the on-campus mobile network - to internet-based software, virtual classrooms and collaborative working environments.

The project, managed by the Department of Information Technology, was selected based on its innovation potential and its scope to enhance the learning of students on the accredited B.Sc. degree programme in Information Technology.

This technology award will facilitate an enhancement of the project-based learning approach, widely used in the B.Sc. (IT), by enabling the class to work together as a team to design and build an industry-standard internet auction site. The project will also make use of the skills learned by students on both the business and language streams, and will be translated into European languages.

Dr. Jim Duggan, Project Leader, and Lecturer at the IT department, says that the great benefit of this project is that B.Sc. (IT) students will gain a unique insight into the real-world complexities of internet software development. "They will appreciate the scale of these projects, get a chance to apply their technical, business and language skills, and experience the challenges and excitement of working as part of a large team,."

The project will run for the entire academic year, and the laptop resources will be made available to future second year classes of the B.Sc. (IT).

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