Present: Chuck Henry, Moshe Vardi, William Deigaard, David Tenney, Gary McNeel, Werner Kelber, Kathy Collins, Geneva Henry, Andrea Martin, Randy Castiglioni, Lisa Spiro, Sara Lowman, Tony Elam, Sidney Burrus, and Farrell Gerbode

Absent: Rich Baraniuk, Vicky Dean, Quintus Jett, Eric Johnson, Barbara White, and Kerry Keck

Agenda:

1. Update on CODE report: Chuck announced that he will revise the CODE report to produce a much shorter version; he expects this revision to be ready by March 26. A sub-group has been formed to review the revised document within the next couple of weeks. After the sub-group has approved the report, it will be reviewed by the entire committee, then sent to the provost and president.

2. Werner Kelber gave a presentation on "Western Culture as Communications History." The entire paper, along with its accompanying images, is now online at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/kelberpres.html

Minutes submitted by Lisa Spiro, March 22, 2001.

Present: Chuck Henry, Moshe Vardi, Vicky Dean, David Tenney, Kerry Keck, Gary McNeel, Werner Kelber, Quintus Jett, Kathy Collins, Geneva Henry, Andrea Martin, Randy Castiglioni, Lisa Spiro, Sara Lowman , Tony Elam, and Farrell Gerbode

Absent: Rich Baraniuk, William Deigaard, Eric Johnson, Jonathan Patschke

Agenda:

1. Discussion of CODE document.

   CODE will meet Friday, March 2, at 10:30 a.m to review the CODE report. The meeting will last about an hour.

   Location: Kyle Morrow Room, Fondren Library. Please note the change in usual location.

   Agenda:

   1. General discussion of CODE report: suggestions, emendations

   2. Focused discussion on top priorities for Rice to undertake in the next 3 years.

   3. Also think about images, graphs, and other visuals that might aid/clarify some of the stated goals and projects.

   Chuck Henry spoke briefly about the intent and design of the document. The report is not a strategy; over half a dozen strategic documents have accumulated since 1990. What the university needs is a plan of action to realize the strategic aspirations of Rice.

   Lisa Spiro explained that the report was modelled after "Rice: The Next Century" and can serve as a sort of overlay that will illustrate how information technology can be harnessed to help Rice meet many of its strategic goals. The report brings together extracts from the 22 documents submitted by committee members.

   A few more reports are coming. Werner Kelber is working on a presentation for a March CODE meeting on the reception of different technologies over time. In the next few weeks, Chuck would like present the report to the president and provost.

   In the meantime:

   • Please review this document as closely as you can as time permits

   • Be as highly critical as you can. Make notes about what works and what doesn't work and bring these notes to the meeting. At same time, extract the 5-7 highest priority items that we need to address immediately as an institution. Chuck will begin drafting the executive summary summarizing the intent and purposes of document and suggested funding strategies; the actual budget numbers will be discussed with Kathy Collins, Chuck, and others over next few weeks. CODE members need to make sure that they feel comfortable with the report and can defend it.

   • The supporting documents for the report are now online, but are currently for internal use only. Please contact Lisa Spiro at lspiro@rice.edu for further information. Revisions continue to be made to some of these documents.

2. Farrell Gerbode's presentation on Networking, Telecommunications, and IT

   Farrell's Powerpoint presentation is at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/gerbodepres_files/frame.htm; it was optimized for the most recent versions of Internet Explorer.

   Networking is present in every building at Rice. Telecommunications was founded in 1978 with the installation of the first Rice telephone switch. Networking was not a university activity until 1986; before that any networking was funded by research projects in Computer Science. The department has various responsibilities over the years, including maintaining the main frame. In 1998 the networking and telecommunications departments were consolidated after the telecommunications director left.

   Challenges for Telecommunications include staff turnover (80% since 1998) and dealing with technological advances such as voice over IP and the future impact of cellular.

   Networking operates a routed backbone network. According to recent estimates, there are 6300 user devices on network and 9500 IP addresses. Networking has provided 24x7 support since the mid-1980s, although there is also some remote management. There are 7 operators watching for things going wrong. Challenges include improving monitoring and the infrastructure and keeping up with new technologies. In addition, networking is responsible for several servers, but has no system administrators or programmers.

