The College provides access to centralized computing facilities to undergraduate and graduate students. Most engineering departments also provide students with local facilities. The University is an Internet2 site and links are available to directly connect to all major supercomputing centers in the country.

The College provides enterprise level servers for computing, mail, file, web and database services for students and faculty. The College operates several computer open-access labs for student use. These labs are equipped with a large number of modern PCs and Unix workstations. All lab computers have all of the necessary software required for coursework as well as other standard productivity software. The College also supports a state-of-the-art multimedia lab with document scanners and CD-ROM burner.

Laboratory computers provide the software required for coursework and research. Standard programming languages such as FORTRAN, Basic, Pascal, C, C++ and Java are provided on these machines. General-purpose software such as MS Office, MS visual studio and specialized engineering software including mathematical packages (MathCad, Matlab, Maple, Macsyma, TK Solver), statistical package (SAS), discipline specific application packages such as Abaqus, Ansys, ARENA, Aspen, Cadence and Labview are provided on Unix and Windows platforms on the network and in the labs. Several database management system software packages such as MySQL, MSSQL and MS Access are available for classwork. Multi-media software packages such as MS FrontPage, Adobe Acrobat, Illustrator, Photoshop, Omni Page Pro, Paint Shop Pro, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash are available in the multi-media lab. The university has also entered an agreement with Microsoft Corporation for upgrade of standard office application, development tools and desktop operating systems.

The college-wide Ethernet network is connected to the USF campus-wide Gigabit Ethernet backbone. Within the College connections are provided to laboratories via 100 Mbps Ethernet. The university’s Internet2 connection links it to more than 150 major universities and research institutions in the nation. Dial-in access is available to students from a large USF modem bank as well as through broadband connection. Listed below are some of the facilities:

Engineering Computing provides wireless network access to its students, faculty and staff. Wireless access points have been installed in several locations in the three engineering buildings. You will have to register your laptop to access the wireless network. Read more about our wireless infrastructure and how to register your laptop/PDA's to access the wireless network.

Machines in Open Access Labs ENB 118 and ENB 229 are connected to the Pharos printing station. A nominal fee is charged for printing using the pharos station. We also have scanners attached to a few machines in our open access labs for use by students and staff.

Engineering Computing has purchased a large format printer (HP Designjet 800ps) that will print clear crisp images with rich, true colors. Printing is available in widths of 24 inches, 36 inches or 42 inches and variable length. The printing charges are $5 per square foot for color prints and $2 square foot for black & white prints. For comparison, Kinko's charges $10 per square foot for color prints and USF Computer Store charges $6 per square foot for color or black & white prints. For details click here.

The University of South Florida provides data communications support for over 10,000 computers, which are connected to any one of its 172 local area networks. These local area networks range from 10 and 100 Mbps shared Ethernets to switched 10/100 Ethernets. The Internet Protocol (IP) is the primary transport protocol at USF although IPX is routed and supported. Engineering Computing builds and maintains wired/wireless intranet/internet networks and provides support for machines and users in the College of Engineering.

Bright House Communications offers their Road Runner cable modem service to many locations within the Tampa Bay area, at a discount to current USF students, faculty and staff living in the Tampa Bay service area.

Engineering Computing manages the card access system in the College of Engineering. Many of our labs are equipped with card readers that accept your student or faculty/staff ID card. If you need access to a particular lab, check with your department or the department that controls the lab and ask for access. They will then ask us to add your card to the system for that particular door.

If you are a student in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and need access to the CenterFour [C4] lab, send an email to opers@eng.usf.edu with the following information: USF ID card number starting with 64**, SSN, and declaring that you are a computer science major.