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OIT Home > Committees > ITB > Possible Campus Policy Recommendations |
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ITPG Suggestions for Possible Campus Policy Recommendations |
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March 4, 1999
- The ITPG recommends that the campus establish a policy that either recommends or requires that students own their own computer and obtain their own Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ITPG recognizes that such a policy would imply that the campus provide guidance to students on the capacities and functions of the equipment they buy, and the ITPG is prepared to form a standing subcommittee that will publish such guidance and review it periodically.
(Note: the existence of this policy is assumed in the other recommendations outlined below.)
- The ITPG recommends that on-campus access for students should be focused in three areas:
- An open-access "safety net" for those students who cannot provide their own computers
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Centralized access for instructional use. This includes the course support provided by Instructional Computing as well as resource-intensive instructional use, including applications that require high bandwidth, expensive application software or address intellectual property concerns.
- Departmental access for resources that address unique, discipline-specific needs.
- The ITPG recommends that the campus allocate permanent budget funds for the phased replacement of the workstations and modems used by students. The ITPG estimates that it will cost $800K-$1M per year, assuming a 4-year replacement cycle, to maintain the existing number of workstations and modems used by students. It is recognized that there are other competing needs for funding, including internal building wiring, faculty workstations, software licenses, servers for several important functions, and staff to support the ever-growing infrastructure. Highlighting the equipment replacement requirement here does not necessarily imply that it has a higher priority than these other needs.
- The ITPG believes that the existing infrastructure can support the gradually expanding usage of Information Technology in course assignments. The ITPG recommends that the campus adopt the following guidelines for the instructional use of computer and network access:
- Instructors should limit their assignments to those that can be accomplished with 28.8Kbps bandwidth unless they make reservations in an appropriate laboratory or otherwise determine that their students have access to higher bandwidth services.
- Instructors should limit their assignments to those that can be accomplished with "Tier 1" workstations (email, web browsing of text and graphics pages and Pegasus) unless they make reservations in an appropriate laboratory or otherwise determine that their students have access to higher function workstations.
- Instructors should make assignments well ahead of their due dates so students have time to share scarce resources.
- Instructors should request that students make them aware of access problems that might arise from impacted services or from special requirements such as ADA accommodations.
First, it should be noted that this recommendation depends on support for the other four policy recommendations, that is, we encourage students to provide their own computers and network connections, continue to develop on-campus facilities, maintain the existing base and survey participants regularly. To be sure, we do not believe the existing infrastructure can support usage by every course that is offered. Some have speculated that upwards of 90% student ownership together with an 8:1 ratio of students to on-campus workstations would be required to support all classes. Nevertheless, significant numbers of students in the sciences and engineering now use computing in their regular assignments, and experiments in courses such as the one described by Mark Aldenderfer indicate that, within certain constraints, additional usage can be accommodated.
- The ITPG recommends that the campus establish a policy of taking periodic surveys of faculty and students to determine the areas in which there are currently access problems, and to anticipate where they may occur in the future. The ITPG will establish a subgroup to formulate possible survey questions for students and investigate the available vehicles for delivering surveys to the intended audience.
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