Edinburgh’s Telford College is a large community college based in Scotland’s capital city. A recent move of premises saw a massive increase in the use of Apple technology, a revolution in the teaching methods employed across a wide range of courses, and a major upturn in the fortunes of the local area.

Not far from Edinburgh city centre stands Edinburgh’s Telford College (ETC), a community college that teaches full- and part-time students everything from cake decoration to advanced computer programming.

As a result of its size and reputation, the relative health of the college and its students has a major influence on the social and economic fabric of the city. “We have approximately 22,000 enrolments every year — including 15,000 full-time equivalent students — as well as 650 members of staff”, explains Michael Turpie, ETC’s associate principal of Information Services.

To meet the learning needs of students and the curricular needs of staff, ETC recently moved out of the ageing, ad hoc collection of college buildings it had occupied since 1968, and took up residence in new, purpose-built premises that, in Turpie’s words, represent the cornerstone of: “A twenty-first century college designed around the learner”. Since no legacy equipment was to be transported to the new campus, the move afforded the college the opportunity to completely re-vamp its technology infrastructure and, in the process, quadruple the number of Macs available to its students.

It’s a modern building and the Macs look very much at home in it; they stand out for all the right design reasons. We’ve had so many converts.

Michael Turpie — Associate Principal of Information Services, Edinburgh’s Telford College

“We had approximately 60 rather disparate Macs in the college, used mostly for design courses and all un-networked”, explains Turpie. “When we moved, I asked each department what they required and the result was an increase to 160 desktop systems, including over 150 iMacs, as well as 35 MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks”.

After only a few short months, both staff and students are enthused by the influx of Apple technology. “It’s like going from famine to feast!”, laughs Turpie. “People email me all the time thanking me for the Macs; they particularly appreciate the spec and the performance”. He adds: “It’s a modern building and the Macs look very much at home in it; they stand out for all the right design reasons. Students take notice of them because of the way they look — it draws them in. We’ve had so many converts”.

At the time of purchase, Turpie priced an equivalently-spec’d PC set-up and discovered the cost of the Apple kit came out on top. He says: “The Apple price point was excellent, particularly because we had a relatively large requirement for 20-inch Cinema Display monitors to be used in the staff’s open-plan hot-desking area and, of course, with the iMac, the cost of these is built into the cost of the device”.