Present: Kevin Barron, Art Battson, Glenn Davis, George Gregg, Bill Koseluk, Elise Meyer, Alan Moses, Joan Murdoch, Larry Murdock, Jamie Sonsini, Bob Sugar, John Vasi, Pamela Webb (a quorum)
Not Present: Debbie Anglin, Ken Bowers, Bill Doering, Phil Handley, Sonia Johnston, Pam Lombardo, Tom Marazita, Bill McTague, Ed Mehlschau, Kevin Schmidt, Vince Sefcik, Tom Lawton
Four sets of questions were posted on the board to guide the discussion. These minutes are organized around those questions, rather than being listed in strictly chronological order.
1. What is the current access situation? How does our situation compare to the 14:1 ratio of students to workstations noted in the UCOP report?
Information gathering is proceeding on several fronts. A spreadsheet was distributed with updated but not yet complete seat counts. We reviewed missing items and discussed how we might want to sort the data when it all comes in (e.g., ugrad vs. grad facilities, by organizational control point). Bill will forward the spreadsheets as an email attachment.
It was noted that everyone responding expressed a need for ongoing funding to keep facilities running and up to date.
It was suggested that we set the level of granularity in our report to illuminate the areas of greatest need (e.g., grad/ugrad, sciences/humanities).
14:1 ratio would imply about 1350 seats. We have counted about 864 without Engineering, so we may approach the UC average.
ResNet staff have determined that the preferred place for their students to do computing work is in their dorm rooms with the second preferred location being a lab when a TA is available for questions.
2. What are our current problems? How do we measure their magnitude? Where are the future problems going to be?
With our current distribution of sites and services some people fall through the cracks and don't have a logical place to get service. Examples include grad students here for only one year, undeclared majors, visitors to campus and foreign students on EAP.
Need is also a function of the time of the quarter. Not sure we need 24x7 service for all weeks of the year.
Difficulty distinguishing between "want" and "need" was expressed. Workstations may be jammed with people sending email to friends and surfing the web for fun. How are we to separate this work from academic assignments and bibliographic searching? If we were to instigate a policy of providing workstations for classwork only, we would have to include the cost for "policing" in the equation.
We may have enough total capacity, but our configuration gets in the way. Some courses might have to divide students up into several labs or times to fit.
We might want to analyze our data from the student perspective. What is the hierarchy of places to look for a workstation from the students' point of view? - e.g., all students have access to x seats 8-5, M-F while science students have access to y seats.
If we have 1000 seats and they are available an average of 60 hours per week, we have 60,000 "machine/hours". This would be enough for 3+ hours per week for every student (not counting time they spend on their own workstations). We might, however, need to distinguish between open and scheduled hours.
If we could tell the faculty the size of the pool available, they could gauge the impact that an assignment to a class of a particular size might make on the pool and decide if they wanted to send student to open access labs or schedule a lab.
Current access problems include: 1) the open access labs are frequently full, 2) faculty have been told not to give web assignments in large classes, and 3) some courses would take up all seats available.
What are the trends in student usage? Should we be focusing on providing for more access from off-campus instead of providing more on-campus seats?
3. What questions do we want to ask Stuart Lynn on his February 5 visit?
Does the 14:1 ratio include graduate students as well as undergraduates?
Does it take into account the percentage of time a lab is open and any restrictions that may be in place on the use of a lab?
What is behind the 8:1 "scenario"? Are there comparisons from around the country that would be relevant to our campus? What are the trends in providing access for students at other universities?
Are the CDL and distance learning projects at UCOP likely to compete for the same funds that now flow to the campus computing laboratories?
Where shall we meet with Stuart? We need enough space so that interested ITB members may also attend. Is the ITP meeting room available?
NOTE: This meeting has now been rescheduled to February 5 from 4:00-5:00 in Broida 3033 (Third Floor Conference Room).
4. What is the target scenario for student access at UCSB?
- X open access seats @ tiers 1,2, 3?
- Y dormitory, division, department seats @ tiers 1, 2, 3?
- Z remote access points
- A software site-licenses
We need to know basic statistics, like how many classes are taught each quarter and what percentage might require or benefit from web access.
The data we collect might logically lead to an ITB discussion of campus policy regarding the requirement for students to acquire computers or the need to make financial aid available to students to acquire them.
Ideas of how me might survey the students were discussed. We know, for example, that all freshmen live in UC or affiliated housing. We could ask how many own computers or, for those who do, how many also use campus machines. We might find a need for wireless with DHCP for laptops and media phones. We should be looking to the future.
We should also look at what support services are needed. We might decide to focus on replacement of existing facilities when equipment wears out and on the provision of connectivity for remote access.
5. In after meeting discussions . . .
It was proposed that we include some questions relating to IT use in the questionnaires that students are requested to complete for each course they take.
Next meeting of ITPG will be on January 29 (10:00 a.m. in North Hall 1131). The next ITB meeting will be on February 2.
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