   Networking and Telecommunications is also responsible for helping with building projects. In middle of a $350 million building campaign, IT had no resources for that or input up front for shaping the budget for new technologies. Now they have developed a standard set of specifications for wiring, networking, and telephone systems. Rice is doing a better job of budgeting for new technology, but there is still work to be done. IT needs to get involved in the process earlier, before the budget number is logged.

   Another important area that cuts across IT is network security. Vicky is putting together a task force to study the issue, looking for a balance between the need for secure systems and users' need for access. Networking and Telecommunications is also looking into providing a redundant internet connection, but vendors are asking for 2 to 3 times more than what Rice is paying for its current connection. VPN (Virtual Private Networking) is being tested and rolled out, and specific users have been asked to try it out. It's generally working well, although Windows ME is not currently supported and there have been some problems make it work through NAT (network address translation), which enables a single address to be shared among several computers at house.

   In the next 3-5 yrs, Gerbode suggests the following technologies might be important:

   • 10 gigabit Ethernet will be probably important, but at present don't see the end user stations to take advantage of it.

   • Wave division multiplex on the outside of campus, in which there would be dark fiber connections to the network, then various wave lengths of light to select different circuits. If Rice were like UT or a place with several locations, we'd care more about this technology. Moshe Vardi noted that the proposed Santa Fe IT Lab will require Rice to think about how to extend its network to remote locations. VPN will likely be important in Santa Fe IT Lab; ideally the Santa Fe Lab would be treated as if it were a part of Rice, with a link running between the two locations for a subnet. It will be important to consider this need in budget requests.

   • Chuck Henry asked if fully optical networks will be important. Gerbode replied that this is a technology that we need to watch, but that it may be killed off by other technologies. We should be reasonably conservative, since we can't chase every new idea.

   • Tony Elam asked about the current plans for wireless Ethernet across campus. John Ferro, chairman of the wireless steering committee, has written a report on wireless and cost assessment that will be included in the CODE report. A prototype is set up now-you can essentially use mail server password to authenticate yourself. The wireless network is in place in Mudd, Fondren, and Brown College, and it has been working well. But it can't yet carry 3000 people at the same time; wireless is inherently a shared medium. Chuck Henry suggested that Rice needs to move as aggressively as we can to create a wireless environment, drawing on RENE's ongoing research on the integration of the wireless network and devices that will allow seamless access. Still, there are currently some things that wired networks do better, auch as faster connections and switched bandwidth so that you don't have as much contention for bandwidth. Even the person in charge of Carnegie Mellon's wireless network says that you still should wire every seat.

Present: Chuck Henry, Sidney Burrus, Randy Castiglioni, Kathy Collins, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Tony Elam, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Quintus Jett, Kerry Keck, Werner Kelber, Sara Lowman, Andrea Martin, and Lisa Spiro

Absent: Rich Baraniuk, Eric Johnson, Jonathan Patschke, Alan Thornhill and Barbara White

Agenda:

1. Chuck Henry welcomed CODE members to the last meeting of the year. During the spring semester, CODE will probably meetevery other week or every three weeks.

   Using a pile of past strategic plans as a visual aid, Chuck Henry commented that the university already has a number of interlocked and forward-looking strategic plans. What the CODE committee can offer is an action plan that uses these documents as a base and builds from them. The CODE committee should present a lean and muscular document that explains what Rice will need to do now, and what it will cost. The recommendations will be shorter term, focused on the next 1 to 2 years. Once Rice establishes its strategic goals, a second strategic plan for IT can spring out of the first one. Chuck will soon talk to members of the committee about submitting short sections of the plan.

   Next semester's CODE meetings will feature reports from Werner Kelber on the historical reception of technology, Moshe Vardi, and Ken Kennedy on the Santa Fe Lab. External visitors will include Dan Greenstein of the Digital Library Foundation and Janet Murray of Georgia Tech.

2. Geneva Henry summarized a recent trip to MIT to study the Singapore/MIT Alliance, an educational and research collaboration between MIT and two universities in Singapore. The visit was prompted by the need to plan for collaborative classes between the International University Bremen (IUB) and Rice. Geneva and Shisha van Horn of Classroom Technology Services joined IUB's Howard Resnikoff on a tour of MIT's distance learning and educational technology facilities that was organized by Steve Lerman, director of MIT's Center for Educational Computing Initiatives.

