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What Presidents Need to Know About the Impact of Networking on Campus - CompleteSet of Background Papers

Background papers forHEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Report #3

"What Presidents Need to Know... about the Impact of Networking on Campus"

--------------------------------------------------------------------prepared by representatives of

Case Western Reserve University

Drake University

St. Petersburg Junior College

University of Guelph

University of Michigan

--------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright 1993 by HEIRA. The Executive Strategies reports are publishedby the Higher Education Information Resources Alliance (HEIRAlliance), avehicle for cooperative projects between the Association of ResearchLibraries, CAUSE, and EDUCOM. This report is based on background papersprepared by teams of contributing editors from Case Western ReserveUniversity, Drake University, St. Petersburg Junior College, theUniversity of Guelph, and the University of Michigan. This material maybe reproduced for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credit to theHEIRAlliance.

For information about ordering or reprinting this material, contactCAUSE at 303-449-4430, [email protected]

To retrieve this entire set of papers electronically, send e-mail [email protected]

with the messageGET HEIRA.ES3sup

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Background paper forHEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Report #3


-----------------------------------------------------------------prepared by representatives of



CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

Agnar PyttePresident

Raymond K. NeffVice President for Information Services

D. Kaye GapenDirector of the University Library

-----------------------------------------------------------------Copyright 1993 by HEIRAThe Executive Strategies reports are published by the Higher EducationInformation Resources Alliance (HEIRAlliance), a vehicle for cooperativeprojects between the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, andEDUCOM.

For information about paper copies, contact CAUSE at 303-449-4430,[email protected]

To retrieve this paper electronically, send e-mail [email protected]

with the message

GET HEIRA.ES3cwru

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What Presidents Need to Knowabout the Impact of Networks on Campus:

The View from Case Western Reserve University

Why network the campus?

At CWRU, the network connects people and provides access to a widevariety of information resources and services which support instruction,research, and service to our community, as well as to other communities.The University believes that the network will make a substantialcontribution to fulfilling its core mission; our campus-wide network wasdesigned to support a wide variety of academic and administrativeapplications in all of its departments. The network is the hub of ourElectronic Learning Environment. It connects all faculty offices,classrooms, student residences, laboratories, and libraries.

What network services to offer?

Five families of network-based services are offered at CWRU: data,voice, video, telemetry, and control signaling. Examples of each familyinclude: computer data services using standards-based Ethernet, TokenRing, and FDDI data transmission to over 8,800 desktops on campus,electronic mail, and a campus-wide information system; our voiceservices include CENTREX telephone services, long distance, andfacsimile transmission; video services include cable TV, a videoinformation bulletin board, video mail, and videoconferencing; telemetryhandles parking lot surveillance and security sensors in campus



buildings; control signaling provides for energy management andelectronic door locks. The campus network is the only comprehensivewiring plant on the campus; we perform all communications tasks usingthis network.

How do the communications services interrelate?

With the convergence of information technologies to a common digitalformat, all five of the communications families are themselves becominginterrelated. Today, each service family resides in its own world and ismanaged by its own corps of specialists. In less than five years, commontransmission protocols will replace the present ones and offersubstantial opportunities for achieving more effective campus operationsat significantly lower costs. Therefore, each administrative serviceunit offering a communications technology should be challenged to findways of integrating its communications technologies with those of theother units. Often this integration will result in some need fororganizational restructuring.

Do you know what your campus is spending on telecommunications servicesand installations, on distribution of television signals, whetherproduced in-house or acquired from the airwaves, satellite, microwave,or cable? How much is being spent to install wiring for other

information distribution systems including energy management controlsystems, building and area security and surveillance systems, and othertelemetry systems? What fraction of your telecommunications bills arefor facsimile services?

Nearly all universities are continuing to use independent wiring foreach family of communications services, often with little or nocoordination. At CWRU, we have installed a universal wiring plant whichis used for all types of communications and is adaptable to the rapidlychanging technologies of both analog and digital communications. As aresult, we are saving money by eliminating the redundancies of separatewiring systems, and the wiring we do install is coordinated centrally.As a result, our wiring is utilized more intensively, so that we achieve

the greatest payback from these investments. By carefully documentingour wiring plant, we save money in building renovations by reusing thewiring rather than having to install new wiring each time. After manyyears, we expect that our strategic wiring plant which has been managedin a coordinated manner will achieve significant savings for theuniversity.

Significant trends in networking technologies and services

I. All information formats are changing to digital representations.Consider the following four examples: (1) telephony, including voice,facsimile, answering machines, voice-mail are changing from analog

signaling to digital signaling and digital encoding of information; (2)television is being reengineered for programming production anddistribution in a digital format; (3) printing technologies fromxerography to off-set are changing from analog (e.g., light-lens) todigital scanning and printing processes; and (4) photographictechnologies are changing from film-based, analog image capture tofilmless, chemical-less, digital image capture.

II. Digital technology transmits information with greater accuracyand precision, at lower cost per information item, and, over time,



accuracies and precisions will continue to increase; transmission costsper unit will continue to decrease.

III. Digital technology stores information in a far more compactformat than analog storage. A dozen or more electronic books may bestored on a single CD-ROM, including the images and charts. Other formsof optical and magnetic digital storage span a wide range of storagecapacities and retrieval performance. Such technologies will playsignificant roles in the library of the future.

IV. Distribution of information in electronic form is moreefficient and more effective than distribution of information in paperformat. Electronic mail and electronic file transfer offer speed andcertainty of delivery that no manual postal system can provide.

The import of these trends is that (a) academic scholarship andinstruction are beginning to feel the first effects of theserevolutions, (b) by capitalizing on these trends, it is possible toincrease the effectiveness of the administration of the academy and toreduce the costs of administration.

The computer becomes the all-purpose information input device, outputdevice, and information reformatter. This means that all faculty, staff,and students will have to have ready access to a computer. For the

employees of the institution, it will be cost beneficial to equip each"knowledge worker" with a computer. For faculty and others who work athome, they will need a computer there as well. Given the relative costof powerful computers today (under $2,000), the investment in capitalfor two computers for each faculty member will pay handsome dividends.The campus-wide communications network will make it possible to shareinformation across these many individual systems. In the 1980's, smallnumbers of personal computers were often linked together in local areanetworks (LANs). The principal purposes for these linkages were to shareinformation and to share printers and file server resources.

The computer makes it possible to reuse information without having toexpend large amounts of effort each time. Reuse may simply involve

reformatting or it may involve complex modeling; the user selects themethodology appropriate to the task at hand; institutional datarepositories become network-based information resources and provide theinstitution's administrative staff with consistent, high qualityinformation.

How does a campus-wide network relate to the distribution ofinformation?

Consider first the distribution of information in the form of paper. Oncampuses today, we generate memoranda, reports, and analyses on acomputer. Generally, the material to be distributed by the campus' mail

service arises as output from a convenient office-based laser printer,which in turn is attached to a computer. If that computer is alsoattached to a campus-wide network, then the potential exists fordistributing the output over the network. Thus, distribution ofinformation over a network replaces the distribution of physical stacksof paper. Using the network, the time to distribute the informationdecreases to virtually nothing, the certifiability of actual deliveryapproaches 100%, and the marginal cost of the delivery nearly goes tozero. Networks are generally environmentally benign, and their use ispositive for reducing the use of paper.



Impact of the CWRU campus-wide network

The impact of networks on teaching, learning, and the curriculum

Case Western Reserve University is building an Electronic LearningEnvironment (ELE). Our ELE was conceived to provide students and facultywith tools for creating, organizing, storing, and transmitting knowledgeas an integral part of the learning process. In the next century,universities must have the capability to draw widely on resources heldin various forms by other institutions and in enormous electronicdatabases, as well as to shape and deliver these resources to studentsand faculty. The CWRU ELE would be a response to this challenge. The ELEwould be the integration of seven major components of informationtechnology: powerful software tools running on personal computers withmultimedia capabilities; digital libraries; a campus-wide informationsystem; specialized computational servers; curricular transformationthrough the use of instructional technology; re-engineered classrooms;and a universal campus network. Each of these components would requireboth development and investment because none was in existence in 1988when the ELE was first conceived. The ELE vision was based on thesynergy among these seven discrete elements. Indeed, it was the

integration of these elements that would ultimately fulfill the promiseof an electronic learning environment. The campus-wide network would bethe glue that held together all of the pieces of the puzzle; it would bethe essential infrastructure and key to the entire enterprise.

With the ELE in place, we envision that the library would provideelectronic documents which students could use from any campus location,including their residence-hall rooms. Classrooms would be re-engineeredto permit faculty to use electronic information in their teaching, andstudents would be able to interact with these electronic materials at alater time and at their own pace from any campus location. A campus-wideinformation system was envisioned to serve both discrete information andto provide software tools for the manipulation of this information. CD-

ROM publications would be joined to other digital formats as anothernetwork-based resource. The curriculum would evolve as facultyincorporated electronic information and software tools into theircourses. Electronic mail would provide more frequent contact betweenstudents and their teachers and would also facilitate learning amongstudents who would form ad hoc study groups across the campus. Studentsand faculty working off campus would be able to use campus-basedinformation resources on demand, making accessibility to information thekey to use rather than ownership. Linking the CWRU academic center toother scholarly centers would also be facilitated. Taken together, CWRUwould be preparing its students for a future in which they would havethe familiarity and competence to handle complex information and to doso without regard to its origination or its destination.

As we started to develop the ELE concepts and as we looked at thespecific ways students learn, we saw increased opportunities whereinformation technology could be used in the educational process. We sawthe potential of the electronic library expanding services to scholarsand becoming more efficient in disseminating information, although noone believed that the electronic library of the future would be lesscostly than the library of today. We were, however, confident that thecost per information transaction could be significantly reduced.



Now four years into this ten-year developmental effort, the ELE ispartially implemented; the essential infrastructure is in place, and thefaculty are being trained in its use. Additional computing staff membershave been hired and integrated into the academic fabric. Because the ELEwould eventually require network functionality which we did not haveinitially, we decided to architect the network in such a way that itcould be enhanced as these needs materialized. Our designs would permitthese enhancements to be made with the least possible effort and cost.

The classroom of the future is wherever the student is. Through the useof advanced networking, the student and the teacher can be linkedtogether as effectively as if they were in the same room. In fact, giventhe condition of many of our classrooms today, we believe that with thenewest types of high resolution displays, students using theseprojection systems will likely see more and see it better than they canin a 200-seat lecture hall. This is especially relevant in consideringcomputer-oriented multimedia, because in many respects, the workstationsof tomorrow will combine high quality video display screens with theability to process the multimedia information in the ways we want it,customized to the time and the purpose of the user.

Another significant aspect of the new learning modalities is the built-in capability of replaying a learning segment. We do not all learn atthe same pace, and as we learn, we relate new information to what we

already know. Since we have different experience bases with which thenew information is to be related, we will not be homogeneouslyincorporating it. Being able to replay and to learn a new subject at thedepth appropriate to the purpose of the individual student will give theuser a capability much beyond what the student is offered today in our"one-size fits all" formats for presenting information. The logicalextension of this idea is to use information technology to delivercustomized instruction. The validity of this is based on thedifferential "inputs" of prior experience each student brings to thelearning situation and on the increasingly important learning goal ofattaining differentiated outcome levels of achievement as "outputs."Because students learn in different ways and at different rates, therewill also need to be a differentiated learning process in which students

assimilate new information. Information technology, properly used, canproduce the customized electronic learning environment we believe willbe the hallmark of higher education in the twenty-first century.

In graduate-level professional education, we see the importance of usingextensions of CWRUnet to bring the campus and its informationenvironment to the off-campus offices and laboratories where ourstudents and faculty interact in their training. By using the sameadvanced communications technologies of ATM and SONET, which ourtelephone and television vendors will be using, CWRU will facilitate theextensions of the network to off-campus locations, including to healthcare settings, hospitals, clinics, physicians' and dentists' offices,law offices, social work agencies, and governmental agencies.

By combining some of the distinct technologies mentioned above, it willbe possible for the university of tomorrow to offer a form of time-shifted learning, the presenting of learning opportunities to studentscustomized to their own schedules. Time-shifted learning breaks up therigidity of scheduled classes which universities are findingincreasingly limiting in meeting the needs of their non-traditionalstudents. Time-shifted learning will clearly be useful in continuingeducation programs. The system will give our community of potentialstudents more options for meeting their multiple needs. Use of readily



available information and increasing the access to information is partof the information technology culture we are developing. Time-shiftedlearning will likely involve the use of multimedia servers and advancednetwork-based delivery systems from the university campus over ATMnetworks to desktop learning stations, which will combine elements ofpersonal computers, digital television, and electronic libraries.

In summary, the network turns the university into a student-centeredlearning environment. With the network, we see faculty working more likecoaches than like lecturers. Faculty and students will come together atany hour, whenever communication is necessary. In this way, the"classroom" is always open and the professor's office hours are 24-hoursper day.

