My school needs to upgrade its license. I do not know what toolboxes to request. Who should I ask for advice?

I am not sure about the toolboxes and instructor tools available. I do not have a sense for the difference in price to add toolboxes. I am not sure where our current license stands. It is really hards to get the school to make changes so I need to get this right the first time!

My school is Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio

[Adam Danz]

I would email the relevant department heads who are most likely to use Matlab (math, physics, engineering, psychology, cognitive science, business, finances, lots of others I'm missing) and ask them to list which toolboxes they use in order of priority. Then you can get a sense of the most common toolboxes needed.

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.cscc.edu/services/computerlabs/computer-lab-programs.shtml would have at least partial information, and should know who the official contacts are.

[dpb]

ver at the command line will show what have licenses for on that workstation...if there is more than one license they could be different if at some point different instructors asked for and got licenses separately instead of being coordinated thru an IT department. Was such a hodgepodge initially when I got involved with the local community college here...

[Valerie Powers]

Thanks! I willcheck this out.

Answer 1

[Raymond MacNeil]

Hi Valerie:

I was at one point a lab technichian, and though I did not have the higher-level adminstrative role that you seem to occupy, I've some experience with these sorts of matters. Each of the above suggestions are great and will likely assist you in arriving at all of the information you require.

I take it that the academic license for the Columbus State Community College is expiring? Do you mean renew or upgrade? I ask because if it is in fact an upgrade to your school's license (and not a renewal), this would imply that someone within the college has submitted a request (which was apparently approved) for the license to include additional products, toolboxes, and so forth. Then again, maybe there is another reason you need to 'upgrade' your license, which is indepedent of any specific request for additional toolboxes/products. I suspect, however, you meant renew?

It's possible I just don't have the terminology straight...

If the former is true (you did mean UPGRADE), review the communications history that alerted to you to the fact that there was requirement to upgrade the license. My thinking is that a need or request for an upgrade (meaning additional toolboxes, or perhaps additional products like SimuLink) must have stemmed from somewhere and someone within the college who wanted to use a particular particular Toolbox that isn't covered/included in your current license. If there's no electronic communication chain where you might discover this, then ask whoever it was that informed you that there was a need to upgrade the license. I am presuming upgrade ~= renew. (~= in MATLAB means 'is NOT euqal to'. :p

If you meant renew rather than upgrade, your best bet here is to contact a sales representative from MathWorks.

Contact Sales:

508-647-7000 (Hours: 8:30AM–5:30PM EST)

I don't imagine you'd reach anyone on January 1, 2020.

First, they can fill you in on all of those details regarding the pricing of the different toolboxes that are available. Additionally, they can provide you with a list of what is available, and a description of the functionality/use that each toolbox offers. Moreover, and most importantly, they can tell you what your current license covers! If you are trying to be proactive and expand the current toolboxset that your current license includes (good on you!), then somehwhere in your system you should be able to retrieve a master email list for each of the department's administrators. It wouldn't hurt to include their IT people, as already suggested/advised. Your role (which seems college-wide) implies you would have access to such email lists. If you do not readily have access to these lists, go about finding how you can obtain access. Once you have obtained these email lists, pass on all the information re: what is available (based on your communications with MathWorks), and set a deadline for when they must get back to you to inform you what products/toolboxes would be NECESSARY for their department. (Don't want to encourage, "oh, let's just get it all!" and waste college $$). In theory, it should the responsibility of each department's administrattion (or IT people) to tell you what that specific department requires.

To make your life easy, when you send out this college-wide email (to the adminstration/IT of each department), have the check list with selected options be of some form where you can easily collate the data from across the various departments. I don't know what the college's budget is, but if there is only a single department requesting a certain toolbox/product, and it really isn't all that important to what they do (e.g., the history department is requesting SimuLink), there's probably a good financial reason to deny that request.

Anyhow, my two cents.

Goodluck!

Ray

Answer 2

[Valerie Powers]

Thanks for all the comments! It is appreciated.

Valerie Powers

Answer 3

[Valerie Powers]

What instructor toolboxes have you found valuable?

[Raymond MacNeil]

Valerie, I personally am not familiar with the instructor toolboxes or what they entail exactly. I think the folks at MathWorks will be able to give you a lot of information in terms of feedback they have received from other colleges/universities, and the most commonly used toolboxes within specific disciplines. Happy New Year!

Ray

[Walter Roberson]

As far as I know, the instructor tools are https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlabgrader/index.html

[Valerie Powers]

Thanks. I can do that. I was trying to find what people really found very helpful.