Members John Campion

Carol Rhodes

Steve Rholls

This report is divided into many parts we first discuss the state of the stated goal and then provide our recommendations for the next five years. We hope the process of providing excellent student computing will not be a static plan but rather change with the changing technologies and enlightenment's of surveys.

GOAL 1): Review the current computing facilities and recommend a five-year plan for equipment, software, furnishings and locations.

State of the Public Facilities:

The operating system on campus is 7.1 or higher on the Macs and Windows 95 on the PC's. Each machine is capable of email and surfing the web. Macs use Telnet/Pine and Netscape. PC's use Ewan/Pine and Netscape. Microsoft Word

word processor is on all machines. Powermacs and PTM's have Microsoft office installed, which has Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access on PC's.

The software on the public nodes is maintained by copying images of the hard drives from the servers using RevRDist on Macs and PCRDist on PC's.

Residence Halls:

Each of the residence halls have Ethernet in the public rooms except Mellby. Mellby is an AppleTalk only hall. Each room is equipped with several Macs and some PC's. The student to computer ratio in the hall is better than 32:1, except Larson at 36:1. See appendix.

The model of Macs are Mac IIsi. The PCs are PTM233 in the first-year halls and 386 in the upper-class halls. Hoyme has IIci instead of the IIsi. Each hall has dot matrix printers. Halls with AppleTalk have a networked Imagewriter. Ytterboe has a laser.

Below is a table of furnishings: All have chairs to sit on.

Thorson Tables

Ellingson Tables

Mohn Desks

Kildahl Table in one room and desks in the other

Rand Tables

Ytterboe Build in benches

Hoyme Tables and desks

Mellby Tables and desks

Larson Study carols and tables in one room and study carols in the other

Hill/Kitt Tables

Honor Houses:

Each of the honor houses have an AppleTalk connection to our campus network. The Mac LC has an Imagewriter connected directly for printing. The machine is set on an Ytterboe desk. Most of the machines are in the basement of the honor houses, however several students have moved them up to a different level.

Public Academic:

All public academic areas are ethernetted. The equipment is distributed to 8 multimachine public labs and 4 stack locations in Rolvaag with one Mac each, see appendix. The Macs are in the 7000 series and most are 7100's. The PC are all older Gateways. There are 6 laser printers. Each of the public academic rooms have built in benches with movable chairs.

Suggestions for within five years:

Software:

_ We think that in order to more easily launch the mail program and the Web browser an icon must be placed on the desk top in the builds of the hard drives. Many of the residence halls have an alias of these programs on the desk top. I believe it facilitates launching them.

_ We need to continually review the software we have available to students.

_ Email is used widely here but is limited in how it can be used. In order to facilitate using email for other information exchange, other than user entered data, we will have to review client based email applications which handles attachments.

_ In the next 5 years we think that Powerpoint-like applications will expand in use. Also, the use of Web for students to demonstrate their knowledge of subjects will also increase. We need to make the tools to create these projects available. This means greater availability of picture processing applications and scanners.

_ The use of other higher end applications will also increase. I believe processing text will still be needed but integration of images and other data will expand.

Equipment:

_ We must provide functional machines for students in public areas. The academic area should be maintained with the newest technology. With the redistributed machines going to the residence halls. We recommend a 4 year cycle to replace equipment in the residence halls. This redistribution/upgrade should occur to first year halls then to senior halls. The reason being is then there will not be a machine down grade as students move from hall to hall.

_ Better printing in the residence halls needs to become available. We do need a system to reduce the abuse of the printing. Without changes in the printing process, the ACC cannot support laser printers in all halls because of the experienced abuse in Ytterboe.

_ More access to color printing needs to be available with-in 5 years. This may be available in the student resource room, concept expanded below, or perhaps the print center could provide these services.

_ More access points are needed. In the libraries we should investigate the possibility of adding more machines. It is in these areas that one finds the information they are processing, and therefor should be able to compile it.