The impact of networks on research

It is easy to predict the impact of networks on research because it isfrom the research domain that sophisticated national networking began inthe 1970's. It started in computer science and quickly spread to otherdisciplines where immediacy of information dissemination was of criticalimportance. In these disciplines, scholars could not and did not waitfor journal publications to learn about the latest discoveries of theirdistant colleagues. Although formal peer-reviewed journals are still

used in these fields, the circulation of electronic "preprints" hasbecome a way of life. In some disciplines, specialized computer"servers" have been created and are maintained whereby manuscripts canbe deposited and from which electronic articles can be selected fordownloading and study. Faculty and their students are able to keep upwith fast-changing fields of study by connecting to the "server" whichcovers their field or subdiscipline. In many intellectual domainstoday, great compendiums of electronic scholarship are being created;one subscribes to these resources automatically by sending electronicmail to the appropriate "listserve" system which maintains the service'ssubscription lists. In research, then, we see networks makingaccessibility to information the key to use rather than ownership. Asmore and more research problems involve necessary collaboration and

teamwork, the network is providing the critical linkage of the CWRUacademic center to other scholarly centers worldwide. It matters lessand less where you are based as a scholar today because the networkallows you to interact with others working in your field. Becauseelectronic mail is so democratic in its style, one's electroniccontributions to the network-based servers are judged more on theirinherent worth than on the authority of the sender.

The impact of networks on public service

At CWRU, we are using the network to provide a pioneering informationservice to the entire Cleveland community. It is called the Cleveland

Free-Net (CFN). Developed during the period from 1986-1989, today itoffers over 300 distinct information services from law and health careto movie reviews and popular science; it provides several venues forpeople to dial into the system free of charge to exchange information.The CFN has been copied by at least forty other communities because CWRUlicenses the CFN software. Today, the CFN has over 40,000 registeredusers. They range in age from 8 to over 88, with a sizable populationbeing local teenagers. We anticipate that they will log over fourmillion on-line sessions during 1993, and the cost to CWRU will be lessthan $200,000, making the cost per session average less than five cents



(an average user session is about 30 minutes). We know of few ways thata research university like CWRU can have this amount of community impactwith so little cost. At the same time, this Free-Net service projectsthe type of image we want to have in our community, that of asophisticated, "high tech," contributing neighbor.

The Cleveland Free-Net also serves the public and private (K-12) schoolsystems in the Cleveland metropolitan area. Teachers at these and otherschools nationwide exchange information about their successes andfailures in using information technology in primary and secondaryeducation. It is hard to quantify the benefits that this type ofinformation exchange can have, but we know that the teachers appreciatethis service; all free of charge.

The impact of networks on libraries

Case Western Reserve University is creating an environment composed ofhardware, software, infrastructure, and highly skilled personnel that,together, will enable scholars to utilize electronic tools and resourcesto learn, teach, research, and conceptualize in new and powerful ways.This new Electronic Learning Environment will at the same time supportthe transformation of education while still reflecting the honored andclassical values of scholarship and librarianship.

Networking is transforming scholarly discourse; more people at alllevels can participate in scholarly forums connected by a variety ofnetworks at the campus level, the city level, the state level, theregional level, the national level, and internationally. Libraries havealways had as part of their mission the support of scholarly discourseas the intellectual resources they have housed have been grist for thescholarly mill. That support extends to include what is held forscholars in the physical library as well as the information andknowledge which can be made available in digital form on the samenetworks which support both informal and formal scholarly communication.

This is the first time in the history of humankind that all forms of

scholarship and communication can be conveyed and shared in onecommunications format--digitalization. Text is the simplest form ofcommunication which can now be shared in digitized format. However,through the potential afforded by digital electronics, other formats canbe equally available, namely, sound recordings, art, photography,graphics, and moving images. The only sensations which remain as achallenge for electronically supported sharing are smelling and feeling.And we can even begin to approximate those in the form of electronicinformation sharing as electronics and computing provide a "virtualreality" which evokes sensations of smell and feel using computer-simulated psychological events at the receiving end of the networkedmicrocomputers.

It is the case today that we can think, teach, learn, and conceptualizeat one time with the assistance of electronically formatted multimedia,taking advantage of color, sound, text, and moving image to enhance ourconceptualization experience. The challenge in the electronic learningenvironment is for library staff to create new tools and interfaces forcollection building, new intellectual organizing principles andmechanisms for information and knowledge organization, new partnershipsin the creation of supporting infrastructures, new service models, newprototypes for experimentation and learning, and a new skill base whichencompasses and exceeds the knowledge and skills which have comprised



classical librarianship. It is the librarian of the future who willcreate the library of the future.

The implications for the university library are many in a networkedelectronic learning environment. Conceptually and practically thelibrary is being transformed in its ability to support unique patternsof faculty and student use, as well as to extend the sharing of itsresources beyond the physical walls of the library building.

Conceptually, the library of the future models the intellectual processas an active, on-site experience where technologically-driven toolsallow the users to reach out for knowledge, wherever it may be, whateverform it may be in, and to gather that knowledge with tools that willrecord it and allow it to be manipulated, compared and contrasted toother related knowledge and thus, to facilitate both analysis andsynthesis.

The vital components of the library of the future will be: intellectualaccess to information and knowledge resources in all formats; anetworking infrastructure to act as a transmission highway; workstationsthat feature hardware and software to facilitate on-line access andmanipulation of the gathered knowledge; a library staff skilled in thetools of knowledge management, interface design, and user education;adequate and varied training facilities for both users and staff; a

variety of flexible user spaces that can evolve along with thetransformation process; and a vigorous and viable working collectionthat supports teaching and research.

The boundaries presented by these elements are formed only by ourunderstanding of the concepts and the evolution of the transformingtools. A user can choose from physically accessible, on-sitecollections, but the user is not limited or bounded by physical locationof material or its format. In fact, wherever the user can access thetools of on-line access and the expertise of knowledge management, theuser can access the resources of the library of the future.

The staff of the library of the future are highly visible, active

collaborators in the process of knowledge management, and much of theirwork is constantly evident to the users in the form of interfacesdesigned to overlay digital information resources. These digitizedcollections of information and knowledge are organized by thoughtprocesses, and the tools the user employs to manipulate them will thinkwith the user, modeling, simulating, and engaging all the user's sensesas part of the process of synthesizing knowledge.

The new knowledge that emerges will be in a format that can be managedand transported. Thus, as the classical library offered physical access,the library of the future complements physical access with intellectualaccess and the ability to facilitate knowledge synthesis. Instead of ahallmark of discreteness, the library of the future offers integration

as its enduring theme--integration of formats, integration of knowledge,integration of user spaces, and integration of the experienced librarystaff.

The library of the future can be conceptualized as a collection ofvirtual libraries. A virtual library is defined as the juncture of anon-site collection of current and heavily used materials in print,microtext formats, and electronic form, with an electronic network whichprovides access to, and delivery from, external library and commercialinformation and knowledge resources and services worldwide. In essence,



the faculty member and student are provided the "effect" of a librarywhich is a synergy created by bringing together technologically theresources of many libraries, information services, and knowledge stores.

Networking and the Library of the Future: Pragmatic Considerations

o The NetworkIn the networked library of the future, all of the available networksmust be designed and implemented to support the transmission of allforms of digital materials: text, sound recordings, graphics, art work,and so forth. Many of these digital files are quite large and requirebroad bandwidth and high speed. Fiber optics network, point-to-point, istoday's most effective network capability, and it should be the goal forall universities as they move toward the library of the future.

o BudgetsThe library is in transition from its historical classical form ofcollections shelved in a physical space to a combination of owned andnetworked digital collections. Historical library budget models havebeen in transition for the past ten years and will continue to berefined over the next ten years. It is essential for the universitycommunity to maintain flexibility in funding to support not only theclassical library, but also the library of the future. A portion of this

flexibility can be viewed from a practicality point-of-view as "venturecapital" which is available to support new patterns of librarycollections and service as both prototypes and as operational systems.Both owned and accessed collections are increasingly reliant onequipment (both mechanical and electronic) for the use of thecollections. This is a major shift for library budgeting which has beentraditionally limited in the funding available for equipment, forexample. New patterns are also emerging in the funding of digital andnetwork-accessible collections in which the cost is initially ill-defined from the publishers' perspective. The campus community mustunderstand that funding patterns for creating the library of the futurewill be irregular for some time to come.

o CollectionsThe library's collections are becoming a mixture of owned print andother hardcopy materials, such as sound recordings, microtext formats,and photographic slides. Adding to the mix are digital intellectualresources which can either be owned or accessed via a variety ofnetworks. The digital collections can be network-accessible on thecampus and may be purchased and made available as CD-ROM resources or asmainframe-supported data bases. Resources which are initially publishedas print may be digitized in the library or elsewhere on the campus,becoming part of the network accessible collections. Essential in thenetworked intellectual resources framework is the monitoring ofcollection use for copyright royalty payment. Copyright law in theelectronic information and knowledge world is in flux and careful

monitoring of the use of digital collections is essential to thetracking of new patterns of use and budget support of the library.

o Physical SpaceIn the networked environment, the library continues to exist as aphysical space, as well as a suite of networked access. In the physicalspace, working collections continue to be housed. Implications forphysical space with the networked environment is the need to add spaceand equipment in the library for faculty and students to created digitalcopies of print, sound, and graphical materials, accompanied by



electronic multimedia workstations for the merging and synthesis ofdigital information. The network supports not only distributeddigitalization and media conversion, but also distributed printing;high-speed printers (some with color) can also be located in the libraryfor faculty and student use. Finally, the library staff are also readilyavailable in the library for face-to-face problem-solving support forfaculty and staff. While many of the dialogs which currently occur inthe physical library among faculty, staff, and students can occur overthe available networks, many information-seeking problems will continueto be solved in face-to-face working situations. The library's physicalspace will have to be adapted or constructed to be network friendly,i.e., connections to the network need to be readily available. This mayrequire physical remodeling or, in the case of new library buildings, adesign approach which incorporates sophisticated network and electricalconnections from the ground up.

o Document DeliveryThe library staff will continue to provide physical document delivery ofhardcopy collections. In addition, the staff can also move in thedirection of providing networked document delivery through the use ofscanning of print materials for delivery as standard, low-resolutionfacsimile, electronic mail documents, or by transmission of high-resolution image files.

o StandardsThe standards which support the classical library are also intransition. The library of the future encompasses digital collectionswhich have their own set of electronic standards both for the networksand for the multimedia collections. It is important for the campuscommunity to discuss and implement a suite of digital standards whichwill provide consistency in the use and networking of electroniccollections. Examples include standards for graphics, markup languages,and open network architectures.

o Multiple Computing PlatformsA variety of micro and mainframe computing platforms are used inuniversities. The implications for the library include a similar support

of multiple computing platforms for both accessing, scanning, andmanipulating digital collections. The library staff need to be skilledin the use of a variety of computing platforms, and a variety ofcomputing platforms needs to be available in the library.

o Education in the Use of Library-Supported Intellectual ResourcesAs the universe of available information and knowledge continues toexpand exponentially, it is important that the campus community have aprogram for continual education in the use of library-supportedintellectual resources, both electronic and paper-based.

o Research and Teaching Merging ElectronicallyOur experience at CWRU indicates that the electronic learning

environment increases the potential for merging research and teaching.We have found that an increasing amount of research can be supported bythe microcomputer through, for example, the downloading ofelectronically available and/or scanned collections. As a result, it hasbecome much easier for a faculty member to incorporate digital researchmaterials into digital courseware. Both library staff and facultymembers should work together to ensure that the standard formats fordigital materials are useful not only in the research process, but alsoin the teaching process.



o Knowledge ManagementAt CWRU, we are defining a new context for the scholarly process, namelyknowledge management. Knowledge management is a model for scholarlycommunication in which faculty and research librarians share theresponsibility for the collection, structuring, representation,dissemination, and use of information and knowledge, using computing andcommunication technologies. In the networked environment, it is possiblefor knowledge diffusion to expand beyond classical publishing to includethe placement of newly created digital research results in the campusdatabase system. Thus, new knowledge can be made available by thefaculty member via a variety of networks. Knowledge management can beemployed at any university because it is based on a construct ofhardware, software, expertise, and policy development.

o The Virtual LibraryAt CWRU, we have determined through an extensive survey of facultymembers and students that their use of information, knowledge, andinformation technologies varies by discipline. As we create the libraryof the future, one technique we are building upon is the creation of aseries of virtual libraries. The CWRU virtual libraries are not only the"library without walls." We are thinking of collections and the library-staff designed programs which add value to the collections, but also inthe information and knowledge resources to which we facilitate access.Our CWRU virtual library is a system intellectually conceived with and

delivered to faculty members in each academic department, tailored totheir unique user information environments, drawing upon thecapabilities of a variety of computer and intellectual technologies.

o The Universal FinderThe world of information and knowledge is increasingly diverse and, insome instances, chaotic in terms of finding tools which are effectiveover a variety of databases of information and knowledge. One of themajor challenges for higher education is the exploration andimplementation of software which provides powerful retrievalcapabilities. The Universal Finder is created by bringing togethersoftware and hardware in support of the storage and retrieval ofinformation and knowledge from the CWRU information system and from

connections to national and international information and knowledgedatabases. The Universal Finder incorporates the present on-line librarysystem (including its public catalog), digitized bibliographic tools,the full-text of monographs and journals, and digitized images of non-textual resources (e.g., slides, photographs, sound-recordings, artobjects, moving images, and so forth). University support for thedevelopment of sophisticated searching software needs to be a highpriority.

o Staff Development and Organizational StructureAs we have defined the library of the future in the electronic learningenvironment, the knowledge management construct, and the creation of thevirtual libraries, we have begun to define new roles, responsibilities,

and organizational structures for library staff. At the same time, weare identifying the skills and supporting staff development programswhich are integral to moving into the future. The patterns we haveidentified include an organizational structure which moves from librarydepartments organized by function to cross-functional teams of librarystaff organized around the major disciplinary patterns of library usewhich frame the virtual libraries. In addition to a new organizationalstructure, we are developing a series of classes and other educationalexperiences for introducing library staff to the skills andinterpersonal relationship building which are characteristic of self-



directed teams. New skills are integral to the creation of virtuallibraries, including a higher level of expertise in the use ofelectronic multimedia microcomputers, database management and authoringsoftware, the use of scanning and other digitizing equipment, thecreation of controlled vocabularies for the disciplines represented bythe virtual libraries. Library staff responsibilities are becoming moresophisticated and varied. Budgeting for and supporting staff developmentis a high priority for creating the library of the future. The likelyresult of creating the librarian of the future who will, in turn, createthe library of the future is an increase in library staff salaries.

