ICT Department
Bomet University College (BUC) ICT infrastructure is sufficient to address technical support for the Institution and for Blended Learning. BUC has a Server Room which has three (3) network cabinets that holds the structural network cabling for the internet and CCTV cameras installed. The University College has qualified technical team who handle issues raised by staff and students at the Help Desk including and not limited to network, website, software applications and hardware issues.
Bomet University College gets access to Internet through two modes namely radio which is managed by Kenya Educational Network Trust (KENET) and Fiber Optic which is managed by the ICT Authority through NOFBI Project. KENET suppliers the University College with 65 mbps of internet which goes up to 100 mbps during off pick hours (5:00 pm to 6:00 am). This enables staff and students to access fast and reliable internet through the many hotspots installed within the University College premises.
The technical services necessary for e-Communication, Conferencing and Blended Learning at the University College are reliable since most of the data such as those of library are backed-up automatically in the Cloud on daily basis and the rest are backed up in external hard drive provided in respective offices. This ensures that resources of the data are readily available in case of any eventualities.
Access to up to date information resources is possible through the University College website which acts as the gateway for University customers and the public. The website is currently being upgraded to make it dynamic and ensure reliability, privacy, safety and security of the information and databases hosted. Offsite access to Bomet University College resources such as e-books, e-journal and publication is in the process of being actualized through the procurement of MyLOFT software. The software is a personal library where users include the content and categorize to meet their needs and it also allows users to access, organize, share and read offline all e-content, anytime and anywhere.
The University College has procured an Enterprise Resource Planning Software (ERP) and is currently being implemented. A Project Team was constituted to oversee the implementation of the ERP and to guide users in coming up with processes to be automated. To ensure success of the ERP Project, the University College procured two additional servers which will be running the web based version of the ERP and another one to run the databases to ensure security and availability of data. ERP Support Team has also been trained to provide help desk support once the system goes live. The ERP system will enable the staff and students to access the information resources of the University College through their respective portals.
The University College uses KENET Conference facility to hold Meeting virtually and also hold lectures and interaction with students during Corona Virus (COVID 19) pandemic period. The University College also has been able to use the Google Meet platform, a feature in Gmail, to hold lectures and interaction with students where they give notes and assignments as they await re-opening of the University College.
The ICT Department is equipped with the necessary tools. The modern Green Tuition Block has CCTV cameras for surveillance. The academic block and the library are connected to a fast and reliable internet. The ducts and trunking for data and electrical socket outlets are fitted in all the offices and lecture halls.
The following are the list of URLs to the various BUC online resources:
1) Remote teaching and e-learning portal - https://classroom.google.com
2) BUC Library resources -https://www.library.buc.ac.ke/
3) e-resources - https://ezproxy.buc.ac.ke:2048
4) University College website - https://www.buc.ac.ke
5) University College email service - https://mail.google.com/a/buc.ac.ke