_ Ratios in the residence halls are not bad, except in Larson. Unfortunately there is no more room in the present facilities. We should investigate providing machines in the kitchen/snack house in the hall.

_ The other snack house location where we could have a cyber connection is the Pause. In the past we have not had room but with the new commons it may be a possibility.

Furnishings:

Most of the locations are functional with 3 feet per station. Several are small both in the width of the desk top and under. Also, many are not deep enough to be functional. Bellow is a list of residence problems:

Thorson has a folding table but should have real table

Mohn with the curved wall we should consider a built in bench

Rand lower the height of the tables

Ytterboe not bad however as machines get larger not sure if bench is deep enough.

Hoyme need to replace the desks

Mellby need to replace the desks

Larson need replace the study carols

HillKitt need to replace the round table with a rectangular one and the folding table with a real table.

_ In the Honor Houses as the machines increase in size the Ytterboe desk will not be functional. The basement locations of the computer will allow for a full desk however most residents like the machine moved up but then there is not as much space for a desk.

_ The problem with the Academic buildings is the depth as machines in particular as the monitors get bigger there is not enough room to have the keyboard comfortable in front of the monitor. We believe the bench tops will have to be replaced to allow more depth for the computers.

_ Signs in the public rooms needs to be upgraded. In each location you should have information about how to get help, perhaps a list of urls and phone numbers. When the lab is open. Where there are other labs and facilities if not available here. A place for handouts. I envision a glass front cabinet which can have signs posted inside with a magazine type part below for hand outs.

_ In the residence halls we also need signs for the CA's on duty. This should be placed in a place where users can see who is on duty and how to get help.

Locations:

The locations of the public room in the Residence halls is good. However there is in most halls the issue of gender segregation and what floor the computing room is on.

Beyond that issue most halls are functional except Kildahl which is very cramped.

I might recommend we evaluate the feasibility of putting benches in the room and perhaps removing the wall between the rooms to allow more space.

_ Hoyme is an odd room which does not lend itself to many machines. Perhaps a bench along the east and south ends would help, but I am not sure if there would be enough space even in this configuration.

_ Larson, to reduce the ratio, needs another location. As suggested earlier the snack/lounge may be an option.

_ The location of a basement for the Honor Houses if it is not a living space is not conducive to comfortable computing. I would recommend that locations on the main floor be evaluated.

_ Of the buildings with a computing lab in them only Christianson Hall of Music is lacking. The music library area has been taken over by the electronic keyboard machines, and the CM222 room does not have a public access designation. This building along with Boe, Flatton, and both present and future Student Centers need public access points. In particular as the Buntrock Commons is to be a student congregation area I believe that it must have public computing areas.

_ I would like also to have a place where students can go like the resource room to better serve students with high power applications and software. This facility would have to be personed to ensure continual functionality but also with high end applications technical support is needed. We could migrate the hours of CA's after the initial beginning of the year crunch to such a resource.

Goal 2) Review and develop plans for Supporting Students Computing Activities:

State of current supporting of public students computing activities.

This discussion will primarily address the Residence Halls student computing activities because the academic areas are supported through calls to Hotline and hardware support through Computing Repair Services. The other aspect of student computing activities is student organizations.

Each of the halls have ether capability except Mellby which is Appletalk only. Several of the halls also have AppleTalk connections (Thorson, Rand, Ytterboe, Mellby, and Larson). Each of the ether halls have a port to a pillow except Thorson and Rand which have a port to two pillows. Port to a pillow term refers to the fact that each roommate in a residence can have an ethernet connection.

The Students are supported by the Computing Assistants (CA). They are available from 7-11 Sunday through Thursday. Problem reporting can be done by email to hall-ca alias, email or personal walk in when CA is on duty.

For each hall there is a Head CA. This person is charged with the coordination of solutions of the problems which come in. There are many management methods

employed by the Head CA's. Some process each problem report and distribute it to the an appropriate CA, while others just verify that the CA's have effected response to problems. Before school starts the head CA's return for training and assisting with the first year connections.