The impact of networks on administration and campus management

The campus-wide network at CWRU was designed to support administrativeand business service applications. The University is developing on-line,transaction-oriented applications that acquire and use information toserve students, faculty, and staff. These applications use servers andmicrocomputer-based clients connected by the campus-wide network. Thisconfiguration will replace batch-oriented, mainframe applications whichwere designed in the 1960's. Although we envision that theseadministrative applications will not in and of themselves be demandingof the network, the fact that the network is ubiquitous and standardizedin its interfaces will facilitate the development and implementation of

these newly designed applications.

A new service emerging from the network is a real-time, charge accountsystem. Initially, this system takes all telephone toll and long-distance charges and keeps both the detailed transactions and a runningtotal which the students can see using their user-id's on our campus-wide information system. Later, we expect to collect charges for the useof photocopy machines in the libraries and soft-drink machines on thecampus, for course-related custom-published books as created in ourinnovative electronic library, and for other cash-associatedtransactions on the campus. Monthly, this system will transfer anauthorized debit to the student's chosen banking account using anelectronic funds protocol, with CWRU receiving the credit to its

account. The time-value of the cash money will be used to provide adiscount incentive to use this real-time system. Again, it is theubiquity of CWRUnet which makes these related applications fit togetherin a cost-effective solution.

CWRUnet conducts telephone traffic to the local central office of ourtelephone company, Ameritech-Ohio Bell. At present, we purchase CENTREXservices for our office, laboratory, and residence-hall telephones.CWRUnet's premise wiring, as well as its fiber backbone, are being usedto carry telephone signaling efficiently and compactly to all areas ofthe campus. CWRUnet carries a variety of other types of signaling:parking lots are monitored by surveillance television cameras whichtransmit the information over CWRUnet; residence halls and many other

buildings have electronic door locks which open only to authorizedpersons during predesignated periods of time, customized to eachindividual's needs as recorded in a central data base accessible viaCWRUnet; and energy system controls in campus buildings are managedcentrally by transmitting signals over CWRUnet.

Since e-mail connects students to each other and students to bothfaculty and staff, electronic mail capabilities are important networkservices for the CWRU community. The CWRU electronic mail system mustserve the entire campus community and have linkages to networks beyond



the campus. Further, there should exist the capability to send andreceive facsimile (fax) messages through the electronic mail system inan integrated manner. Thus, users should be able to create documents ontheir computers and fax them to receivers at other locations. Electronicdata interchange, or EDI, is a standard (X.12) which is currentlygaining favor as a means of performing various administrative andbusiness functions, including exchange of data on student applicationsfor admission, issuance of purchase orders to a wide variety of vendors,and reporting on employees for pension-plan participation. On our campusnetwork, we have established three sets of servers, one each for e-mail,facsimile, and EDI. Rather than installing EDI software on each systemor mainframe which requires an interface for EDI, we have established anEDI server (currently a 486 microcomputer) with out-bound ports forestablishing EDI connections. This server also resides on the campusnetwork and acts as the clearinghouse for all EDI transmissions, just asour electronic post office server handles our e-mail traffic. Our faxserver provides both in-bound and out-bound delivery of facsimilemessages; users do not have to purchase or rent a dedicated fax machineto avail themselves of this capability.

CWRUnet is the vehicle for providing applications software to our campuscommunity. Standard commercial software is made available without chargeto students, faculty, and staff from the network-based software librarythat includes a variety of word processors, spreadsheets, symbolic and

numerical mathematics tools, graphics and statistics packages, data basemanagement systems, and locally-created courseware. All owners ofmicrocomputers know that the costs of software now dominate the totalcost of ownership. To help control costs, we are using the network'ssoftware libraries to provide application software to campus-based usersat no cost. Thus, users do not have to purchase their own copies ofcommon software packages but can share them through the network-basedsoftware library. This saves many hundreds of thousands of dollars eachyear. More importantly, centralized maintenance of the software libraryfacilitates the enforcement of procedures for proper software licensingand the protection of intellectual property. There is very littleincentive for software piracy in an environment where software is soreadily available through the network.

Wiring the campus

Communications technologies exist in two basic domains: the atmosphereand the cable. Today, voice, data, telemetry, and control signalingmainly use wires, and video uses the airwaves. In one of thoseinteresting reversals of technologies, we are seeing the future of videoas being based on the cable, not the airwaves, and of telephones, whichfor so long have been based on cabling, moving principally to theairwaves. The other families of communications technologies will remainlargely wire-based, but a new domain for some types of computers is nowemerging in which a subset of networked computers becomes totally free

of the cable, a so-called "nomadic computer." Such devices are expectedto use the infrared spectrum of radiation to communicate with othercomputers and with conventional wire-based networks.

What about the future of wiring? Ethernet and Token Ring are good short-term technologies for data transmission, but for multimedia and otherimage-intensive applications, these technologies will ultimately proveto be inadequate. We believe that full multimedia transmission willrequire a new physical layer and data link layer. Thus, we have adoptedtechnologies with higher performance ratings using optical fiber to



replace copper at the physical layer. Since optical fiber would not befound wanting in terms of bandwidth potential, an investment in a fiber-based network would have strategic value for this university. We alsofound that existing data communications technologies could be worked ina cost effective way in terms of hundreds of megabits per secondtransmission rates using multimode fiber strands, but it was single modefiber strands which offered the potential of transmission rates of tensof gigabits per second. The problem with single mode fiber, however, wasthat the optoelectronics would be prohibitively expensive at this pointin their technological life cycles; these devices would very likelydecrease in price over the next five to ten years. Which fiber to use?We knew that we would need to start using the network immediately; thecost of the single mode fiber was not within the limits of the budget.Even the multimode fiber was expensive relative to the use of data-gradeunshielded twisted pairs (category 5), shielded twisted pairs, or thinor thickwire coaxial cable. In less than five years, we believe thatcopper-based wiring will become the limiting factor in the transmissionof multimedia information. We made the decision to use multimode fiberfor data and to pull single mode fiber to every desktop. We will beready to use single mode fiber when it becomes a more mature technology.

Developing a networking strategy for the campus

A high-ranking member of the campus administration should be chargedwith the responsibility for developing a campus-wide networkingstrategy. For the campus, there will need to be developed a vision forthe network. Issues in developing a specific strategic plan will have tobe addressed; each university will have to ask some basic questions andthen write down the answers that make sense in its particular context.There seems to be very little that is right or wrong in any answers thatmight be given; it is important that they are valid and realistic.

o Determining the aspiration level for network services. How state-of-the-art is it necessary for the network to be? Will academic programsand administrative functions be compromised if the network does not havethe latest functionalities and the highest performance levels?

o Determining the phasing of technological developments. With rapidchanges taking place in networking technologies, how will theinstitution handle the changing technological base over the course ofthe network implementation and thereafter? It should be understood thatinstalling a network is generally a process that takes several yearsduring which technologies will continue to evolve.

o Determining the role of individual, microcomputer-based computingsystems. Some universities have come to the realization that themicrocomputer is an important tool in the management of scholarlyinformation whether done by the student, the professor, the staffmember, or the administrative officer. In short, these schools have said

that the microcomputer is a fundamental tool and that they are buildingtheir institution's strategies with the microcomputer in mind.Unfortunately, the microcomputer is far less useful as a standalonedevice than as a networked device. Thus, an institution's aggressivestance toward microcomputing may lead it to take a similar stance towardnetworking.

o Determining who will have access to the network and the level ofservices provided? Does the network provide services to students,faculty, and staff equally or are some services available to some groups



but not to all groups? Is there a separate administrative network forreasons of security and confidentiality? Are there restricted sub-networks?

o Charging or not charging for network use. Charging puts the "havenot" groups at a disadvantage. If funds are distributed to departmentsto pay for networking, why not budget the operations costs centrally andthen operate the network from a central administrative unit. There aremany possibilities here: to charge for network traffic, say, so much perpacket of information, to charge for network access, say a fixed amountper month, or not to charge at all and consider the network like theuniversity's library. The library model is interesting because it saysthat basic information resources are a staple of the university andaccess to and usage of information resources should be independent ofthe ability to pay. This model recognizes the importance of universalaccess, and the network achieves its real value when everyone has accessto it. If one uses a charging scheme, less than 100% of the campuspopulation will choose to have network access. There is also theelectrical system model. On nearly every campus, electrical service isprovided to all campus constituencies without charge, even though theuniversity has to pay for the electricity. A network outlet is placedwherever information is needed, analogous to placing electrical outletswherever electricity is needed. Charging policies may seem like anecessity, but considerations of the library model and the electric

utility model show other ways to meet the operating and capital costs.Of course, it is well known that libraries have huge capital costs forbuildings and scholarly materials, as well as large operating costs forpeople-based services; electrical systems have huge capital costs forputting the electrical plant on-line and for the wiring system, and theyneed large operating budgets to cover the costs of fuels and maintenanceof their equipment. The network enjoys these similarities also.

o Determining the relative proportion of institutional funds,operating and capital, to be used for networking. Many campuses have abudget for telephony, with virtually all of it coming from the operatingbudget. Networking infrastructure is extremely capital intensive with along useful life. Reconciling the needs for large amounts of capital and

amortization within operating budget guidelines is the task that needsto be considered. There is also the question of how much can be budgetedfor networking on an annualized basis. If one takes into account allforms of communications (voice, video, data, telemetry, and control),then a realistic annual budget figure for networking and communicationsis in the range of 1 to 2% of a university's budget. This figureincludes amortized costs.

o Determining the sources of new funds for networking. In general, itwill take an infusion of new funding to initiate a networking project.This is simply because the current communications capability will beneeded until the new system is operational. The institution will have topay for both systems at the same time. Also, the network will require

additional funding because new and expanded services are being provided.It is completely unrealistic to try to operate an expanded networkingservice on the old budgeted amount; new sources of funding are arequirement. Some universities are initiating a student computing fee tobring in sufficient revenue to cover some of the additional networkingcosts.

o Determining the organizational structure for networking and thedegree of network decentralization. Historically, computer centers havebeen the organizational home of data communications services, but with



the advent of library-based computing for the catalog, circulation, andacquisitions systems, another major campus organization needs to berecognized as an information resource. When one factors in voice, video,telemetry, control, and the other decentralized computing facilities,one sees that the computer center should not have a monopoly over thenetwork. Fundamentally, the networking organization should be in neutralterritory with respect to the various computing facilities and thelibrary, and this calls for an independent organization. If the campushas a chief information officer, then the networking management shouldreport to this person. There is also the question of decentralizednetworking in which schools or even large departments build their ownnetworks. In general, this is a poor strategy because it leads tooperational complexity and greater operating costs.

o Determining the role of the administration and its organizationalstructure. Is there a networking czar? To whom does s/he report? Are allof the communications technologies merged into one organization or arethey dispersed across the administrative units? At CWRU, we favorcentralized networking because we believe that the advantages of commonsystems, managed by full-time specialists, are greater than thedisadvantages. This centralization is based on the electrical utilitymodel of the network.

o Determining the requirements for high-level technical support and

modest skill-level support services. CWRU has deployed over threethousand workstations in the past four years, all with networkingsupport. Our experience is that the end user is ill-equipped to handle(and does not want to be bothered with) the details of installingnetworking hardware and software. The end user wants the workstationprovider and/or the network provider to set up the network and make itwork. Further, our experience is that networks are operationallyfragile. It is still too easy for the end user to create networkdysfunction or to leave the workstation in a nonfunctional state withrespect to the network. In such cases, how does the user get restarted?There has to be a simple way to get user assistance; there has to be astaff of persons ready to give technical assistance, to make a "housecalls."

