The Department of Computer Science has extensive facilities for instructional and research use at its disposal. Department instructional facilities contain numerous Sun workstations running Unix and numerous Pentium-based PCs running Windows. Every computer science major is provided an account for these systems with several hundred megabytes of disk space, Internet access, an e-mail account, and a personal website. All departmental systems are integrated into a high-speed local area network that is connected to the campus area network.

The Department's Computer Lab is located in Faner 2102. In May 2001, the Department ordered all new PCs and Sun workstations for this lab. The PCs run Windows 2000 and contain the latest version of programming, office, database, and graphical software from Microsoft, Symantec, Oracle, Adobe, etc. The workstations run Solaris 8 and contain the latest development tools from Sun and GNU, such as Forte Developer, gcc, and g++. The lab is generally open 8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. Monday - Friday, and is available to graduate students 24 hours a day.

The Department's Hands-On Lab is located in Faner 2133. This lab is partitioned into four "minilabs": a graphics lab, a video-on-demand (VOD) lab, a Linux cluster parallel computing lab, and a distributed computing lab.

The Graphics Lab contains computers, virtual reality hardware, graphics tablets, a digital camcorder, image processing software, and a nonlinear video editing system. It is used for instruction in upper level and graduate classes on graphics and user interfaces, and for research in these areas. Dr. Michael Wainer, Associate Professor of Computer Science, is in charge of the lab.

The University's central computing service provider, Information Technology, has four Computer Learning Centers on campus, containing hundreds of personal computers. Some of these facilities are available seven days a week and up to 20 hours per day. All of the classrooms in these Learning Centers contain powerful "SMARTboard" interactive display systems for instructional use in computer lab classes.

All campus dormitory rooms are wired for high-speed Ethernet access to the campus network and the Internet. Dial-up access to the Internet is also provided by Information Technology for student use. SIUC is a member of the high-speed network known as Internet 2.

We are also a member of
1) Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance Program, and
2) Scalable Network Technologies' Qualified University Program.