Below are some frequently asked questions new students have about the South Dakota Mines Tablet Program:
You can pickup your tablet by following the instructions
here or coming to the Help Desk.
ITS Homepage
The South Dakota Mines Help Desk is located in the basement of the Library. You can contact the Help Desk at (605) 394-1234, helpdesk@sdsmt.edu or come visit us.
Mines Tablets come preloaded with the latest Microsoft Office, System Center Antivirus, Maple (math software), Spybot AntiSpyware and browser add-ons like Java.
You are the administrator of your own computer and can load any software you need on to it.
We have almost all the engineering and science software you will need for your academic career located on our shared network drive (F drive) available free of charge. If you are experiencing problems installing these software packages please come
visit us at the Help Desk.
Mines Tablet computers come preloaded with Microsoft OneNote which is a complete note book system. Microsoft Journal is also loaded but has less features than OneNote
Each student gets access to the F and H network drives
The F drive contains multiple software packages for your program of study.
The H drive is 20GB of private backed up storage
If you do not see your F or H drive in your computer drive listing you may have lost connection after leaving campus. Double-click the "Remap Network Drives" icon on your desktop to reconnect these drives.
Each student is given $12.50 worth of print credits at the beginning of every semester
Printing costs $0.05 per black and white page and $0.15 per color page.
If you run out of print credits you can purchase more
online with a credit card or with cash or check at the Cashier's Office in the Surbeck Center.
You can always check you print credit balance by double clicking the Print Credits icon on the desktop and hovering over the $ icon on the taskbar.
How to install network printers
Computers will break. It is inevitable. If your computer does happen to crash, get dropped, have liquid spilled on it, etc we will try to recover your data as best we can.
With that said BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!!! It is best to backup your important data regularly (every month at least).
Every student receives an H drive which is 20GB of network storage accessible on campus or via VPN. You can also backup to flash drives, external drives, or cloud storage like Box, DropBox, Box, Google Drive, iCloud, or OneDrive.
Each tablet comes with a four year accidental damage protection warranty.
If your tablet has something broken please bring it to the Help Desk as soon as you can. We can fix most problems on site or swap your computer for you so that you can get back to classes as quickly as possible.
Please do not intentionally break your computer. South Dakota Mines is a small community and word does spread quickly. If you break your computer on purpose you will have to pay to repair or replace it.
South Dakota Mines students keep their laptops during breaks and vacations as long as they remain enrolled in classes.
If you are leaving, transferring, or withdrawing from classes you will need to return your Tablet computer to the Help Desk.
Be sure to bring your computer, stylus, power adapter, DVD drive and modular battery all in good working order. Unfortunately your student account will be charged for all missing items.
If your computer is four years old and you are graduating or withdrawing you may be able to keep your computer.
Please stop down to the Help Desk or send an email to
helpdesk@sdsmt.edu for more information.
Each tablet notebook is worth $1800
You are responsible for your own machine
We advise getting renters insurance and making sure that your tablet computer is covered
Get a police report and bring it down to
Brad O'Brien at the Help Desk
Students at Mines have several models of Fujitsu Tablet computer. The specifications for the most common models can be found here:
Specifications
Our tablet computers are on a four year life cycle.
If you are a student at Mines longer than four years you will receive an email (usually after the first few weeks of a new semester) notifying you that you are eligible for an upgrade to the latest Tablet computer.
Be sure to back up your documents, music, pictures etc before you come down as this will save time.
You are responsible for your machine and will be using it in a public setting (desktop pics, sounds, etc)
During class - No checking email, no messaging friends, Facebooking, Tweeting, etc. It is still a classroom.
Keep your mail.mines.sdsmt.edu email functioning – watch your free space, keep your account active.
Instructors have the right to have you shut the screens, write in tablet mode, etc.
If you break the law, you will be prosecuted.
Do NOT give out your user information to friends/family. If something happens on YOUR machine, YOU are responsible.