With the recent installation of a SmartSpace study area in Olin Hall, students will no longer need to crowd around a single computer screen when working on group projects. SmartSpace technology rethinks the idea of group collaboration.

Located in Olin 166, directly off the Olin computer lab, the study area contains a computer programmed with SmartSpace technology and a 42-inch flat screen television monitor.

Students are able to wirelessly connect their laptops to the SmartSpace program. The study room’s computer effectively becomes a shared computer, and the program enables students to move documents and files from their individual computers to the shared computer and back.

Students are also able to work simultaneously on the same documents on the shared computer.

“Everyone who has seen it has been pretty enthusiastic,” said IT Services Consultant Matt Pearson of the SmartSpace.
Two more SmartSpace areas will open later this month in the second floor study alcove of the Hall of Science and in the Douglas Hall Conference Room. If the new technology is successful and widely used, more areas may be opened in the future.

The Olin SmartSpace is open for student use during the Olin computer lab’s hours of operation.