School of Library and Information Sciences

School of Library and Information Sciences

TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS

(PDF Version available here. Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.)

Welcome! The SLIS faculty are pleased that you have chosen to pursue a career in the information professions. Your degree program will help you become proficient in the use of computer-based tools and resources that are important to information work of all kinds. In order to participate, however, you must have a minimal level of connectivity and computing capabilities outside the School.

Internet Access

Internet connectivity is required for many SLIS courses that are delivered through WebCT (distributed learning courseware), for remote access to the UNT Libraries and other resources, for searching the World Wide Web for class assignments, and for email and conferencing. If you do not already have Internet access at home or work, you should subscribe to a commercial Internet service provider (ISP). Be sure the ISP you choose provides a local telephone number and does not charge by the minute. For students pursuing the majority of their program online, we highly recommend broadband, digital subscriber line (DSL), or cable modem service for the fastest connections.

Hardware

We recommend a computer system with at least the following hardware base: workstation with a 2 GHz (or faster) processor, 512MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, sound card and a 56Kbps modem (or network interface card if using broadband, DSL or cable modem) for Internet connectivity. We also recommend that you have either a Zip drive or CD-RW drive installed for file storage on removable media so that you can easily transport files from one computer system to another.

Software

The base application software currently used within SLIS includes Microsoft (MS) Windows 2000 Professional for the workstation operating system, MS Office 2000 Professional (includes Word, Excel, Access and Powerpoint), Netscape 7.0.2 and Internet Explorer 6.0. We also recommend a web page editing application (MS Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive! are some popular titles) and Adobe Acrobat for PDF document creation and editing. Note that we will be upgrading our productivity software suite to MS Office XP Professional prior to the Spring 2004 semester.

Netscape 4.78 or 7.0.2 and Internet Explorer 6.0 are web browsers that are fully functional with WebCT courseware. You can download compatible versions of Netscape free from their site at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp. America Online (AOL) 7.0 is the only version that is compatible with current version of WebCT used at UNT. Note that some SLIS courses require additional software, usually free plug-ins.

We also highly recommend the use of antivirus software protection on your system to prevent against the latest computer virus and Internet worm threats. McAfee VirusScan (downloadable free from http://ncs.unt.edu/virus/dist.html with UNT EUID and password), Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus, and F-Secure Anti-Virus are some of the applications that provide solutions to keep your system updated with the latest virus signatures on a monthly, weekly or daily basis.

For More Information

Visit the SLIS Web site at http://www.unt.edu/slis, the SLIS technology competency requirements page at http://www.unt.edu/slis/apppacket/ITKS/reqslinks.htm, and the UNT Computing Center student resources site at http://www.unt.edu/helpdesk/. You can also review the current computer hardware and software offerings available in the SLIS Graduate General Access Lab at http://www.unt.edu/slis/gradlab/.

All currently enrolled students are required to subscribe to our free listserv, SLIS-Announce-L, which is used to disseminate important information regarding SLIS courses and activities. Email listserv@unt.edu, leave the subject line blank, and in the message area write subscribe SLIS-Announce-L your name. We strongly encourage you to join the SLIS Village, our virtual gathering place and forum for many kinds of academic, professional, and social interests. To join, email jennifer@unt.edu

[TechReq.doc] June 2003