Estonian Educational and Research Network Network Users in CEE 1 Network users in CEE. Ways to identify their needs Anne Märdimäe Estonian Educational.

Estonian Educational and Research Network

Network Users in CEE 1

Network users in CEE.Ways to identify their needs

Anne MärdimäeEstonian Educational and Research Network (EENet)

Tartu, Estonia

NATO ANW: The Fourth CEENet Workshop on Network ManagementManagement Issues for Excellence in Research and Education Networking (MIXREN)

Moldova 2004



Overview

User categories in CEE

Identifying the needs of the user community

User surveys by EENet



Categories of users (institutions) (1)

1.Universities

2.Research institutes

3.Libraries, Museums, National Archives

4.Secondary Schools

5.Institutes of higher/further education

6.Government departments (national, regional, local)

7.Primary Schools



Categories of users (institutions) (2)

8.University Sites

9.Hospitals (other than University hospitals)

10.All Others



NREN-s whose data was extracted from TERENA Compendium data:

AL ANAAT ACOnetBA BIHARNETBG IST FoundationBY BASNETCS AMREJCZ CESNETEE EENetGR GRNETHR CARNet

HU HUNGARNETLT LITNETLV LATNETMD RENAMPL PIONIERRO RNCRU RBNet/RUNNetSI ARNESSK SANETUA URAN



Allowed user categories in CEE (1)

UniversitiesResearch institutes

Libraries, Museums, Nat.ArchivesSecondary Schools

Institutes of higher/further educationGovernment departments

Primary SchoolsUniversity Sites

Hospitals (excl.University hospitals)All Others

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Data source: TERENA Compendium 2004



Allowed user categories in CEE (2)

Data source: TERENA Compendium 2004

HR, LV, LT, MD

AT, SI, CZ, EE, PL, UA

GR, HU, RO, SK

BY

CS, BA, BG, RU

AL

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Number of allowed user categories



Identifying the needs of the user community

How does the NREN in your country find out the actual needs of its different users (institutions)?

In your opinion, in what areas are the needs of researchers and educators different?



Ways to find out the actual needs:

9 - Our customers themselves contact us for expressing their needs [also: regular contacts with users]

8 - Our specialists estimate the needs of users according to current usage of services, use the experiences of other NREN-s

6 - The board consisting of representatives of users defines the needs of users



4 - We organize user conferences where the users can express their needs

3 - We run user surveys regularly (EE, GR, HU)

direct contacts with decision-makers or technicians in institutions

generalization of the information received from the main client and applying that on other end-users

participation in conferences which are organised for schools involved in IT projects



Areas with different needs of researchers and educators:

Researchers need more:

Available bandwidth

More advanced services like VLAN, IP telephony, manageable bandwidth...

Educators need more: End-user support



Rather no difference in need for:

Reliability of service

Centrally offered services by NREN like electronic mailboxes in the NREN-s server, webhosting



Summary about needs

“...all researchers, teachers and students require cost-effective, reliable, widespread and advanced network services, regardless of their geographical location or subject discipline.”

SERENATE studies31 December 2003



User surveys by EENet

Annually since 2000

High response rate (58% of all user institutions in 2004)

Possibility to keep track on changes of needs

Respondees: one contact person per user (institution)



NREN can learn from answers:

Are all existing services familiar to the users?

How the users evaluate the current services? What they think should be changed in them?

Fields of usage of Internet connectivity

How the needs of users have changed?

Need for additional services



Importance of surveys for users:

Their opinion matters

A channel for suggesting changes, give new ideas, to transmit both critic and praise

Possibility to compare the answers to these of others as the report is publicly available

Getting information about newer services



More benefits:

Feedback to the board of NREN, to the ministry and other politicians

Reasoning of funding applications

PR

Positive feedback to NREN personnel



EENet’s user survey 2004 Target group: Institutions (research, educational,

cultural) using one or several services in the Estonian academic network

781 questionnaires posted

Responding activity 58%



Find out the number of end-users of the academic network (permanent connection only)

Examine the contentment with different services, find out needed changes

Get information about how well the users know the existence different services (thereby also promoting the services which are less known)

Aims



Some results

Permanent connections About 210 000 end-users using EENet's

permanent connectivity in 2003 65% satisfied with their present Internet

connectivity via academic network



Satisfied with current permanent connection?

Satisfied

... other reasons

... too expensive

... there are connectivity breaks

Not satisfied, because the connection is too slow



Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth (research)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

less than200 kbps

200 kbps to1 Mbps

more than 1Mbps, less

than 10Mbps

10 Mbps to100 Mbps

more than100 Mbps

Current Actually needed Needed in 2007



Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth (universities, high education)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

less than200 kbps

200 kbps to1 Mbps


than 10Mbps

10 Mbps to100 Mbps

more than100 Mbps




Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth (high schools, gymnasiums)

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

less than200 kbps

200 kbps to1 Mbps


than 10Mbps

10 Mbps to100 Mbps

more than100 Mbps




Evaluation of different services

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Permanent connection

Web-interface for mailboxes

Database of Estonian Schools

Mailboxes

How-To-s in Estonian

Consultations

Mailing lists

Webhosting

NTP Stratum1 server

excellent good satisfactory unsatisfactory poor



Additional services/changes asked for:

more bandwidth

guaranteed bandwidth during the videoconference

GRID

information about all (incl. very short) connectivity breaks

central server for archive of video lectures

backup services via backbone



WiFi services in academic nework

VoIP

LANtoLAN

support for building of homepage of the smaller institutions

possibility to administer the e-mailboxes in EENet's server (create, delete)

courses (for system administrators, on security, data communication etc)



more HOWTO-s in Estonian

consultations about security, warnings about security holes etc

different databases (e.g. about art schools, music schools, software for teachers etc)

etc...



Actions after the User Survey

Full report in the Internet Translation into English will be prepared and

published later All the organizations which asked specific

information of complained about specific technical problems were contacted, informed, helped out



Links

http://www.terena.nl/compendium/2004/

http://www.serenate.org/publications/d21-serenate.pdf

http://www.eenet.ee/englishEENet/usersurvey2003.html

http://www.eenet.ee/englishEENet/webstr.html



Thank you!

Anne Märdimäe

[email protected]

Estonian Educational and Research Network Network Users in CEE 1 Network users in CEE. Ways to identify their needs Anne Märdimäe Estonian Educational.

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