o Determining the role of the students in filling networking staffingpositions. Students can be excellent members of the network technicalstaff; typically, they are of high energy, work with enthusiasm, performnetwork evangelism, do not expect high salaries, and are empathetic withthe end user. How network management reconciles the exigencies ofstudent life with the needs of maintaining the network will dictate whatroles, if any, students play. Critical network staff positions shouldnot be filled by students, but many auxiliary positions are entirelysuitable, and the experience for the student is generally quitemeaningful.

o Determining where networking technology standards will be set. No

network can accommodate all possible devices and interfaces. Standardsfor the campus network will have to be set and promulgated. On somecampuses, newer, emerging standards will also be adopted for the latestin functionality or performance. What organ of the university has theresponsibility and authority to set these standards? Where should thisresponsibility be delegated for day-to-day functioning? What happenswhen a faculty member finds out that his "pet" project cannot beaccommodated by the adopted standards? Can one appeal? And what does anappeal actually mean? Having hard and fast standards will be necessary.The network will need to be managed with a palpable discipline. If not,



then the effort will fail. Imagine how the electrical system wouldfunction if faculty members could appeal the decision to have outletswith only standard 110 volt AC service? Of course, it is possible to usetransformers to meet other electrical requirements, and one can deriveDC circuit from AC. The network analogs are gateways, digital computersspecially designed to provide for arbitrary translations of onenetworking technology or protocol into another. Even with networkgateways, it is not generally possible to have all of thefunctionalities translated across arbitrary network boundaries. Users,especially faculty, should be realistic and follow the campus'snetworking standards. Whatever standards are adopted, they should aim tobe sufficient for the services to be provided. Networking services,however well intentioned, cannot possibly be all things to all people.Some limitations are necessary.

o Determining the design and implementation of campus-wide, localarea, regional, and national (and international) networking. The campusnetwork will not be an island. It will be connected to networks in thelocal community, if only to the telephone system. Regional networks havedeveloped within and across many states. Both private and publicagencies are offering national and international networking, and thereare offerings from a variety of national telecommunications companies.There is also the wildly successful Internet and BITNET. Therefore, itshould not be a question of if the campus network is connected to other

networks, but how it is to be done.

o Determining the degree of integration of technologies for the fivedifferent families of communications services that are relevant tostrategic planning for networking: voice, based on the principles oftelephony; video or television, including CATV; data, as in digitalcomputer originated, coded information; telemetry, as in informationrelated to status of the physical environment; and control, as inactivation of remote equipment, the measuration of phenomena at adistance, and the feedback to keep a process within acceptable limits.The campus network can be composed of five separate networks, each inits own track, or two or more of these families can be integrated toaccomplish a set of objectives. A number of issues are present which

bear on the question of what degree of technological integration isdesired.First, all five of these communications services are going to have

underlying digital technologies. This is a substantial change, ofcourse, for those communications services that have been usinginformation in analog form.

Second, considerations of the space occupied by communicationscabling, plus the need for higher performance levels, indicate thatfiber optic cable will become the universal medium for all families ofcommunications services. Fiber cables have better characteristics foravoiding interference from electrical force fields and are lesssusceptible to invasions of privacy. The initially higher cost of fiberis decreasing rapidly.

Third, one does not want to switch all of the communicationstraffic. As yet, telephone-type switches are not designed for the highdata rates of computer-type traffic. Consideration of the performance,i.e., speed, of the data flow (2400 bits per second for voice versus tenmegabits per second for computer data) implies that a different type oftechnology is needed to address telephones versus workstations.

Also a consideration is the fact that the typical telephoneconversation is only a few minutes in length, whereas the typicalcomputer session lasts over thirty minutes. This difference in "off-hook" times means that the switch designed for optimal telephone traffic



is not the same as one designed for optimal computer traffic. Newer"gigabit" switches are being designed at this time based on AsynchronousTransfer Mode (ATM) technology, so that there is likely to be areconciliation of voice, video, and high-speed data in our future.

Considerations of load on the network must be taken into account,so that one type of service does not ruin some or all of the other typesof services. A fully integrated voice-video-data network could degradeor even fail if some small number of high-performance users were toinitiate bulk data transfers. The design of the network should providefor the segregation of large users of the data service. Since monitoringof the load on the network may not be adequate to prevent loadingproblems, we favor the installation of extra cabling to handle largeusers. The user community should inform the network services departmentas individual usage profiles change.

On most campuses, there is an independence of management of thevarious communications services. Bringing them all together probablyinvolves a major administrative reorganization. If computer services andvideo are on the "academic" side of the organization and voice,telemetry, and control are on the "administrative" side, then it usuallymeans that several vice-presidential level persons will be involved inthe integration. Such reorganizations maybe difficult to implement, yetcommunications vendors are increasingly expecting universities to act ina singular, coordinated manner. One suggestion is that the universitycreate the chief information officer position to integrate the various

communications services.Lastly, we have been witnessing the separate evolution of thevarious communications technologies. As they all become digital, theymay very well evolve more synchronously, and at a pace dictated byimprovements in integrated circuitry. If voice services becomesperipheral to the digital computer base, then we may see a high degreeof integration very soon. Clearly, more progress will need to be made onvoice input and output units, and the costs must decrease before thepersonal computer and the telephone will truly merge. Digital televisionexists, albeit it is very expensive. We believe that digital televisionis the wave of the future, and that the mass production manufacturingscenarios from the 1950's and 60's that made analog televisions cheaperwill be replayed. Television signals in commercial service have been

carried over fiber optic cables since 1984.

How to fund the network?

In our experience, the campus-wide network needs two types of fundingstrategies, one for capital and the other for operating. The capitalfunds are one-time funds for constructing the network. To network our 85buildings, we will have to place some 11,000 network outlets, mostly inolder buildings; it will take five years to implement and cost about $18million. We have raised the funds specifically for the retrofitting ofexisting buildings as part of a general university-wide capital campaignand as an integral part of the construction budget for each new

building. All buildings follow the newly established standards forcampus-wide network wiring and conduiting. For CWRUnet, the average costas expressed in terms of the cost per wall outlet is $1,650 perfaceplate. This is an all-inclusive cost (cf. reference (1) for moredetails). Buildings are renovated from time to time, and the cost ofreestablishing CWRUnet services in the renovated space is anotherconstruction cost analogous to wiring for electrical service. Becausethe CWRUnet cabling was designed for a long period of usage, we havefound that we can reuse it in the renovated spaces. For all types ofnetwork-related capital expenditures, one should have a set of policies



to cover the depreciation of this asset. At CWRU, we built thenetworking capital expense into the building's capital value anddepreciate the total value with each type of depreciation following itsown schedule. The accumulation of depreciation funds creates a fundingstream for the eventual replacement of electronic and non-electronicnetwork components. The electronic components will often need upgradingover a five-to-eight year cycle; the use of fiber optics cabling allowsfor extended depreciation cycles of 20 and more years. Each institutionshould explore the use of building depreciation finance policies togenerate on a continual basis funds sufficient to renew the criticalnetworking infrastructure.

CWRUnet also requires an operating budget. With all of its services, thecost per faceplate is budgeted at $117 for the 1993-94 academic year.Each building has a designated number of installed faceplates, and thisamount per faceplate is factored into the operating costs for thecommunications utilities of each building in the same manner as we applycosts for electricity, steam, and water. We do not charge for the amountof information actually transmitted over CWRUnet; there is no chargeanalogous to telephone "message units." Therefore, CWRUnet does notfollow the telephone utility model; we use a library-like model thatapportions costs according to access, not usage. We have watched howpeople actually use networks, and we see that usage is often quiteunpredictable. A charging scheme based on the message unit concept

penalizes the user who works in a "discovery" mode, as contrasted withusers who preplan each network activity. Therefore, we have adopted thelibrary budgeting model because network usage involves substantialunplanned activity, much as library usage in browsing the stacksinvolves books and journals you may not have planned to use.

At CWRU, we see the network as another major utility on the campus,being like the electrical service in its ubiquity and like the libraryin its impact on academic and social life.

References

(1) Neff, R.K., and Haigh, P.J.: "CWRUnet--Case History of a Campus-wide Fiber-to-the-Desktop Network" CAUSE/EFFECT, 15 (2), 26-29, 33-38,Summer 1992.

(2) Watkins, B.T.: "Information Technology: University Hopes CampuswideNetwork Will Help Give It a Competitive Edge" The Chronicle of HigherEducation, April 29, 1992.

(3) Haigh, P.J.: "LANS and Fiber Optics: Building a New Infrastructurein Higher Education" Higher Education Product Companion, 2 (2), 8-14,January/February 1993.

(4) Elmer-Dewitt, P. "Take a Trip into the Future on the Electronic

Superhighway" Time, April 12, 1993.

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-------------------------------------------------------------------prepared by representatives of

DRAKE UNIVERSITY

Michael R. FerrariPresident

Gary D. RussiVice President, Research & Strategic Planning

William A. StoppelDirector of Libraries

Robert W. LutzDirector of Computing & Telecommunications

-----------------------------------------------------------------Copyright 1993 by HEIRAThe Executive Strategies reports are published by the Higher EducationInformation Resources Alliance (HEIRAlliance), a vehicle for cooperative

projects between the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, andEDUCOM.



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Networks at Drake University

If there is one word that can be used to characterize the Drakeexperience with networks, that word is communication. Since ubiquitousvoice, data and video networking appeared on campus in 1987, there hasbeen a change in the daily rhythm of the university based on the changedmechanisms for communication. Barriers of space and time have beenremoved by store and forward mechanisms that operate in all three

arenas.

A voice mail system allows faculty and staff to receive messages at allhours of the day and night, whether in the office, at home or on theroad. Electronic mail services provide the same capabilities for thewritten word. Of course, the ready availability of VCRs and a campus-wide video distribution system has enabled the same capability to existfor the video world.

Two examples of enhanced communication come to mind. We invite new



freshmen and their parents to campus for a Friday evening - Sunday noonorientation event. We hold several of these events in June and earlyJuly. The president tries to do the opening welcome for as many as hecan. This past summer, the president told the students what his e-mailaddress was and urged them to keep him informed on their progress. Henow routinely receives many e-mail messages a week from students. Theelectronic format has effectively erased the communication barriersbetween student and university president. Students are not likely totake the time to write a formal memo to a president or to request timeon his/her calendar for a face to face meeting on a small issue. Beingable to send the president an electronic note any time of the day ornight is a powerful stimulus to communication.

Another example involved using electronic mail to do an informal surveyof new students in the early fall. The survey form was sent to all newstudents electronically with electronic response preferred. An excellentreturn was achieved and students' opinions were quickly gathered througha simple mechanism. We believe that student response rate was goodbecause a "high-tech" method was used for the interaction.

Our president, as is true of many other presidents, is on the road for asignificant amount of time each year. A laptop computer with modemprovides electronic access back to campus and enables the president tomaintain direct contact with the key members of his management team. The

contact occurs through electronic mail with capability for attachingword processing documents, spreadsheets and other items. When thepresident is on campus, a large portion of his wide-ranging contactswith members of the campus community occur through the identicalmechanism.

Many faculty have found that office hours are now twenty-four hours aday, seven days a week through electronic mail. Students can sendquestions, comments or concerns at a moment's notice. Faculty canrespond thoughtfully at a time convenient for them. The result isenhanced communication between students and faculty. This form ofinteraction extends beyond the teacher-learner pair. Ever largerportions of university communication are conducted with electronic mail

and messaging. Additionally, group authorship of documents isdramatically enhanced. As a result of these and other uses of networkedpersonal computers, we have realized productivity gains for students,faculty and staff.

The connection of campus computers to the Internet adds a wealth ofopportunities for members of the campus community. The samecommunication gains that provided on-campus benefit are now extended tothe broader community of scholars throughout the world. The rapid growthof the Internet speaks volumes about the benefits that are derived fromroutine access. Access to people and information on a world-wide basisat low cost provides obvious benefit.

The availability of networking and pervasive desktop computers has notonly changed the character of the institution, it has changed the typeof people that we want to hire. It has changed the kind of students wewant to recruit. The expectations of these new students, faculty andstaff for more and better networking and desktop computers are high andrising. Thus, by satisfying initial needs for networking and informationtechnology access, we have sown the seeds of new demand throughfundamental change within the University.

The rising expectations produce a new set of issues. Network bandwidth



becomes a critical success issue for students and faculty. Whilestudents and faculty were delighted to be able to up- and download filesfrom mainframe to desktop computer at 9600 baud several years ago, theircurrent usage patterns have made this approach obsolete. Access to theInternet and its wealth of resources has accelerated the demand for filetransfers between systems. Users are no longer content with slowtransfer rates when they have many files a day to up- or download.

Rising expectations have also caused increased demand for supportservices. Both reference librarians and computing center personnel areincreasingly swamped with demands for help with accessing the wealth ofinformation available on both the campus network and the world-wideInternet. Demands for installation of new departmental local areanetworks and for interconnection of these networks to the larger campusnetwork are growing rapidly. Installing, maintaining and supportinglocal area networks is an ever-growing portion of the support staffworkload. If there was one area in which we underestimated the costs ofinformation technology it was in support staff.

