Goals for Academic Computing on the Carbondale Campus

Connecting to the the Internet and to one another is an essential task for virtually everyone at SIUC. While computing may have seemed a passing fad even five years ago, it is clear now that the ability to move easily within the new cyberworld is an essential part of being a citizen of the 21st century. With that century only two years away, SIUC must move towards a state in which every employee who needs access to the Web and e-mail can have it. We are far from that goal at the present time, and our plan suggests a number of routes to accomplish that end. In addition, providing our students with the same access is crucial to keeping SIUC competitive, both within the state, nationally, and even internationally. Facilities to allow students to access the electronic world are woefully inadequate at the present time.

1. A modern, competitive university campus must allow all personel who need access to the Internet, electronic mail and the Web to have it through a transparent, simple and fast connection. While not specifying topology, we believe it is necessary to enhance connectivity for
   • Those with offices and desktops,
   • Those living in on-campus housing
   • Those who access the campus network through dial-up connections.

2. The number of classrooms on campus which permit internet access must be increased through the installation of appropriate hardware. Where appropriate, projection and sound equipment must also be available.

3. The current chaotic help system should be replaced with an orderly hierarchical structure with contact points at the department, college and university level. Each point will have incresing expertise, but should have to deal with fewer and fewer problems at an increasingly technical level. Everyone involved in the help system should have their responsibilities made a formal and recognized part of their job description.

4. Contact with the people responsible for maintaining the campus network `within the walls' (that is, what happens to the message after it leaves the computer) must be streamlined and simplified. There should be a single contractor to whom a departmental representative can speak, and who is completely responsible for all aspects of the work needed.

5. Public access computers (labs, the library and elsewhere) must be kept current through regularly recurring funds. There must be a plan to upgrade all public desktops on a regular basis not exceeding four years, and the monies for this upgrading must flow on a constant cycle, like that for coal or water, not like that for repairing infrastructure. It is possible that a student computing fee could be implemented to provide this continuous revenue stream.

6. Although there already exist facilities to assist faculty in the development of web-based and multimedia instructional materials, these need to be greatly increased. There need to be more funds, and more training personnel available.

7. A relatively simple introduction to computing, covering e-mail, web access and (for those who need it) dial-up access needs to be made available on a campus-wide basis. Instruction for incoming freshmen, and those faculty and staff who will be receiving net access through this plan will need to be provided on a massive basis. At the same time such instruction should not be worth standard academic credit, and this caveat raises the issue of who will be the provider of such services.

Recommendations for Academic Computing on the SIUC Campus

The following points are ranked in order of importance.

1. Completion of connections to all academic offices on campus

   Aconnection of all buildings

   1. A number of campus buildings are still not connected to the Campus backbone. Serious deficits include a number of buildings on South Oakland and Elizabeth Street, the Allyn Building and Shryock Auditorium.

   Bconnection of all offices within currently-wired buildings

   1. There is a variety of reasons for non-connection. In some cases, simply installing appropriate NICs and activating B-jacks is a hardship for the department. In other cases, although the building itself is connected to the campus network, the infrastructure `within the walls' but in the departmental area is not yet installed, and often costs at the departmental level are prohibitive (for such things as conduit, routers etc.)

2. Improve connectivity for students living in the dorms
   1. Currently the only option available to students in dorms is the use of regular telephone, with connection either to the SIUC modem pool (with attendant traffic problems) or to independant ISP's such as Midwest Internet and AOL.
      1. Drawbacks to this situation include the fact that the telephone is blocked during connection, and the fact that dorm rooms are normally occupied by two people, one of whom cannot either use the phone or connect while the other is.

      2. An additional drawback is the difficulty in connecting during times of peak volume on the SIUC modem pool.

      3. A further drawback is the limitation to 28.8K connections. Numerous options are available which would allow for much faster connection time. These should be explored in an expeditious and wide-open manner, with all options and limitations clearly set out.

   2. There are currently a few labs located in dorms. The existing labs need to have their desktops upgraded on a regular basis.

