IT Services

Annual Teaching Software Refresh

Each summer, IT Services undertakes a programme to review and refresh all academic applications on Exeter campuses that is used in Teaching and/or is required by Students. This is to ensure that these applications are fully updated and patched and are available in relevant learning spaces, such as labs. open access areas and classrooms as well as on the Virtual Desktop Platform to support Academics in their teaching requirements.

For Penryn Campus, FXPlus undertake a similar programme - Please submit or amend your software request here : Exeter Software List

For Summer 2023 Programme

Alongside this programme, IT Services will begin a longer term programme to upgrade computers in Learning Spaces to Windows 11. This will involve removing all software applications. Only standard applications such as web browsers and Microsoft Office will be reinstalled. This will provide students with a better experience by ensuring that all computers are optimised and no longer running obsolete software.

As a result of this programme we need all academic colleagues to identify every software application that they require for teaching in the coming academic year.
So please remember you’ll need to identify all software, regardless of whether it’s currently installed or not.

Note on ArcGIS requests

ESRI, the developer of ArcGIS have announced that ArcGIS Desktop (also known as 'ArcMAP') will no longer be developed or supported as an application and only their more modern cloud based application 'ArcGIS Pro' will be available in the future.

ArcGIS Pro has been available alongside ArcGIS Desktop for several years now on all Teaching computers. During this years Refresh Activities, the older ArcGIS Desktop application will be removed and only ArcGIS Pro will be available for Teaching.

Please ensure that any teaching materials you may have reflect the removal of ArcGIS Desktop.

You may also wish to consider the alternative product QGIS as well for your teaching requirements.

For more information, please click here

Providing Room Information

We appreciate that at the moment the final teaching timetable hasn’t been published, however it would be useful to know if you have a specific expectation on where you'll be teaching (for example, if in previous years you've always taught in the same room). If you do not know at this point please enter ‘TBC’.

We will be liaising with the timetabling team to ensure that your requests are ready in the rooms you are timetabled to teach in however you may also let us know any additional locations where you'd like it installed as well in the comments section, for example, if you expect Students to be using specific additional learning spaces as well as the timetabled classroom for independent studies.

Feel free to make use of the fields at the end of the form to let us know of any other important information that hasn’t been captured by the initial fields.

Please note: this review does not include any personal software requests, or changes to EdTech Teaching Tools, which is supported by the Technology Enhanced Learning Team.

Help us to help you

In order to guarantee requests, we’re asking all academic colleagues to complete the form by Friday 2nd June but we would be very appreciative if it can be completed promptly so that work can begin as soon as possible.
Please note:We cannot stress enough that all computers are being wiped so every software requirement must be identified, regardless of whether it’s currently installed.

After you have submitted your request, the team will work on getting this ready, but please be aware that we may need to contact you again to request that you test the software so that it works for you as expected. As we know that many of you will be taking a break this summer, we have included an Application Tester(s) field as a required field in case you need to delegate the testing to someone else if you are away.

Whilst the Cornwall campuses won’t be upgrading their computers to Windows 11 over the summer they will be running a similar Application Refresh programme. Teaching staff in Cornwall should contact FXPlus for more information.

Timeline for 2023 Programme

April/May 2023 : Start for Gathering requirements of Application requests via the online form

Friday 2nd June : Deadline for requests from Academic colleagues via online form

June : Start of upgrading of Learning Spaces workstations to Windows 11

Sept 8th : Completion Date for all applications to be installed required for Autumn Term

Sept 25th : Start of Autumn Term

To submit your Application Requests

Please submit your requests via this App

If you have submitted requests in previous years, you will be able to see those previous requests listed for your information.

Feel free to make use of the fields at the end of the form to let us know of any other important information that hasn’t been captured by the initial fields.

Please note: this review does not include any personal software requests, or changes to EdTech Teaching Tools, which is supported by the Technology Enhanced Learning Team.