The fundamental question to be asked about networking and theintegration of information technology into the fabric of the universityrelates to the fact that large expenditures are necessary to make ithappen. Naturally, the question is, "Is it worth it?" Our answer is anunequivocal "Yes, it makes a difference. It makes a difference in

productivity of faculty, staff and students. It makes a difference inquality of instruction, research and administration. It makes theuniversity capable of thriving in the decades ahead. Clearly, thedividends warrant the investment." Notice that we do not say expense. Wesay investment. We view the expenditures to date as an investment in thefuture, both in the University and in the future success of ourstudents.

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Background paper for

HEIRAlliance Executive Strategies Report #3



THE UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

Ontario, Canada

Jack R. MacDonaldActing President and Vice Chancellor (through May 1, 1993)Vice President, Academic

Ron ElmslieDirector, Computing and Communications Services

John BlackChief Librarian






with the messageGET HEIRA.ES3guelph

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What Presidents Need to Knowabout the Impact of Networks on Campus

Background

The University of Guelph offers a comprehensive set of educationprograms to 14,000 undergraduate and 1,700 graduate students. TheUniversity employs more than 750 full time faculty and approximately1250 support personnel. Several distinguishing characteristics of theUniversity have been important influences from the perspective of ourinformation technology involvement. Guelph is one of Canada's mostresearch intensive universities, more than one-third of our studentslive in campus residences, and the University's strong presence inAgriculture and Veterinary Medicine includes a large extensioninvolvement with off-campus clients and a major commitment to distanceeducation.

The University of Guelph could fairly be described as an early playerand contributor to many areas of information technology. Particularexamples include the development of several innovative systems; a verysuccessful library system in the mid-1970's, an early computerconferencing system (CoSy), a Veterinary Medical Information ManagementSystem and a multiplicity of other applications of IT to education. Acomprehensive IT Strategic Plan was adopted in the early 1980's, thefirst phase of which was to install a voice-data network which accessedall areas of the University, including all residence rooms. Thestrategic concept was to provide a full range of educational andadministrative services on the network - computer conferencing, accessto word-processing, graphics and statistical packages and a wealth ofCAI modules, course registration including the dropping and adding of

courses, access to a variety of on-campus and off-campus data bases,access to the library catalogue, electronic messaging and informationservices, etc.

The original vision was, at first, slow to materialise, an experiencequite typical of situations which involve comprehensive changes inbehaviour. Not only were faculty and others slow to provide appropriateservice to the students, in part due to fiscal constraints, the studentsthemselves were also slow to adopt new approaches. On the other hand, adecade later, we have a fibre optics network linking most academic



buildings and a distributed computing environment with a wide spectrumof services provided on-line, including a great deal of CAI material.More than half of our students regularly use computer conferencing andelectronic mail to communicate with their instructors and with eachother. And our original vision did not anticipate the creation of aninteractive audio-visual link with the University of Waterloo by whichclassrooms are linked electronically. This application of networks is anefficient and effective approach to the delivery of courses and thesharing of resources and the link will soon be expanded to includeMcMaster University.

General

Few would disagree with the statement that networks are capable ofhaving a dramatic and ubiquitous impact on our campuses over the nextfew years; examples of the current applications of networks, local orglobal, are evidence enough of the possible applications andimplications. And the opportunities will proliferate with enhancementsand refinements to the technology of the networks and to the functionsand facilities which they link. But it is an open and important questionas to what form the revolution will take and to what extent capabilitywill be translated into actual practice. The answers to these questionsare more likely to lie in understanding the characteristics of the

human-technology interaction than in the technological capabilityitself. Two examples will demonstrate the importance of this facet ofthe use of technology.

It was not long ago that microfilm was touted as the solution toinformation storage problems. Even though the storage problem iseffectively addressed by the technology, the potential of microfilm hasnever been realized, in substantial measure because the technology tookaway certain features of the traditional paper storage - browsing, non-linear searches, the efficiency associated with the physical storagearrangement of books and periodicals and so on. In short, microfilm didnot provide an appropriate level of comfort to the user because itsfeatures were incompatible with important elements of human behaviour.

On the other hand, the growth in the use of FAX technology has beenquite incredible, in spite of the low added value it provides. In fact,the price one pays for its main feature of increased speed oftransmission is frequently a poor quality copy of printed material thatusually arrives a few days later by mail (and creates a filing problem)!FAX is used because the technology is transparent and therefore non-threatening to the user, no new training is required and the product(paper) is familiar. It is appropriate to note that widespread usageonly occurred upon the establishment and acceptance of internationalstandards.

What then can we learn from history about the likely impact of networkson our campuses? In general, networks are likely to have a significant

impact in situations where the following conditions hold:

* the task at hand can be done better or cheaper or both (orperhaps only) by using a network feature

* virtually all participants are comfortable with the use of theservice or feature provided on the network - this implies ease of use,standards, a high degree of shared features with traditional approaches,etc



* training and continuous handholding is essential if asignificant conversion to new technologies is to be achieved

* there is leadership provided at the top. There is nosubstitute for visible, active participation by senior administrators increating an environment in which the use of networks and theapplications they provide is an integral part of the life of aninstitution.

Specific Uses

1. Inter-personal Communication

Perhaps the greatest impact that networks have had on our institutions,to date, has been in the area of inter-personal communications. Theability which networks afford users to communicate cheaply andunconstrained by time zone differences, distance and location, haschanged the way in which we function. Even within our campuses, thegeographical and cultural barriers which historically have existedbetween our departments are being broken down because of the ease andcultural neutrality afforded by communication by networks and thecommunication features which operate on them.

There are a number of applications of networks which facilitate inter-personal communication in an administrative, research or educationalsetting (e-mail, file transfer, notice boards, computer conferencing,etc.). There are several major issues related to the use of networks ingeneral which are of importance in this context: confidentiality;authorization; security; filing, retrieval and indexing; and "qualitycontrol" (filtering of useful information from all availableinformation). The filing/retrieval/indexing issue may seem trivial butit inhibits the use of networks in the administrative aspects of thework of our institutions. In such cases, there is a need to maintaincomprehensive records of information obtained from many sources,internal and external, and in a variety of formats (ranging from typesetdocuments to hastily scribbled notes). Digital scanning can deal with

the conversion of material to a common form, but may create datatransfer rate and load problems.

It goes without saying that appropriate training and standards arerequired. Inclusiveness of use is vital, for to become a truly effectivetool in which paper-based forms of communication are set aside, everyonewithin the appropriate community must be a willing and competentparticipant. Inter- personal communication thrives in cases where usersare technically capable and consenting; there must be a need, an abilityand a will!

2. Access to Services

Networks provide unprecedented access to an incredibly wide range ofservices and do so without site-specific constraints. Many of theseservices have resulted or will result in fundamental changes to the waywe function. Access to supercomputers is an obvious and importantexample. And the possible impact on the way libraries function has beenstated succinctly by Ann Okerson (1):

"We have lived for many generations with a world in which thetechnology of publication meant the access required ownership, in otherwords, that scholarly information was usable only if it were gathered in



a large, site-specific, elf-sufficient collection. The pressureslibraries now feel have already driven them to various forms of resourcesharing, notably interlibrary loans, that begin to provide alternativemodels. New electronic technologies allow the possibility of uncouplingownership from access, the material object from its intellectualcontent. This possibility is revolutionary, perhaps dramatically so.

Without cataloguing the range of services potentially available onnetworks, their shared feature is access without the requirement of on-site presence. Consequently, new and radically different ways ofproviding service are possible. Paradoxically, the richness of thechoices will require difficult priority setting, made necessary by thestandard limitations of time and other resources.

3. Impact on teaching

The impact of networks on education is potentially immense. Networksfacilitate the use of computers and information technologies ininstruction in many ways; use of live data bases, real time simulationand gaming, distributed participants, interpersonal communications,linked classrooms, multimedia approaches, and a host of otherpossibilities. Perhaps more in these cases than in any otherapplication, the resources required for effective implementation islikely to be a major issue. The intellectual development costs and the

cost of the technologies themselves are likely to be high. Under thesecircumstances, it is imperative that the educational effectiveness ofthese approaches be evaluated both intrinsically and relative toevolving options.

______________________________________________________

(1) in University Libraries and Scholarly Communication, Anthony M.Cummings et al, Washingtion, The Association of Research Libraries forThe Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 1992, p. xv.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

James J. DuderstadtPresident

Douglas E. Van HouwelingVice Provost for Information Technology

Donald E. RiggsDean, University Library



Michael J. McGillDirector, Network Systems




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University of Michigan

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to provide university presidents with a setof expected requirements for the deployment of networked informationtechnology on and among campuses. The University of Michigan is used asthe base of experience from which the guidelines are developed. Theguidelines are intended to provide university presidents with the basisfor making decisions which have the potential of providing significantadvances in productivity of teaching, research and related activities.

The University of Michigan provides an excellent basis for theserecommendations. As a large midwestern public institution, it is also amajor research institution which, as the host of the National ScienceFoundation's NSFNET, has been the focal point for a large number ofnetwork innovations. The institution has gone through many of thedifficulties associated with the first installation of a network and, asimportantly, it has experienced the challenges of upgrading its backboneand is undergoing significant upgrades and replacements of its manylocal and departmental networks.

This paper will provide the reader with a brief review of theinformation technology environment at the University of Michigan and

some of the relevant experiences that have occurred at the institution.The national networking activities which have been hosted by theUniversity will then be described. As with many institutions, theavailability of the national network has had profound impacts on themembers of the U-M community. Some of these impacts will be explored toidentify the implications for the University and its administration.

Brief Status of the University's Network Activities



CampusThe University of Michigan is an institution of approximately 45,000students just about evenly split between undergraduate and graduatestudents. The University is actually composed of four campuses in AnnArbor -- the south, central, medical and north campuses, as well theFlint campus and the Dearborn campus. In Ann Arbor, the central campusis the home of twelve colleges, including the College of Literature,Science and Arts; the University of Michigan Business School; and theLaw School. The north campus is separated from the main campus by aboutone mile and houses the Engineering, Music, Art, and Architecturecolleges. The medical campus is the home of the U-M Medical School aswell as the six hospitals which comprise the University of MichiganMedical Center.

Ann Arbor Campus Data Backbone and Related ServicesThe campus is served by a series of three interconnected fiber opticbackbones transmitting 100 million bits per second under the FDDIprotocol. The UniversityUs Information Technology Division (ITD)coordinates the backbones and operates the backbone which serves boththe central and south campus facilities. The Engineering Collegeoperates a backbone serving the north campus, and the Medical Centeroperates a backbone which serves the medical campus. These backbonessupport a variety of higher-level protocols including the InternetProtocol (IP) and Appletalk. The dominant local area networks on campus

are NovellUs Netware, AppleUs Appletalk and Banyan's Vines. In addition,ITD supports terminal connections via locally developed communicationprocessors that provide asynchronous communication at speeds up to19,200 bits per second. They have provided reliable communicationfacilities to the campus for over 10 years. The entire Ann Arbor campusis now being upgraded to a Ethernet connections to meet the demands ofthe Future Computing Environment now being deployed.

Northern Telecom Switches and Voice ServicesThe University provides its own telephone services via two NorthernTelecom SL-100 switches. These switches also provide phone service tothe Dearborn and Flint campuses. The voice services include Voice Mailand 911 emergency services. The campus provides telephone service to

approximately 33,000 customers including students in the residencehalls. The system was installed during the 1985-1986 calendar years.During this installation the campus was wired to provide copper wirecapacity adequate to ensure upgrades in the foreseeable future. Thiscapacity is sufficient for the Ethernet upgrade currently underway, andmay well be sufficient for the next generation of communicationfacilities.

Broadband Network and Video ServicesThe University has a broadband network that has served for televisionbroadcasting services and for a now-replaced administrative dataprocessing application. The broadband network is currently being

upgraded to serve both the entertainment and educational needs of theUniversity community. In cooperation with the local cable televisionsfranchise, the broadband network is being extended to the residencehalls.

National and State Activities

The University of Michigan is the host institution for Merit, Inc.,which is responsible for the implementation and operation of the NSFNET



national backbone. Merit implemented the backbone in 1988 with supportfrom MCI, IBM, and the State of Michigan. In 1990, Merit contracted withAdvanced Network and Services (ANS) to provide the backbone services.The NSFNET is the key component of the national and internationalInternet. The University has had a close working relationship with theInternet activities, and because it houses the Network OperationsCenter, has been able to provide the U-M community with excellent accessto the Internet.

Merit ActivitiesMerit also operates MichNet, which is the Michigan statewide network.Merit developed the asynchronous communications processors now used onthe campus for terminal access. Merit is upgrading MichNet to use morepowerful off-the-shelf facilities to replace these processors. MichNetfacilities provide connectivity for the Flint and Dearborn campuses,which are undergoing technology upgrades similar to those underway onthe Ann Arbor campus.