   3. We should investigate the possibility of immediately establishing a few `High Tech' dorms that provide one port per pillow Ethernet access for every room. Since these would be optional facilities available at a higher cost, they could, in principle, be self-supporting.

3. A plan for improving connectivity options for students (and faculty/staff) living off-campus.
   1. This issue is closely connected with item 3). All drawbacks mentioned above apply equally to those off-campus, with the added drawback that there is no easily available alternative of going to a computer lab (ignoring the overcrowding problems involved there, too)

4. Installation of Internet access to major campus classrooms and meeting room facilities
   1. Currently there are four multimedia/internet ready classrooms on campus. Their existence is not widely known about, and there is already high demand for their services (including the fact that there is also competition for their use as videoconferencing facilities.)

   2. The major classroom building on campus, a multimedia showcase in the early 1970's is now grossly obsolete, and has no computer facilities. Although this building is scheduled for upgrading, other large-scale classrooms have similar problems, although they are mostly located in buildings that are on the backbone (Faner, Pulliam, Neckers). Establishing (at least) active b-jacks for each of these rooms would be a relatively cheap way to increase internet access in the classroom.

5. A procedure for continuously upgrading computer facilities, servers and infrastructure
   1. Many computer facilities now exist on campus. Some of them are run by IT, while others are run by individual departments and colleges, residence halls and the Library. Sometimes these labs were established with windfall monies, or with `Budget Dust' (remaining funds at the end of a fiscal year). In many cases there are no provisions for keeping these facilities up to date. Since hardware now has an approximate lifetime of no more than three years, and since, in many cases facilities become useless, or at least very difficult to use effectively without current technology, the facilities need to be systematically maintained.

   2. We suggest that provision be made somewhere in the University budget for funds to be set aside year-to-year, with an eye to a regular upgrading plan for all computing facilities.

   3. Given the state of the University's budget, greatly increased funding is not likely to be forthcoming in the immediate future. If some of the above recommendations are to be followed, an additional source of funds is necessary. Hence it may be necessary to establish a separate Computing Fee, to be admininstered in much the same way as the Campus Safety Fee.
      1. The fee must be understood, and treated by the Central Administration, as supplemental, and not as replacing current funding for technology on campus.

      2. The Fee must have to be directed solely towards facilities that are for the enhancement of student computing. That means they must be used primarily for that aspect of computing that students are directly and visibly involved in. This would include the continuous upgrading of desktops in public computing facilities, upgrading and increasing the number of dial-up modems (perhaps reserving a significant portion expressly for those with student ID's), upgrading support hard and software for the public facilities, and perhaps funding student-directed help personnel for those public facilities.

      3. The Fee would have to be administered by a body which has significant student membership, and its deliberations must be open, as well as its books. This kind of information should be on a publically-available web page.

      4. It would be valuable to label all equipment purchased through this fee with a tag identifying it as having been paid for by this fee.

6. Increased support for faculty multimedia and internet course development
   1. Whether or not the Internet ultimately becomes the universal teaching tool, there is no doubt that students will be arriving at SIUC with an expectation that they will have access to the Internet as part of their courses. In addition, increasing importance is being placed on the use of multimedia materials for teaching purposes.

   2. There are, at the moment, a number of small grants available for faculty to develop multimedia and internet courseware, and there are a small number of courses actually being taught online at SIUC. This number is expected to grow, and there needs to be more support for faculty to develop such courses. This might be in the form of increased availability of specific funds for the development of teaching materials (along the lines of the Undergraduate Teaching Fellowships, which already exist) or in a whole new way. In any case, at least some computer-based teaching will certainly be an important component of any future university, and SIUC needs to develop plans for encouraging its faculty to develop such materials.

   3. Instructional Support Services
      1. Library Affairs' Instructional Support Services currently provides assistance to faculty developing multimedia/web-based applications for courses by providing training in the development of applications, assistance in that development, and in the development of programs to run interactive testing and communications. As more faculty begin developing these courses, additional resources (staffing, hardware and software) will be necessary to maintain a basic level of service.

