CI@20: The First Two Decades of Ubiquitous Computing at Drew University Mike Richichi Director of Computing and Network Services Drew University.

CI@20: The First Two Decades of Ubiquitous Computing at Drew University

CI@20: The First Two Decades of Ubiquitous Computing at Drew

UniversityMike Richichi

Director of Computing and Network Services

Drew University


The Past

• Establishing the Program

• Institutional Identity

• “The Network”

• Laptops and notebooks

• Evolving the Network


The Present

• Personal Computers as Institutional Computers

• Intstructional Technology without Instructional Labs

• Ubiquitous Networking

• Support perspectives

• Economies (and pitfalls) of scale


The Future

• “No Free Computers”

• Strategic Perspectives

• Sophisticated (?) Students

• Reaffirming the Program, With Caveats


About Drew

• Located in Madison, NJ• 2050 FTE Students• College, Graduate School, Theological

School• Top tier U.S. News• #12 Most Connected (Forbes/Princeton

Review)• Educause Pioneer


The Beginnings

• 1983– Faculty members suggest the idea of

computers for all incoming students– Brought to a vote of the College faculty– 64-2 vote in favor of program, labeled the

Computer Initiative (CI)– CI also provided desktop computers to all full-

time faculty


Implementation

• Tuition increased to fund cost of computer• Computers purchased outright by University• Not broken out as a line item• Computer was mandatory for all students• Students who leave before 4 years could either

return computer or pay balance of cost and take it with them

• Students take computer with them when they graduate


The First CI Computer

• Epson QX-10– 128 KB RAM– Z80 CPU– 2 5.25” floppy drives (400K)– Software

• Valdocs• PeachCalc• CP/M

– Printers shared one per room


National attention

• Articles in the Chronicle, NY Times, etc.

• Question on “Jeopardy!”

• First liberal arts university to provide computers (Drexel, Stevens beat us by a year)

• Uptick in admissions during a demographic downturn


Access is not enough

• It was assumed just providing computers would bring about their curricular use

• Faculty also supported projects to use technology in classes

• A few pilot projects started• Computers used primarily for word

processing, however• More work would be needed


1988—The Knowledge Initiatiative

• First CWIS

• Campus-wide voice/data telephone system (9600 bps serial data)

• Everyone had terminals (PCs with MS-Kermit) and email accounts

• Labeled at the time as “the network”

• Naming campaign hideously successful


Connectivity

• Connectivity between faculty/staff/students led to widespread use of email as campus communications medium

• CWIS also had important services such as a campus directory, instant messaging (BITNet SEND), and, of course, online Boggle.

• Some pilot projects with email and newsgroups in classes—faculty required students to send them email

• In 1990, 2/3 faculty used email regularly


Further innovations

• 1988—First laptop (Zenith Z-181)

• 1992—First notebook (DEC 320p)

• 1995—First color screens (DEC HiNote)


Bringing Faculty Along

• Pilot projects for curricular software– Underfunded until early 90s

• 1993—First Faculty Development Workshops– 1 week sessions, guest speakers,

enabling multimedia

– Still occuring today


Grants drive innovation

• Over $500,000 in grants from Culpeper, Arthur Vining Davis, others fund continued faculty development in the mid-late 90s

• By late 90s most faculty had been in a workshop

• Faculty Lab takes off


Standards

• Standard student computer

• Limited models of OS-compatible faculty desktops

• No allowance or support for alternate platforms or OSes

• Linkage of faculty standards to student standards occasional source of tension


The Network

• 1993-1996: Internet access is text-based, through Lynx on a VAX

• Convince faculty and staff that “the network” is not “a network”– Students already getting it at this point

– Academic Technology “guerilla networking”


Network continued

• 1996—all faculty and staff given access to a NetWare 4.1 file server, Netscape Navigator 3.0, Windows 3.1

• Windows 95 later

• 1997—begin networking students– Network cards included in computers for

first time


Leveraging the Environment

• 1998—all student rooms networked, by 2000 all configurations have network cards.

• Everyone has personal drive space, departments have shared space

• Web publishing is simple matter of saving files to network drives.


Beginnings of Course Management

• 1998: Created shared folders for each course, rights assigned to group

• Automatic based on registration data

• Email, forums, Web interface

• Network drive for course materials still widely used


Drew, late 1990s

• All faculty, staff, students networked• Email is ubiquitous• Information sharing through LAN

ubiquitous• Computers indelible part of University

culture– Completely integrated and pervasive


The Present


This Year’s Model

• IBM ThinkPad R51– 1.7 GHz Centrino– 512 MB RAM– 80GB HDD– 802.11 b/g wireless


Campus Network

• eDirectory and Active Directory trees– Synchronized with Novell Identity Manger

• Student laptops all in AD domain– “eXtreme Deployment”

• 1 port per pillow

• Wireless ~50% of campus


Online services

• LAN-based file and print still main collaborative tool

• Web resources (commercial and home grown) all integrated with single sign-on (Novell iChain)

• Users have 1 password for everything


Laptop management

• Novell ZENWorks used to distribute academic software, virus updates, some patches