Merit was the original operator of the Network Operations Center, and inthis role developed with the University a number of network monitoringtools that allowed the effective operation of NSFNET and theUniversity's network. The network monitoring and management have provento be vital elements in the operational viability of the University'shighly networked environment.

Related Activities

Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN)The Engineering College runs a separate but connected data network thatserves its specific needs. The network allows for experimentation andadaptation to the specialized needs of the quickly changingtechnological environment in Engineering. The network is interconnectedthe remainder of the University by means of a bridge maintained by CAENand ITD.

Information and Networking Services (INS)

The University of Michigan Hospitals have for many years maintained aseparate computing facility dedicated to the support of the hospitals.The Hospital INS organization provides the network that supports theadministrative and clinical functions of the Medical Center.

Information Technology and Networking (ITN)Support for the medical and research faculty of the Medical Center isprovided by the ITN organization. ITN now runs a series of networksincluding a backbone interconnected with the campus backbone.

Center for Information Technology Integration (CITI)The Center for Information Technology Integration is the unit of theInformation Technology Division that conducts advanced development for

the Division. CITI has worked to provide the University with a number ofadvanced facilities for a highly networked information environment. Forexample, CITI developed (with support from IBM) the Institutional FileServer (IFS) which provides the campus with an institution-wide storagefacility that supports the UniversityUs distributed computingenvironment while maintaining the information sharing capabilityhistorically provided by the UniversityUs timesharing system, MTS.

Overview of the Organizational Structure



The University is a highly decentralized institution. The Executiveofficers of the institution have delegated a great deal ofresponsibility to the Deans and Directors of the University. Inaddition, the University has established committees to provide policyoversight and user input to the Information Technology Division.Membership on these committees is representative of the campuses.

The Deans, Directors, and Executive Officers of the University, incooperation with the various committees, provide a very distributeddecision making environment. The independence of the decision processesrequires excellent communication and shared goals. Where goals are notcommon, coordination of information technology efforts suffers.

Impact of Information Technology

Facts and Figures

-----Number of Computer accountsThere are currently 81,000 Computer accounts, though not all are active.The breakdown of active accounts is:

Faculty, student, staff request accounts 32,731

External Users 5,666Research (self-supported or sponsored) 4,692Departmental accounts 9,809Other special accounts 26,978

-----Number and growth rate of IFS accountsCurrently there are 3,700 IFS accounts, each with it's own unique name.This number has doubled since January 1993, and is expected to reach15,000 by the end of 1993.

-----Number of Local Area NetworksThere are 149 local area networks, as of June 1993.

-----Number of Conferences and ParticipantsOver 3,500 electronic conferences have been established at theUniversity of Michigan. These include course/instructional conferences;departmental, faculty, staff, and student conferences; and externalconferences (non-University user buying time on Michigan Terminal System(MTS)). Conferencing at the University of Michigan continues to grow,often at the rate of a new conference every day.

A Few Examples

Business by EmailBusiness at the University of Michigan now includes a great deal of

electronic communication. Email with the president is routine, anddecisions, actions, and requests for information are most frequentlysent electronically. The officers and deans all use Email, and manyfaculty have adopted Email as a integral part of their courses. It istherefore essential that everyone in the university community has theresources necessary to participate. Appropriate network access and theassociated applications necessary to support the daily activities areessential. Accomplishing such institution-wide access requires thatstandards be adopted and adhered to. For example, incompatible mailstandards have caused significant difficulty for officers of the



University who wished to share financial information. Adoption of asingle standard such as the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) helpsto avoid these problems.

Growth of GopherBlueThe national networking activities have led to a startling increase inthe number of information resources available. Access to these resourceshas required users to identify the resource and its location and thenfigure out how to access the information. There have been a number oftools developed that assist users in accessing information resources.The Wide Area Information Server (WAIS) and Gopher are two of the betterknown tools. The University of Michigan has multiple Gopherimplementations. The University Libraries and the Information TechnologyDivision have coordinated activities to provide for scholarly and otherimportant information to the campus. The Information TechnologyDivision's implementation of gopher is called GopherBlue. Its contentsinclude job openings at the University, weather information, M-Qualityprogram documents and other general campus related information. The useof GopherBlue has increased from no access a year ago to over 200,000individual accesses per month.

Remote ResourcesInformation resources have always been critical to educationalinstitutions. The resources have traditionally been local resources as

epitomized by the Library. In the 1970s and 1980s these resources wereenhanced by the availability of online information systems such as OCLC,NLM, and Lexis. These resources required large, complex computingsystems and were relatively scarce. Today we have over 300 librarycatalogs freely available on a wide variety of computing systems on theInternet. This dependency on information has not changed. What haschanged is the availability of the resources and the means by which weaccess them. Faculty, staff and students require access to remoteresources to be competitive with colleagues at other institutions.

Dependence on distance communicationThe University of Michigan is increasingly an international universitywith students and faculty throughout the world. It is critical that

communication with the individuals remote to the university bemaintained. The communication is in a variety of formats includingvoice, data and video. This in turn requires that facilities be in placeto support these communication requirements. Right now, that means thatseparate facilities to support each medium. However, these formats arebecoming capable of being supported by integrated media. For example,the University is now supporting compressed video using standard voiceand data communication facilities. Compressed video is now being used ona regular basis for video conferences, and will be used to teach coursesin locations as distant as Hong Kong.

Integrated MediaThe campus has also been a test site for an integrated media system

developed by Northern Telecommunications that incorporates voice, dataand video into a tool available to the individual at the workstation.The system allows the participants to share data while communicating viaa video telephone service. This service has shown the importance ofhaving a critical mass of participants to make the service viable.

The University's Information Technology Division has also broughttogether its video network with it data network to provide an integratedmultimedia facility. This system, called VIDs, is being used in avariety of instructional environments that incorporate full motion video



and computer based instruction.

Potential and Futures

A New Medium

* Integrated Voice, Data and VideoThe future of networked information will require the increased use ofall of the media of communication available to us. The requirement willbe for either fully integrated media on a single communication network,or at least the virtual integration of these networks for the user. Therequirement for on-demand access to network capacity adequate to servethe needs which will range from as simple as a voice communication to asdemanding as full motion video.

* Invisible Technology/ Visible Productivity ToolsThe expected pattern of use of information technology in the future isto be concerned less and less with how the technology works and more andmore with the ability of technology to increase individual and groupproductivity. The tools which are likely to provide the most significantproductivity gains are will combine several of today's media. The mediatechnology of the future is expected to be standardized and invisible tothe user. The personal computer will take on new forms, and will be a

critical element in providing the user with seamless access to formerlydistinct media.

* Communication, not the MediumThe key factor for the future is the ability to communicate, not themedium of communication. The measure of success will not be the quantityof information, speed of communication, nor the breadth of theinformation resources covered. Rather, success will be measured by theability to get the job completed in an effective manner. Effectivecommunication requires all of the above criteria but also puts theemphasis on the task being performed and not the means of accomplishingthe task.

What is required

Conceptual

* Vision for the FutureThe single most important factor for the success of a networkedenvironment on a campus is the maintenance of a vision that ismeaningful to the faculty, staff and students of the campus. The keeperof this vision needs to be a highly placed officer of the institutionwith direct responsibility for the information technology environment.The vision provides direction, substance and authorization to themembers of the university community. Since the higher education

environment is characterized by highly decentralized initiative anddecision-making, the vision provides a construct around which thosedecisions can fit within a broader institutional direction.

* Concern for the productivity of faculty, staff and studentsThe individual who maintains the vision needs to keep the interests ofthe institution and its constituents as the key rationale for theinformation technology. The introduction of technology MUST have thegoal of increasing the productivity and effectiveness of theseconstituents.



* LeadershipAn important factor in development of information technology andnetworking on any campus is providing the appropriate leadership whichmust come from a well placed champion. At the University of Michigan thechampion for many of the technological innovations has been the ViceProvost for Information Technology. As the title implies, he has beenassigned the responsibility for much of the technological direction ofthe campus, with oversight being provided by a number of bodies. Thechampion of other campuses may differ, but in each instanceinstitutional recognition of the legitimacy of the champion either bytitle or by direction is critical.

* Cooperation with other institutions trying to achieve the samegoals.Seldom is any institution capable of standing alone in the informationtechnology environment. The University of Michigan was fortunate to beable to work with significant governmental and corporate partners, aswell as a number of cooperating educational institutions, both as itdeveloped its own networks and as it developed the current NSFNETinfrastructure. The relationships have allowed the University to expandits range of expertise, created critical masses of needs andcapabilities, allowed for significant economies of scale, spread therisk, and provided for mutual benefit.

Pragmatics

* Substantial Networking FacilitiesNo information technology activity is likely to succeed withoutsignificant networking facilities. The important factor here is to neverunderestimate the networking requirements, and not try to outguess thetechnology. The range of applications and facilities that are nowavailable in a distributed computing environment are significant andgrowing. The distinctions between the traditional voice, data, and videotechnologies are disappearing, and the expectations of many faculty,staff and student members of the community are that these will beintegrated for them in order to enhance their productivity. Each step in

the integration requires additional management sophistication,applications integration, and increased communication among thedistributed components.

Traditional means of supporting networks may no longer be appropriate.Voice systems which depend on usage fees are foreign and contrary to thedata communications environment which has relied upon purchasingcapacity irrespective of use. Video, when it is actually purchased, isoften on a subscription basis. Integrated networks, therefore, present achallenge to all three models and require creative thinking.

It is important to be realistic about the costs of a technologicallyintensive environment. Distributed environments are more expensive to

manage but actually use the resources of the campus more effectively.The resources available within a unit of the campus often directly incurthe costs associated with meeting their own needs which may be moreeffectively decided at the local level rather than centrally.

* Access to National Networking FacilitiesThe advantage of a networked computer environment is the range ofresources that are available to any of the users of that environment.Many of these resources are national resources available over theInternet. NSFNET is one of the most important components of the



Internet. Access to the Internet is readily available in nearly everypart of the United States and throughout the developed world. While thisaccess has been inexpensive for most educational institutions, therecently announced new architecture for the NSFNET and different fundingmodels will phase out the Federal subsidy for the national backbone,which accounts for about ten percent of the current cost of aninstitutional connection. The requirements from the faculty, staff andstudents are unlikely to do anything except increase with the advent ofnew media and applications. Thus, it is incumbent upon the universitypresident to maintain a close vigil on national and state legislativeand regulatory activities that may negatively impact the ability ofhis/her institution to afford to participate in national orinternational networked information activities. The higher educationcommunity will need to be vigilant to protect its interests as powerfulcommercial and political forces influence the network's evolution intothe future.

* Distributed Computing and Information ResourcesThe computing and information environment of the future is distributed.That is, the information resources will be located where they are mostlogically created and/or maintained and users will access thatinformation from their workstation. Each userUs workstation will befully interconnected to resources which provide information, high speedcomputing, specialized resources including applications, and required

resources such as directory and authentication services. The user in thedistributed environment will see a broader range of resources and willlose the concept of location or distance. Interconnection and accessprovided by the network will be critical factors in enabling thisdistributed environment.

* Libraries and Related Information ServicesThe university library is still the most significant repository ofscholarly information. Its resources will increasingly be viewed as anetworked resource with larger and larger percentages of the library'sholdings available over the network. Today these resources are oftenonly available as catalog information and the user is expected to cometo the library to make use of the full material. Electronic journals,

full text and structured electronic documents are quickly changing theexpectations of the users of libraries.

The university library is being challenged to not only maintaincompatibility with the changing technology of the campus environment,but also to alter its collection and distribution patterns to providethe services increasingly expected by the members of the campuscommunity. It is also important to recognize that the university libraryhas become one of the information providers rather than THE informationprovider. The coordination of these resources and the development ofpartnerships that will enhance the intellectual environment of thecommunity is a greater challenge due to the changed technologicalenvironment of the campus.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------prepared by representatives of

ST. PETERSBURG JUNIOR COLLEGE

Carl W. Kuttler, Jr.President

James OlliverVice President for Institutional & Program Planning

Susan AndersonDirector of Libraries

Janet GammonsData Communication Specialist

Janetze HartProgrammer Analyst, Technology

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Copyright 1993 by HEIRAThe Executive Strategies reports are published by the Higher EducationInformation Resources Alliance (HEIRAlliance), a vehicle for cooperativeprojects between the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, andEDUCOM.



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St. Petersburg Junior College

St. Petersburg Junior College, founded as a private college in 1927, isFlorida's oldest two-year institution of higher education.

But we've never been "old" in our thinking. and thus does the collegehave a spirit and a tradition of innovativeness that trace clear back toits very conception: The founders launched SPJC through a public-privatepartnership that enabled hundreds and hundreds of the community's youngpeople to pursue higher education at a time of widespread economichardship. The institution has been receptive to the new, theexperimental, the "wave of the future" ever since.

Our first use of computers dates back more than a generation, to 1967,when we contracted with the Pinellas County School Board to write SPJC's



first computer programs and run them on the Board's Honeywell H-200.