      2. Services already available need to be more widely known, perhaps through more extensive advertising.

7. Provision of basic computer literacy instruction for incoming freshman and others who need such fundamental computer training.
   1. Although many incoming freshman have considerable facility with computers, there are still many students, particularly non-traditional ones, who have never used a computer before. In addition, the facilities specific to SIUC are not always entirely transparent. We believe that there should be either a non-credit course, a module of the University 101 course, or some other facility to provide essential instruction in the University system. Another possibility, which we understand is being explored, is to place all crucial programs (web browser, dial-up facilities and/or instructions, basic help files for the SIUC system) on a CD-ROM that will be available for very low cost. We strongly endorse and encourage this idea.

8. Reorganization of the Help facility campus-wide to ensure efficient management of help services: a three-level, integrated triage system
   1. At the moment, the Help facility run by IT is organized into a system of levels, with initial contact handling calls, and referring to personnel with more expertise if the problem is more involved. Outside of IT however, help facilities are much more haphazard.

   2. We believe it is necessary to institute a formalized structure throughout the university to provide information and assistance to users in all departments.
      1. This is normally (in many other institutions) accomplished by designating some person within each department or college to serve as the contact for all problems. Such problems will range from help installing a new piece of software to helping with recovery after a virus attack (and ensuring that adequate virus protection is on every computer in the first place) to checking to see if e-mail problems are due to something on the host computer or due to the network being down.

      2. Such a contact need not have enormous expertise, merely enough to do elementary tasks, and to know who to call next when something comes up that is not immediately solvable.

      3. There must be some way to write the contact's job description so that there is official recognition for the work he/she is doing. In the case of faculty this means provision for merit raises connected with this kind of service, and analogous terms for A/P and Civil Service.

   3. In addition to identifying a contact person for every unit on campus, there should be a database from the main University help desk to give an official point of contact from network managers downwards.

   4. In some colleges such an infrastructure already exists, but other colleges and departments must be strongly encouraged to set up this procedure, and, where necessary, to invest the necessary funds to support these people.

9. Reorganization of the infrastructure services to a one-point installation system
   1. The current system
      1. At the present time, if a department wishes to make changes in the internal networking infrastructure that affects the department, especially if the changes involve more than just activating a b-jack, they need to contact at least three different offices:
         1. IT, to order hardware such as routers, hubs and so on, and to establish IP addresses

         2. Telephone services, to pull wires to existing routers, and to physically install a phone jack

         3. Building services, if something more elaborate is needed, such as installation of conduit for wires.

      2. While in principle these three entities talk to each other, the department chair is placed in the position of serving as contractor, making sure each of the three institutions coordinate their operation. The information that comes from the three units may not, in all cases, coincide, and the department chair will be left making choices that he/she may not have the expertise to make.

   2. The proposed system
      1. We are proposing that there be a single point of contact for all infrastructure modifications, whether involving in-wall hardware, networking software managed by IT or basic building conduits and other physical modifications to the physical plant. There is no reason why these decisions should be decentralized.

      2. It may also be necessary for each department or unit to designate an individual to serve as the liaison for contact with this single point of contact.

10. Centralized Purchasing Plans
    1. There have been some attempts to implement a bulk-purchasing plan for computers. The original intention was for the university to make a deal with a major computer supplier to offer a small set of prespecified computers, guaranteed to be compatible with the local campus networks, at a price better than could be obtained through individual efforts.

    2. It has also been pointed out that having an infinite number of different computers on campus, all of which have to be supported by IT's (or individual departmental) support personnel. A great deal of time (and cost of spare parts) could be saved if there were more of the same kind of computer on campus.

    3. We recognize that academics resist homogenization, especially where computers are concerned, so any such purchasing plan should be optional, and faculty and staff should be free to choose their own machines and deals if their budgets permit.

    4. There are probably hundreds of individually purchased copies of such software packages as WordPerfect 8, Word 7 and Excel on campus. In this case, it would certainly represent a savings if the university could arrange bulk purchases. We need to actively pursue site licenses and other bulk purchase methods for the most commonly used software on campus. Again, this will not interfere with the preferences of those who do not like the most popular software.

This plan was adopted unanimously by the Computing Advisory Committee on May 5, 1998.