There is a Head Head CA which watches all email and can provide expert suggestions to issues being discussed by the CA's. This person also does spot checks of shift attendance of the CA's.

At present the CA's log in each shift they do on a log sheet. This sheet can be used to verify shift attendance and track problems for the next CA on duty. At the time of this report analysis of the data was not complete.

Some interesting observations about the program is that after the initial frenzy of people getting on line the CA's during Sem II are rather idle. They are not being utilized to assist with other activities. Unfortunately many people do not know they exist, which is strange because if they went to the public lab they would see the signs.

Last summer information sheets for PC, Macs and dorm info where made. These sheets may have helped a lot to answer questions. At the beginning of the year they where placed under each residence door. The PC and Mac Sheets were a troubleshooting guide talking about common hardware and software problems. They also addressed some of the issues of printing. The dorm info sheet informed users about computing resources and help first in their halls and also in the academic buildings. It also informed about the St. Olaf Book Store and Computer Repairs using Advantage One.

A major aspect of Residence support is the process of networking. Starting first with the application process. The on line process of filling out a web form was under utilized. Only 81 of the 1012 applications came in that way. Most were hand written and then needed to be entered into the database. As applications were entered appletalk terminators were sent out. On Thursday net connections were made and users emailed that their connection was active. Along with the activation email were directions on how to setup their machines and install email mechanism and Netscape to make the connection functional.

Lists of students with connections were distributed to an information box for the CA's. This sheet helps the CA's determine the type of a machine the connection type for them to better assist problems which occur.

Of the Student organizations most have computers to help their particular function.

Support for these areas has been primarily by the expertise of the people involved in the organization.

Student computing Activity suggestions for within five years:

_ I would recommend the continuation of the CA program. I believe that it has off loaded student issues from coming to ACC directly. There is room for improvement of the program though. Training must be an important part of the functionality of the CA's. I would like to see spring training occur to better prepare CA's for the rush which occurs in the fall. This training would involve reading the documentation and knowing where to find it. Also the training needs to include Customer Service.

_ At present we are working on Web based CA data available at URL http://www.stolaf.edu/people/campion/ follow the link CAing at St. Olaf. At this page is helpful information for CA's. Talking about the program, how you can become one and what is involved in being a CA.

_ At present we are redeveloping the on line information for networking. We invite you to review it at URL www.stolaf.edu/people/campion /Networking/index.html This URL is being developed to assist people not only on line but also people who are starting the process of getting on line.

_ Each year the information sheets for PC's, Mac's, and Halls needs to be updated and distributed.

We would like to see the web based network applications utilized more. To that end we are working on web based application which auto enters into the networking database. The form of the application is at URL http://www.stolaf.edu/people/campion/ and follow the link.

_ In the appendix is a description of the 1998-99 application procedure.

_ Another possibility of the network application procedure is to activate every jack in a building. With 65% ownership in the first year halls this would simplify having an active network jack. At present we are evaluating the cost to effect such a plan in first year halls. Over the next five years we would then activate every jack in the reshalls. See appendix of the cost of implementing.

_ This plan would also then necessitate the rewiring of Rand and Mellby. Rand to get a port to a pillow. Mellby is only AppleTalk at present. Thorson the other hall with out a port to a pillow capability will have to wait.

_ Over the next five years I feel that we have to review the use of computers by the student organizations to best direct their equipment requests to allow technology to effect the process of their organization. Support for the organization through the experts involved in the organization works well, however we should remind them to get ready for the graduation of their expert.

Goal 3) Develop a strategy for gathering input on student computing services.

_ I have been having discussions with the group of CA's about issues that need improvement. I would also like to investigate the possibility of a web based suggestion box which would be anonymous.

_ We are presently gathering data about the use the residence hall computing spaces.

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