We've come a long way since then, to the point of being almostcompletely computer-networked through all seven of our college campusand administrative sites. That will give us a huge leg up in providinginstruction to the 57,000 credit and non-credit students we serveannually in Florida's second smallest but most densely populated county.The network, called Project Flamingo, is described in detail in aDecember 1992 speech given by our Vice President for Institutional andProgram Planning, Dr. James Olliver. The speech accompanies this reportand provides more detailed background on our technology.

Chief architect of Project Flamingo was our then-Director of Technology,John Busby. Our aim was to integrate the academic and administrativesystems to make the operation of the college more efficient. The visionwas to reduce paperwork as much as possible, and to improve learning forstudents -- especially the latter.

Even so, the decision to implement Project Flamingo over a period ofseveral years generated heated discussions and controversy amongdistrict and campus officials and faculty members. Provost VilmaZalupski of our Clearwater Campus remembers that it was "a majorphilosophical decision ... a major commitment to technology ... (and) amajor, major expense for the college."

It was all those things -- especially expensive. One initial price tagcame to $10-million, although that figure was subsequently scaled backsomewhat. In addition, there have been modifications and adaptations tothe plan, including the introduction of new technologies. Here andthere, we have even seen prices come down on the cost of somecomponents.

Greatly easing the financial burden has been the support we havereceived from three computer companies -- Apple, Digital EquipmentCorporation, and Unisys. They formed a partnership with us to supportthe venture and contributed almost $3-million worth of equipment.

Apple also invited SPJC to become one of the 10 charter members of itsCommunity College Alliance, made up of institutions regarded as leadersin the use of education technology. In 1990, Apple Vice President JerryMallec called our project "the installation of the largest network ofeducational computing systems in the U.S." His company intended, hesaid, "to use SPJC's leadership role ... as the model for use ofMacintosh technology in the classroom."

The college's District Board of Trustees captured the vision and made aninitial commitment of $2-million in capital outlay for Project Flamingo.Major support comes from the College Development Foundation , which hastargeted $2.5-million as it specific fundraising goal in ProjectFlamingo's behalf. A 12-minute video was produced to aid in the drive.

The network to date is 75-80% complete.

Starting out, we made the conscious decision to computerize one site ata time. This was an "all for some and none for others" approach,resulting in "haves" and "have nots" for a time -- which was made worseby unexpected legislative budget cuts that had the effect of protractingthe inequities.

We still feel this was a correct approach. Spreading the technology out



equally, a little at a time, would have produced general excitement atfirst -- but very limited capabilities on each campus's part. By doingwhat we did, we produced a "critical mass" that had observablecapabilities we could evaluate and fine tune.

Meanwhile, those who had to wait to come on line displayed admirablepatience and understanding. Had it not been for the delays -- whichtested the perseverance of many -- we're convinced it would have workedperfectly. And there is one silver lining: The delays now mean that someof our later computer acquisitions will end up being more powerfulmachines than the earlier ones were, for the same amount of money.

In all, we expect to have a total of 1,400 personal computers in placecollege-wide when the project is finished -- 300 of them in 14 open-access labs. They will be tied in to such services as Internet and LINCC(Library Information Network for Community Colleges), which will provideinformational access on a national and international scale. The visionof the Technology Department, in the words of Jim Olliver, is "toprovide access to information anytime, anyplace, instantaneously."

We're confident that the four-year-degree-seeking students who use thissystem will be able to go on to any institution and be more advanced andskilled in using technology in education than many of their peers --particularly those "native" university students who have been on campus

their first two years and never touched a computer. (Ted Micceri,research associate for the Center for Interactive Technology in theCollege of Engineering at the University of South Florida, says ProjectFlamingo "will have an impact for all kinds of universities.")

SPJC also has faculty development centers, connected to the network,which contain sophisticated equipment for faculty who wish to developinstructional software. These centers contain computers and multimediaequipment similar to those in the classroom "bunkers" (see VicePresident Jim Olliver's speech), as well as sound equipment, a scannerand a printer.

Everyone who receives a machine gets 24 hours of training over two

weeks. Users learn how to word process, use a spreadsheet, sendelectronic mail ("E-mail") and navigate on the network. As more cabling,equipment and applications are added to the network, faculty memberswill be able to access knowledge bases and files anywhere within thecollege's computer system -- and beyond.

Eventually, the world -- one day, the universe? -- will constitute thelimits of our educational horizons. That has always been true, ofcourse. The difference, with computer technology and networks, is thatnow the world suddenly lies just beneath our keyboard fingertips.

ACTUAL NETWORKING IMPACTS

Once our network was in place, it began to grow and evolve. As thishappened, impacts were experienced all across the institution -- in theclassrooms, in the offices, fiscally, administratively; in virtuallyevery area of the college's life. Following are the categories thatseemed relevant to this report. Except for the first two -- Planning andInstructional -- they're in no particular order of priority. Part III's"Thoughts Worth Noting," by the way, are also listed categorically and,in most cases, tie in directly to the subjects discussed below.



PLANNING

It's Priority 1, and we cannot stress this strongly enough. Ahead of anyother steps you take, you first must make sure you give your networkingaims the proper preparation, because the lack of same will impactnegatively on everything that follows.

So you must assemble a cadre of your best people, including at least oneperson with great expertise in computer technology, whom you probablywill have to hire from outside. You must give them a set of marchingorders, along with sufficient resources and a sensible time frame tocarry out those orders. And you must give them to understand that thedecision-making lies with you (this is not something to be decided bycommittee), but that all reasonable options and ideas will be welcome.

You then must set them to exploring the best ways for your institutionto embark on this path in terms of feasibility, preciseness,effectiveness and foresight. You can expect that president and staffwill have to work long hours, find new sources of funds, andoccasionally use outside consultants to help design and reach the goal.Also, plan to spend more money than you planned to spend. Allow plentyof time for what the techies call "debugging," as the concept of"turnkey" is not always compatible with technology packages. And realizethat by the time one system is fully installed, personnel-trained, and

up and running, the next generation of hardware and/or software willl beupon you -- so expect to stay on a "change treadmill."

Those last three points may sound facetious but they're practicallytruisms.

At one point early in our progress, Dr. Dale Parnell, who was thenpresident and chief executive officer of the American Association ofCommunity and Junior Colleges, said of our plan that it "is going tochange peoples' lives across the country." That's how importantblueprints such as these can be, and we would wish the same might besaid of yours.

INSTRUCTION

Nowhere should networking have more impact than on instruction, onlearning, on classroom productivity, because those are ourinstitutions' reasons for being. So, plan accordingly.

As to precise impacts so far, it probably is too early to tell -- thatis, we can't really gauge yet the full effect that our technology hashad on our students, even those who already have graduated. We do knowit's critical for instructional personnel to have a complete grasp ofthose networks that impact directly on students and their instruction --and even those that impact indirectly. Those faculty least inclined tofall into step with the technology are, naturally, the ones who are most

negatively affected. Hopefully, this is becoming less and less of aproblem everywhere.

"Institutional readiness" remains something we must deal with, however.At this stage in America's adaptation to computerization, there stillare vestiges of a generational gap. Many, maybe most of our young peoplehave cut their teeth on computers, they are "hip" to them, they think incomputer-oriented terms. Many faculty members -- particularly older ones-- have not undergone this transformation at the same rate of speed andcompletness.



Nonetheless, our experience has been that a preponderance of the SPJCfamily is champing at the bit to become computer proficient -- and thefeedback we get in the president's office is that this eagerness is atleast partly due to the enthusiasm and encouragement that have emanatedfrom the top down. Well, we have championed technology here. We'vechampioned our champions -- those individuals who've grabbed the balland run with it. We've gone to great lengths to conduct training,promote workshops, sponsor "show-and-tell" projects for instructors andstaff eager to display their computer initiatives to their peers onother campuses.

It truly is remarkable how our people have risen to the occasion (and ithas been most interesting to see, in the training, just how much time ithas taken to enable persons to use the new machines to their capacity).

Instructional horizons already are broadening through networking, ofcourse, and this will continue to an extent we possibly cannot imagine.One phenomenon already shaping up at SPJC is on-line degrees. -- the endresult of programs administered to the student via networks and modems.As was noted by someone in one of our sessions, "The impact of thenetwork is that the instruction is not bound by the walls of thecampus."

One impact that already is quite clear lies in the area of remedialinstruction. More than 70% of our students now need remedial help in atleast one discipline, and it has been most gratifying to discover that,even in the face of growing enrollment, we should be able to maintainmomentum in this area without proportional increases in staff. How? Viacertain software applications. This came as most welcome news.

Early in the game, SPJC saw two ways in which Project Flamingo wouldimpact on instruction and the local business community simultaneously:The technology would enable us to develop and provide a potential poolof computer-literate employees, plus develop computer literacy amongthose already employed. Inasmuch as we're one of the county's majoremployers, the lesson was not lost on us.

This section should not conclude without mention of a significant impactnetworking will have on all our instructors once everybody's on line:Through E- mail, faculty office hours should effectively be expanded toa considerable degree and, likewise, faculty/student interaction.

MORALE

If your networking must take place gradually -- say, on a campus-by-campus basis -- count on institutional morale feeling the impact. Thelonger it takes for the have-nots to catch up with the haves, thegreater the impact. Provided a solid plan is being followed and areasonable schedule adhered to, the problem should be minimal. It's when

you take an unexpected hit to your budget, causing delays, that concernsover timely implementation set in. Assuming that something unexpectedalways is going to happen, have contingency plans in place.

After the network is in, the morale problems don't end. This is becauseof an item known as distribution of equipment. From time to time, you'lldiscover the necessity for moving some of the computers and otherelectronic gadgetry around. so that the hardware better fits the jobslots. For those who wind up with lesser equipment than they had -- nomatter how justifiable the move -- this may be a problem. We've had few



problems, actually, and a lot of cooperation. But you'll want to have arationale and a sound policy in place to back you up and minimize anynegative fallout.

As for those unreconstructed faculty members whose spirits plummet atthe thought of having to "master" the science of computers, we've foundthat a simple, yet up-beat and effective retraining program workswonders. Ease of use is a major reason we chose the Apple Macintoshline, and most of our re-trainees express surprise and relief at howrelatively painless it is to get computer literate. New faculty andstaffers -- and existing staffers moving to computers for the first time-- receive 24 hours of computer training over a two-week period.

PHYSICAL PLANT

If and as networks require less in the way of actual classroom space,library storage and so on, the impact on institutions' physical-plantneeds obviously will be enormous. We may, at some point, be talking"virtual libraries" and even "virtual campuses." For instance, due tonetworking, we hope we'll be able to find ways to invest less,proportionately, in the physical plant of our next new site, theSeminole Campus.

At the present time, computerizing and networking has significant impact

on the physical plant. Computers and all their attendant equipment takeup room, it goes without saying, so the space must be provided for. Anduntil we see the day of wireless networking -- which may not be far off-- there is a prodigious amount of wiring that accompanies networkinstallation. The best way to cope is to take on a "just anotherutility" mentality, i.e.: Don't plan a building or an add-on or aremodeling without lumping in technology with all the usual services --lights, plumbing, telephones, climate control and so on.

COSTS

We hasten to add there is nothing cheap about this. When you think aboutnetworking, you perhaps think about wiring; about physical connections.

But, as we have learned from Project Flamingo, the computerization of acollege is not just putting wiring into and a computer on the top of thedesk of every faculty member. It's also training, it's supportpersonnel, it's software, it's black boxes it's maintenance, it'supgrading, it's continuing and visionary leadership. Wiring is cheap.These other things are not -- but you must have them.

Upgrading is a major factor, by the way, because the technology isconstantly changing, constantly improving. It's imperative that you planwell the system you ultimately acquire, to help hold upgrading costsdown later.

This comes at a time, of course, when presidents all over the country

are being pressed to reduce administrative costs. But meanwhile,networks are providing additional capabilities and (to a somewhat lesserextent) additional efficiencies. The way this plays out, youradministrative costs -- despite your advantageous gains -- go on therise. So it's not an altogether easy sell.

As you compute your costs, don't fail to include the tab for at leastone skilled and savvy coordinator or director of technology, and alsothe money to cover consulting services. At SPJC, we have linked up witha number of local and national vendors as well as an international



computer consulting firm right in Clearwater. The expense has been wellworth it because, in return, we have been provided with resources,advice, technological assistance, a sounding board for ideas, and earsto the ground that keep us posted on pertinent developments.

Lastly, be sure to budget for sufficient technology staff. It takes alot of people to keep the equipment maintained and upgraded, and it'salso crucial to have enough people on hand to assist those who use thetechnology. In our own case, we could have used more people than ourplans called for, and those we've had have been stretched pretty thin attimes.

DESIGN

Design is so important because you have all these different vendorsconnected together and you have to have the right pieces -- the so-called black boxes, which are translators and converters -- to do thetranslations. That's basically what networking is all about: making sureall these pieces can talk to each other in languages they canunderstand.

The more extensive and comprehensive your design, the greater and widerimpact it will have, obviously. But we strongly feel that college-widenetwork design will have more positive impact -- indeed, that it will

work to a tremendously greater advantage for your institution. Not onlydoes it prevent anyone from feeling left out, it affords easiercentralization, which simplifies problem-solving, maintenance,management and other chores.

