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Computing and I.T. Facilities

The College hugely extended its Gigabit Switched Ethernet recently using the latest 3Com technology to allow us to provide one of the fastest and most reliable networks in West Yorkshire Colleges.

The throughput speed is now 48Gb per second and the reliability of the network and servers is in excess of 99.8%. A 500% increase in internet capacity is also currently being installed which will allow students much faster access to important learning resources on the Internet. This will provide Calderdale College with 5 times the internet capacity of other West Yorkshire colleges.

Large annual investment in a rolling replacement programme of PCs in teaching rooms at all our sites now means that most of our student PCs are as good, if not better than the average PC found in most companies, helping to ensure that our students are learning on similar technology they will be using in their work environment. A college-wide upgrade to Microsoft Office 2000 also means that the College is able to offer the "Microsoft Office Specialist" qualification.

We have sent our Technical Services engineers on extensive external specialist training to provide them with a high standard of technical knowledge on the Microsoft operating systems and careful application of this knowledge has led to significant reliability improvements on our key systems. At a time when many colleges offer little or no storage space to students, Calderdale College has been extending our storage capacity and we now provide 25Mb's of file storage and a 20Mb mailbox to every student.

Investments and improvements over the last 2 years have improved our IT systems to match or exceed commercial networks in order to ensure our students have the best learning opportunities available through the appropriate use of the latest IT technology as an integral part of their college courses.