期刊名称：International Journal of Computer Science & Information Technology (IJCSIT)
印刷版ISSN：0975-4660
电子版ISSN：0975-3826
出版年度：2012
卷号：4
期号：5
页码：43
出版社：Academy & Industry Research Collaboration Center (AIRCC)
摘要：Centralization of services is a global trend in universities worldwide. IT services in a university become asolo department to provide common IT support for the entire university community such as staff, studentsand visitors. Special services required for Computer Science and Information Technology courses are quiteoften not part of IT service agreements. The shared common computer labs are tightly controlled by ITservices and could not be used to deliver some specialised course such as Microsoft Active DirectoryConfiguration and Management. A dedicated computer lab is no longer a viable option to provide apractical solution with three-year University leased computers. The challenge in providing a long-termsolution heavily relies on the individual academic staffs who deliver such courses. There is an urgent needto find a new long-term working solution for this problem. After numerous search and research in findingan optimal solution, a portable computer lab using virtualisation is proposed. Instead of using a desktopcomputer in a common lab, each student enrolled in the course such as Microsoft Active Directory isallocated a customised USB hard dive. The USB drive contains a bootable Windows 7 Operating System aswell as six Windows Servers operated under Microsoft Windows Virtual PC. This not only allows thestudents to use a common computer lab but also enable them to totally control their learning with flexibilitywhich was not achievable in the past. This paper aims to share the knowledge as well as tricks and tipsgained through the process and to provide step by step instructions for building the customised USB harddive. It is expected that the concept of a ‘portable’ computer lab using virtualisation will provide insightinto delivery of IT courses in the future.
关键词：Portable Computer Lab; Virtualisation; Bootable USB Hard Drive and IT courses
