The Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin has signed a €750,000 deal with IT firm Typtec to provide over 600 laptops to all incoming medical students this year.
The deal marks the 20th anniversary of Typtec’s relationship with the college, and the company will continue to provide IT support for the college and its new campus in Bahrain.
The laptops are used by all students and teaching staff to access course materials and lecture notes across the college’s network. Some lectures are recorded and made available online for students. Students can also submit essays, projects and other coursework to their lecturers electronically.
In 2007, the college commenced development of a campus in Bahrain – the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI-MUB).
Typetec is at the forefront of planning and developing the state-of-the-art IT systems for RCSI-MUB. Typetec also assisted with the development of RCSI’s other campuses in Penang, Malaysia and Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
“A university such as ours is a particularly challenging IT environment. We want to provide the best and most flexible learning environment for our students, and Typetec’s quality proactive service has enabled us to do so,” explained Dr Terry McWade, deputy chief executive officer, RCSI.
“The laptops being provided by Typetec will ensure that we can deliver our courses with the most cutting-edge technologies available.”
RCSI began issuing laptops to incoming students in 1993, and was the first Irish college to do so. 2008 marks the 15th year of the practice.
Typetec acts as RCSI’s outsourced IT department, and has 11 full-time staff on RCSI campuses. 10 of these are based at the St Stephen’s Green campus, while one is based in Beaumont Hospital.
Typetec also proactively supports RCSI’s facilities at St James’, the Rotunda and James Connolly hospitals in Dublin, and the regional hospitals in Waterford, Kilkenny, Mullingar and Navan. In total, more than 2,500 students, staff and visitors are supported every day.
“Since 1993, all RCSI students have been issued with laptops, and the college was instrumental in the development of the first online surgery training programme, Basic electronic Surgical Training (BeST),” said Tom Close, managing director, Typetec.
“This new contract is further evidence of the excellent relationship between RCSI and Typetec. Typetec is proud to play a part in RCSI’s continued ground-breaking use of technology in medicine and medical education.”
By John Kennedy
