The Economics Department (QED) and the Department of Information Technology Services (ITS) together provide a wide variety of computing services that are accessible to graduate students in Economics. For more detailed and up-to-date information than this document can provide, see the Department's web page (http://www.econ.queensu.ca) and the ITS web page (http://www.its.queensu.ca). ITS has offices inside Stauffer Library and also sells computers and software in Dupuis Hall.

The Department offers introductory lectures on computing at the beginning of the fall term. All incoming graduate students are strongly urged to attend these lectures. In addition, the University Library and ITS offer courses on how to access the Internet; sign-up sheets are available from the DCR.

The first person to see about most computer matters is the Departmental Computing Representative (DCR), Mark Babcock, babcockm@econ.queensu.ca . The Department also employs senior graduate students as Computing Advisors.

The Department has a number of Unix servers and server/workstations, including qed, waugh, cox, frisch, lovell, durbin, tobin, edith, and malinvaud. All of these machines run Linux, and most are quite modern. All graduate students are given an account on qed (full name: qed.econ.queensu.ca), which is used by most members of the Department for electronic mail and has a variety of useful software. Accounts on the other machines, which may have software or data not available on qed, are available from the DCR to any student who needs one. Some of the servers are suitable for numerically-intensive computing.

All graduate student offices contain a computer (generally not a very modern one) running Linux that can be used to access the Internet and the Department's more powerful Unix machines. There are 16 reasonably modern Windows XP machines in Dunning 350, and three modern Windows computers, in addition to a large number of Unix machines, in Dunning 211. There is also a laser printer in each of those rooms. Nevertheless, students are encouraged to purchase their own personal computers. The recommended operating systems are GNU/Linux or Windows XP. Internet access from off campus is available via dial-up lines (most of which cost 75 cents per hour) and via several commercial Internet providers.

A number of econometric, statistical, and other packages are available. The Department maintains the programs Matlab, Ox, Octave, RATS, TeX, Gauss, Maple, TSP, SHAZAM, Limdep, and Stata on one or more of its Unix machines. The Department also has site licenses for PC versions of TSP and SHAZAM, and the University offers Maple at the campus computer store. These may be purchased by all students and faculty members for a nominal price. Stata can also be purchased for a reasonably low price. ITS sells a variety of software packages, such as word processors and spreadsheets, some at very attractive academic discount prices.

Most computing needs of Economics graduate students can be met by using personal computers or the Department's Unix machines. In addition, there is a large number of networked personal computers and laser printers belonging to ITS in Mackintosh-Corry Hall, a few floors below most of the Economics graduate student offices. If specialized software or very large amounts of CPU time are needed, students can also make use of ITS machines such as jeff-lab or the HPCVL facility for numerically intensive computing.