How do I obtain software at UCLA?

Software is available from many sources at UCLA. Where you get it from depends on several factors some of which are:
Your status – Faculty, Staff, Student, Other
Your department or school
What kind of software you need – Commonly used or specialized
Cost – Free, at a cost
How it will be paid for – University funds, personal funds
What it will be used for – Work at/for campus, personal work
Who owns the machine it will be loaded on – UCLA or personal

For faculty and staff, first contact your departmental Computer Support Coordinators or IT Personnel to see if your department already owns the software/license you need. Purchasing duplicate, unnecessary licenses is a waste of time, energy and money! For students, a number of avenues exist to obtain software. Please read on for more information.

Software Central https://www.softwarecentral.ucla.edu sells (mostly annual) licenses to departments for software that is widely used for University teaching or research. These licenses can be used by Faculty, Staff and on a limited number of agreements, students. (purchased for students through their departments) Currently Software Central can accept payments made from University FAU (full accounting units) only. Visit https://softwarecentral.ucla.edu/product-list for a list of available products. Software Central is continually seeking new agreements to benefit the campus so please check their site often and let them know of software that they might want to look into having a campus (or campus wide) agreement for. Contact them to ask where to get something they do not carry. Email softwarecentral@ucla.edu.

BruinOnLine: http://www.bol.ucla.edu/software/ offers free general use software such as Anti-Virus and SPAM software.

SHI http://www.shi.com is UCLA’s preferred reseller for many software titles. They take UCLA POs and can also handle personal purchases.

The ASUCLA Computer Store sells a limited number of titles. A trip to their store in Ackerman Union is your best bet.

SEASnet Computing Facility: http://www.seas.ucla.edu/download/ offers software for engineering faculty, staff, and students at no cost. Some restrictions may apply.

Using any internet browser to search for titles you cannot find elsewhere will work too – just remember to compare apples to apples when pricing!