When we changed our network configuration starting last year and went togreater centralization, it not only gave us greater reliability, itreduced some of our costs as well.

COMMUNICATIONS

Networks have a particular impact on a college's sense of community,especially a large one and/or one with multicampuses (as at SPJC). None

of our people has put it better than Clearwater Campus Provost VilmaZalupski: "The computer has pulled us all closer together. There is moreof a community feeling now." Certainly, more information is beingdistributed faster to more people. A message that once might have takena day or two -- or longer -- to disseminate now reaches everyoneinstantaneously. This can do wonders for productivity and efficiency.

But electronic communications also make for a whole new protocol. Thatis to say, E-mail -- for all its speed and saturation -- lacksexpression and inflection. Person-to-person communication, eventelephone communication, is much more understandable in terms of meaningand mood. E-mail so far doesn't afford us that dimension, so greatercare has to be taken with its message-sending, to prevent

misunderstandings.

There's a lack of confidentiality with E-mail, too, plus a lack ofsafeguards against editing of -- even tampering with -- messages. Thisnew mode of communication affects not just our method but also our styleof communicating.

SECURITY

This ties right in with Communications. Password-protected machines not



only afford your system more security against entry, they also make yourcommunications more reliable and less vulnerable to tampering of anykind.

But security is a much broader issue than that, and unquestionably acritical one. Networking alters the configurations of yourcomputerization and thus impacts on security. It is safe to say that thewider you network, the greater is your security challenge. (Our localnetwork ranges across a distance of nearly 30 miles and more than half adozen campus sites.) If you add such services as Internet, as we have,the challenge magnifies greatly. It goes far beyond the obvious securityaspects of simply having multi-thousands of dollars' worth of equipmentto safeguard. What's in those machines, and available on those linkups,must be vigilantly protected too.

As more and more students come on line at SPJC, security risks go up --not because they're students but because the rising population increasesthe odds that something can happen. We don't lie awake nights worryingabout hackers who can't wait to invade SPJC's inner sanctum of computerfiles. But we are concerned about vandalism, mischief-making, and plainaccidents. Adventurous students, disgruntled employees -- these arepossible threats that realistically must be considered. "Studentssometimes get into these machines and mess around in them a lot," was acomment from Director of Libraries Susan Anderson. Well, maybe they

don't mean any harm -- but lots of it can result from such "messingaround." Accordingly, preventive measures must be taken.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

As faculty and students gain access to a far greater wealth of knowledgevia networks -- Internet, LINCC, et al. -- the danger of informationoverload is posed. Some may see it as an unmitigated blessing that "theworld" is available with the punching of a few keys. Hopefully, thereaction on most faculty's part will be that it's an over-abundance of agood thing; that reasonable restraints must be placed on the imparting,researching and production of information.

In any case, it's a reality administration must confront.

ATTITUDE

Ironically, just as you're dealing with overload, you're apt to beconfronted by another wrinkle on the "too much of a good thing"syndrome. To explain: Networks impact on the attitudes of those affected(just as basic computerization does initially). One attitude that canresult from networking -- it possibly is even inevitable -- is summed upin the phrase, "The more you give 'em, the more they want." In otherwords, a voracious appetite is created, and it's something anyadministration must come to grips with. There may be no limits to what'savailable out there, but there certainly are limits to what you canafford.

UPGRADES

On the other hand, you want to keep an open mind where upgrades areconcerned. As we all know, the technology seemingly changes overnightand we thus have to decide on what our "keeping up" pace will be; notif, but how much. As has been pointed out, this makes critical yourearly choices of systems and their adaptability. Once you choose, you'velimited future choices, so choose wisely and well. Someone said in oneof our meetings: "We've got to clue the presidents in that they have to



spend some time on the 'vision thing.'" If you must work with differentsystems, different hardware, multi-vendors and so on, try to choose oneswhose technology will "match" as greatly as possible. Compatibility,you'll discover, counts for a lot.

There is, of course, no way to predict where and how far technology'sevolution will take us, but this is a given: It will be extensive,expensive . . . and inevitable.

ORGANIZATION

This category will cover a multitude of sins, because networking impactsyour institution in so many ways, it is sometimes difficult to makedistinctions as to where all those impacts fall.

One of the more memorable quotes to come out of our sessions was thisone: "Networking is going to blow holes in the traditionalorganizational charts." Amen to that.

How do you organize all this? The traditional guidelines are out thewindow, and it's not certain yet which of the new ones are reliable.There are colleges that have taken the library and networking andlearning support centers and distance education and put them under onevice president. Is this the way to go? For them, maybe, but perhaps not

for you. And how do you know?

Then there's this facet of the problem: Once you decide to network, allyour departments lose some of their individual autonomy -- becauseeverything connects to everything else. And if the plan you've chosen --the system, the network -- rules out certain ways of doing things, andif a department wants to do something -- say, install a lab -- in oneof those forbidden ways, you just have to be able to say:

"No can do.""It doesn't compute.""Sorry, that configuration doesn't jibe with the network."

There'll always be a creative tension between such endeavors and the

college-wide standards that have been established, but that's how it hasto be.

And speaking of standards - they're imperative. As someone famous oncesaid, and as it's echoed constantly around the college: "No man is anisland." No person, that is; not anymore.

Autonomy, in this context, doesn't work. Uniformity is a must. You givesome leeway to the classrooms, yes, because faculty and students have tohave freedom to experiment and be creative. But administratively,everyone has to toe the same line. There must be a designatedcontroller, what that controller says must be law, and the "statutes"must cross all lines -- departmental, hierarchical, campus, etc.

The up side? (Yes, there is one.) This necessary control motivateseveryone to level up to a "New! Improved!" plane of intra-site andcollege-wide cooperation. And it doesn't take a genius to realize thatstrong leadership is called for.

One specific recommendation is that you form a group or groups to takethese matters in hand and regularly come forth with determinations andrecommendations in as democratic a way as possible. At SPJC, we formedtwo.



TeleTechNet is a task force of representatives from telecommunications,technology, data systems, physical plant and planning. They coordinateprojects and deal with issues related to the implementation oftechnology at the college. The Computer Standards Committee is a largergroup -- made up of faculty and staff -- who periodically perusehardware, software, and networking standards. Both groups are chargedwith reviewing, collegially, whatever questions come up. It doesn'talways head off sparks, but it seems to keep the fur from flying.

CONCLUSION

We'd like to wrap this up with a quote; with several quotes, in fact.The first is from an article by John Busby and William H. Pritchard Jr.(our former Director of Instructional Computing), written for Apple'sMACINTOSH SPECIAL ISSUE 1991 and entitled "A Blueprint For SuccessfullyIntegrating Technology Into Your Institution":

"Lastly, full integration of technology into an institution is asmuch a political exercise as it is a technical one. Technology isdestined to have a major impact on educational institutions. Anythingthat has such an impact becomes political because it forces people tochange. Therefore, we add a final factor for success. Create as many'win-win' solutions as possible. Help others in your institution to see

how your technology plan is also a 'win' for them. Only then will yourtechnology implementation be a success."

The other quotes are from SPJC faculty, staffers and administrators, whowere asked just recently for their personal comments and reactionsrelative to SPJC's network technology. These are some of theirresponses:

* "It only takes one 50-minute period of classroom instructionand two 50-minute periods in the lab to give (my Composition I students)enough expertise to do their papers without my help."

* "I couldn't live without my Mac."* "You've made believers of us all."* "Keep those new programs coming!"

* "E-mail . . . invaluable!"* "Take my computer and you might as well take my right arm!"* "Macintosh . . . great time-saver . . . great organizer."* "Thank you to those who had the vision to see this."* "Because the Mac is so friendly, I wasn't afraid to try

anything."* "E-mail (moves) things along at a rate that previously wasn't

possible."* "The most valuable tool it has been my experience to use."* "I see the light!"* "When I teach composition in the computer lab, I see more

willingness on the part of students to rewrite their essays. Theirattitude is more positive from the beginning .... Computers can't teach

writing because writing is communication -- meaningful contact betweenpeople. What computers can do is facilitate writing and generateexcitement. They break down the traditional teacher-centered classroomparadigm so that students become focused on the computers -- and theirwriting -- and not on the instructor. I also believe computers willeventually change the way we write in some fairly drastic ways. Anevolution is in process that may make some more traditional compositionteachers uncomfortable. What writing will become is difficult to predictat this early stage; however, we have the opportunity as technologyleaders to help shape the path of that evolution."



It's our hope that you experience this same kind of success..

THOUGHTS WORTH NOTING

The following are comments made during various meetings held among teammembers as this report was being assembled. Although they're out ofcontext to one degree or another -- and, as such, weren't intended forpublication -- they should be of value in amplifying or enhancingstatements made in Parts I and II.

CONTROL STANDARDS"No man is an island anymore. It just can't work that way. At the

onset, you have to decide who's going to be the controller regardless ofwho or what department bought the actual equipment." --Jenny Hart

"When you network, you automatically create a need for greatercooperation as well as improved communications." --Jim Olliver

COMMUNICATIONS"I usually sign E-mail messages with my little smiley face so I

won't be misunderstood.--Jenny Hart

COSTS"If you let your imagination go, you can just think of countless

ways in which the technology could be used in very practical fashion toenhance the educational product. But there's a price tag on each one ofthose advances." --Susan Anderson

"It costs more to be on the cutting edge, but you don't have to beright on the cutting edge. As soon as something comes out, you knowthere are going to be cheaper imitations. Some might be just as good."--Jenny Hart

DESIGN

"On each campus there's a line -- a T-1 high-speed line -- thatoriginates at the campus and terminates (at the college's AllstateCenter). All the lines come in here, so the data is routed down here andthen goes back out. The only other way you could do it is if everybodyhad a direct connection to everybody else, and that would beprohibitively expensive ... and a nightmare to maintain." --JanetGammons

"Once you make a decision on which way to go, you need to work on anetwork design that is consistent and internally integrated; that takesthe fullest advantage possible where adaptability and compatibility areconcerned. So presidents need to spend some time on that 'visionthing.'" --Jim Olliver

"Because networking reduced my travel time, our response time onproblems is better. I haven't received any calls complaining ofsluggishness in the system for awhile. All those 'strange,' gremlin-likeproblems have disappeared. I get problems that are real now." --JanetGammons

INFORMATION OVERLOAD"In something I read once, it said that as people gain broader and

broader access to a greater number of things, there's a danger they'll



confine themselves to smaller and smaller niches and become less broad.They'll just be talking (by computer) to other persons interested in'left-handed Lilliputians' or whatever. So ... we do need to deal withinformation overload." --Jim Olliver

INSTRUCTION/INSTRUCTIONAL HORIZONS"The impact from this needs always to be tied to the instructional;

that is, we need to keep in mind what impact any of this will have onthe students." --Susan Anderson

"In the classrooms of the future - and in some that already exist -networking will permit student and faculty member to talk directly bycomputer. So it changes the whole interaction between them. They'll beable to see each other's work, project it for viewing by the entireclass, ship information back and forth. The faculty member ...,theoretically, could be in Hawaii on vacation, telephone on a modem,call into the network, drop something into a server, and students thencould access it in the classroom. So you're really talking aboutnetworks breaking down the barriers of not time but certainly space."--Jim Olliver

"I think Internet, combined with the teaching bunkers in theclassrooms, will have the single biggest impact on the students. --Jenny Hart

"Eventually, networking is going to change the way we educate." --Jim Olliver

PHYSICAL PLANT"For the library on our new Seminole Campus, we won't have to have

a 'warehouse,' because library networking does mean that storage of manyitems will be much more compact .... " --Susan Anderson

PLANNING"Institutions sometimes jump into networking without sufficient

planning and forethought. It's a lot more involved than they know ...and the main thing is, there's no one standard that's best for

everybody. You have to have the expertise to evaluate what's out there,decide what's best for you, and then try to make all your decisions andpurchases based on the plans you've established up front." --JanetGammons

SECURITY"Equipment security is an issue, because there are people who will

steal anything .... But the more important security is the security ofthe system ...." --Susan Anderson

"No one appreciates the time it takes to set up accurate security,but it's absolutely critical. You only realize how critical if it fails.I tell the staff, it there's ever a question of more security or less

security, it's more every time. The danger of a breach in security in alocal network is one thing, but when you have Internet, the implicationsare far-reaching." --Jim Olliver

STAFFING/TRAINING"When you network, you must get the right people, technologically,

to stay on top of it. That way, you're not vendor-dependent. But thespecific staffing required to handle networks, which are becomingincreasingly complicated and expanded, has to be considered carefully.We have to plan for network managers, for network technicians, and for



network-help people on the clerical level." --Jim Olliver

TECHNOLOGY"One thing that needs to be stressed: The technology is inevitable,

so you might as well plan for it and do it right and not let it run youover. There's just no way around it -- and the technology is going tokeep changing." --Jenny Hart

"A college without technology is like Florida without airconditioning." --Jim Olliver

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