• Investigating patch management to take care of the rest


Laptops as institutional computers

• Only 80 public computers for whole campus

• Student computers used in class

• No labs in residence halls, student center– Student computers serve that purpose

• Fewer staff needed (economies of scale)

• Space concerns (32.5 sq. ft/lab computer)


Shared issues

• Problems discovered affect hundreds of people

• Solutions fix for hundreds of people

• Systematic problems cause headaches, also thorough resolutions (2002)


Cost savings25% 50% 75% Drew Deficit

People/IT staff incl. media

60.6 72.3 94.7 92.1 9.1 FTE

People/IT staff excl. media

60.6 72.3 94.7 98.0 11.1

FTE

$ IT /person (incl. CI)

$927 $1249 $1547 $813 $1336090

$IT/Person (excl. CI)

$927 $1249 $1547 $1146 $317373

Source: COSTS project data, 2003


Why cost effective?

• Less lab management

• Efficiencies of standardization

• Customer responsibility for management

• Other reasons for low IT spending


Trends in Higher Education

• 2003: 6% of all BA institutions provide a computer to students, 1.2% require computer

• 79% of all students at BA institutions are using their own computers

• Computer ownership among incoming Drew students approaching 100% – 1984: 5.1% of households had PCs (US Census)

(source: Educause Core Data Service, 2003, http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/pub8001e.pdf)


The Future


Presidential Planning Commission

• Fall 2002: Reexamine CI and determine goals and effectiveness

• Surveys and work


Goals

• “Develop a true computing community”• “Drew standard software package”• “24 hour access”• “Reasonably current machines for both students

and faculty”• “Equity for all students and faculty”• “Appropriate teaching spaces”• “Support”• “Create a computing system which allows for

facile expansion and future growth”


Survey on Ubiquitous Models

• 90% of College faculty endorsed required, standard computing package– Slightly more than half of those wanted no

changes– Slightly less than half endorsed a program

allowing students to bring a compatible computer of their own instead.


President’s Strategic Plan, Spring 2004

• “. . . the University will no longer include the cost of a laptop in its tuition.

• “Incoming Drew University students will be able to either purchase a system-compatible laptop from the University or bring their own computer, as long as the computer meets Drew’s specifications. The tuition funds this makes available will be redirected to expanding the University’s academic programs and course offerings.”


Some possible factors

• Handful of parent calls every year, asking to not pay for “another computer”

• Any repair or support issue could potentially percolate up to president, and does

• Systematic issues with some models• Cabinet only hears complaints, not successes• President talks to other presidents, none of

whose schools does what we do


Rationale (my interpretation)

• Our tuition is competitive with peer schools, and we provide computer

• Most peer schools do not provide computers• Most students at peer schools purchase

computers for college• Therefore, we can not provide a computer and

remain cost competitive, and free tuition revenue• Stealth tuition increase?


Campus reaction

• Students:– You’re taking away the CI! Stealth tuition

increase!

• Faculty:– How will I teach my courses?

• Tech Staff:– How will we support random computers with

no additional resources?


Perception vs. reality

• Clearly, importance of program to community not realized by upper administration, who only heard negatives

• Successes and cost savings not articulated to or accepted by cabinet

• Possible PR/communications failure by technology


Implementing the change

• First year especially, allow few exceptions– Adhere to tight standard, and/or limit support

• Add ¼ FTE to help support non-standard computers– Create configuration process

• Purchase computers, resell them to students– Offer up-front purchase, 4 year financing, or 2 year

financing to buy new computer junior year


Goals for next 1-2 years

• Expect program to remain largely intact– RPI purchase program 96% compliance

• Use goals from PPC Technology report as guidance

• Emphasize advantages of purchasing Drew computer package over going it alone– Price, support, configuration

• Analyze effect of making students buy computing resources that other places provide


Faculty/staff computing

• For now, continue centralized purchasing, desktop model– Laptops available as extra cost option– Non-standard (Mac) available to faculty after

first computer cycle• Very limited support


Other schools

• New schools still implementing laptop programs (Bryant, 2002)

• High schools and junior high schools also

• Still not a common technology distribution mechanism

• Transition costs and challenges very important


The World has Caught Up

• Computing already ubiquitous for today’s high schoolers

• IM, cell phones, P2P• Students demand web-based servces (email,

files, collaboration, etc.)• Web standards can reduce need for standard

hardware• Must be aware of demands of marketplace• Single computer for both academic and

entertainment use problematic


Future Years

• Change of administration• Consider what “ubiquitous computing” means• Pervasiveness of personal devices• Enabling technologies• Standardization of protocols• Can we provide goals of standard computing on

nonstandard hardware/software?• Should we make investment in computer labs and be

“just like everyone else”?• Admissions advantages/disadvantges to our new

program?


Conclusions (if we can)

• Computing program part of Drew’s identity

• Changes important both for financial considerations and future of computing

• In tight budget times, must still provide high-quality computing experience

• Any change costs money

• Make it gradually

• Start from the goals, and fill in the details


Questions?

CI@20: The First Two Decades of Ubiquitous Computing at Drew University Mike Richichi Director of Computing and Network Services Drew University.

Documents

drew university access

computer initiative

network slide

successful slide

students students

time faculty slide

liberal arts university

ci computer epson qx