TU/e notebook program - Technische Universiteit Eindhoven

MANAGEMENT SUMMARY
This report presents the research that has been conducted to determine whether a chosen IT
evaluation method that is developed as an IT investment method is also suitable to perform an
ex post evaluation. The evaluation itself was executed on the notebook program of Eindhoven
University of Technology. The underlying research question was:
What is the result of the evaluation of the notebook program at Eindhoven University
of Technology after the selection of a suitable method?
Before a choice for an evaluation method could be made, a literature research was conducted,
in which various categories of IT evaluation methods were investigated. The result of the
literature research was, besides the acquirement of basic knowledge about these categories,
the choice of New Information Economics (NIE) as the method to be used to perform the
evaluation. After that decision and before the actual performance of the evaluation the method
was studied thoroughly, and the elements that were applicable for an ex post evaluation were
selected. As a result of that selection the Alignment Practice and the Performance
Measurement Practice were utilized to perform the evaluation.
The notebook program of Eindhoven University of Technology consists of a notebook,
however, also includes the accompanying IT infrastructure, applications like an electronic
learning system to support the education programs, supportive services like service desks, and
the provisioning of notebooks to students with a financial contribution of the university.
Although the idea existed that the notebook program is an expensive way to fulfill the
strategic intention of providing students with IT facilities any place and any time, the
evaluation indicates otherwise. The results of the financial evaluation indicate that, because of
the use of notebooks to fulfill the strategic intention, a cost reduction of 1,675,000€ occurs.
Besides this cost reduction on hardware, the notebook program attracted more students in the
first two years of its implementation. That number of first-year students did not decrease, and
increases contribution from the authorities with 7,539,075€ for the first two years after
implementation of the program..
So the internal evaluation showed that of the two alternatives, desktops and notebooks, the
solution with notebooks was the beneficial one. To compare this with other universities, a
benchmark was performed between the universities of Eindhoven, Delft, Groningen, and
Utrecht. The benchmark also showed that the use of notebooks as part of the integral IT
infrastructure was beneficial.
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