November 2010
With IT playing a bigger role in how organisations can be more
environmentally friendly, a new Masters degree is helping put
sustainability at the heart of how businesses operate.
Leeds Metropolitan University, one of the organisations that make up
Leeds’ Climate Change Partnership, are running the UK's first Masters
degree course in Green Computing. Aimed at Information Technology (IT)
professionals and graduates, the course helps those who want to use
their skills to develop more environmentally-friendly computing systems
play a key role in developing sustainable IT strategies.
The course looks at the ways in which energy use can be reduced in IT
systems and considers how IT can make other parts of a business more
efficient: such as teleconferencing to reduce travel costs; electronic
documents to save printing and the use of computer-controlled heating
and lighting. The course is further supported by strong links with
industry, through membership of the British Computer Society's Green IT
Specialist Group.
Professor Colin Pattinson, who leads the teaching on the MSc course,
said: "Green IT is an area that is really building and students will be
taking this up-to-date knowledge back to their workplaces or setting up
as consultants; making sure that IT plays its part in a sustainable
future. As inefficient computing uses unnecessary amounts of
electricity, and increasing UK and EU government legislation is
affecting the energy use of organisations, companies are beginning to
look for solutions. With specific posts in the area of green computing
being created, Green IT Consultancy is emerging as a new career."
The degree course combines current research into the measurement of IT
energy use and technological developments with practical insights from
Leeds Metropolitan staff in Information, Media and Technology Services
who are involved in implementing green strategies and techniques at the
University.
Freelance consultant Kit Carpenter, a graduate of the first delivery of
the MSc, said: "I was finding that there was an increasing need for
expertise and knowledge in this arena. The fast-track modular delivery
fits the needs of business leaders and managers who simply cannot afford
to spend weeks at a time away from the office. The course has given
added impetus to my work, particularly in terms of finding new ways to
approach cost reduction and efficiency savings while making a very
positive contribution to corporate responsibility action plans."
The MSc was launched in September 2009 and Leeds Metropolitan University is recruiting for students for January 2011.
Course modules cover IT energy measurement, green computing
technologies, efficient and sustainable computing, legal and ethical
topics and the development of green IT strategies as well as a research
dissertation. Each module is based on a two-day seminar, allowing
students to fit their studies around work.
For further course
information, please visit www.leedsmet.ac.uk or call 0113 812
3113.
Professor Pattinson is pictured in the University’s Mobile Technology Showcase; a van-based wireless computer network developed at the University. Power is supplied via
an internal battery, fed from the van's engine when in motion, by solar panels
mounted on the roof, or from a plug in supply allowing it to be used out and about.
Photography copyright Icon Photomedia.