   When the Rice/IUB group first arrived at MIT, they attended an 8 a.m. MIT/Singapore engineering class. The course made use of videoconferencing, a document camera, and PowerPoint slides, and the Singapore students had push-to-talk microphones. The course was delivered over Internet 2, and made use of three levels of redundancy--Internet 2, ISDN, and voice over IP. Despite the sophisticated technology that was in use, the course was simply a lecture. The only interactions with Singapore took place when the technology failed. Indeed, Singapore lost the connection 5 times during the hour-long lecture. The Rice/IUB team realized the course might as well have been asynchronous, since none of the imagined benefits of collaboration were realized. They also saw how much work needs to be done in preparing the classroom environment for distance learning; for instance, sound-proofing and the positioning of microphones are important considerations. MIT maintains a control room where one staff member handles the production details for three classrooms. Such a set-up is quite expensive.

   The Rice/IUB team was impressed by some of what they saw at MIT. For instance, PBS has contracted with MIT to produce continuing education lectures with industry partners. These very professional productions bring together video, PowerPoint, and text, and they enable the viewers to control what they look at.

   Geneva Henry said that the experience suggested that we need to rethink how we do education. Developments in technology have prompted businesses to reengineer their organizations, but education has lagged behind. Are we delivering information in the right way to enrich the lives of our students?

   William Deigaard described his experience helping to coordinate the technology for a three-way videoconference for a civil engineering class taught in conjunction with UT and SMU. A lot of time had to be spent addressing transmission problems at remote locations. Deigaard said that the course was moderately successful from a technological view, but less so from an educational perspective. He argued that there have been better successes with smaller uses of technology, such as videoconferences for thesis defenses. The most successful courses include data sharing as well as videoconferencing.

   According to Deigaard, in the spring semester Rice will have five interactive videoconferencing facilities that can transmit as well as receive video. Tony Elam pointed out that if IUB needs to take part in classes taught at Rice, then the university should start thinking now about which classes will be captured, what facilities they will require, and how to schedule classrooms. Chuck Henry affirmed that technology and scheduling will both be complicated issues to address. Perhaps most important, the MIT/ Singapore link suggests much thought needs to be put into what pedagogical methodologies will work. If a school is just capturing a chalk and talk, then why do it? IUB is supposed to be more interactive and dynamic, but it's still not clear what that means.

   William Deigaard said that Rice makes available a lot of classroom technology, but to date these resources do not get very much usage. We need to encourage faculty to start using this equipment. Vicky Dean asked what the faculty motivation is for using this technology. Deigaard answered that some professors are already interested in making use of multimedia in their teaching, and others are excited about working with new technologies. Sidney Burrus argued that what works best is offering the proper support so that it is easy for faculty members to use technology.

   Chuck Henry pointed out there are some successful distance education programs, such as Gen.com. Gen.com has already stirred up interest among adminstrators and faculty members. At present, a typical Gen.com class consists of a multimedia production of a professor speaking in one window, with a transcription running underneath, as well as shots of the blackboard or Powerpoint slides. The course is linked to homework assignments and related material. With this model, it takes $350-400,000 to produce a single course, which typically means that an outside firm must produce the material and give some of its revenue to the university. If we get interested in that model, one that is entertaining and informative and dynamic, then the MIT/ Singapore approach seems even flatter. But it is important to keep cost in mind.

   Werner Kelber asked Geneva Henry to summarize what the people at MIT felt they got out of the collaboration with Singapore. Geneva Henry said that one of the big lessons they've learned is that asynchronous delivery of lectures is as effective as synchronous. Kelber emphasized that it is important to account for cultural issues in educational collaborations. We can't and shouldn't expect that imposing Western technology on a different culture will automatically transform how learning is conducted. In many Eastern cultures, for instance, students do not question the teacher. Geneva Henry agreed, saying that the Singapore students won't interrupt to ask questions. After the MIT students leave the class for the day, the professor often stays another hour to take questions from the Singapore students.

   Sidney Burrus emphasized that Rice is less interested in distance education than schools such as Georgia Tech are; rather, Rice wants to reach alumni and, to some extent, industry. At present, Rice delivers lectures to Rice alumni and other community members through RTV. But some of most innovative use of technology in education is coming out of business and industry.

   The conversation then turned to the costs and complexities of exchanging educational materials with IUB. In response to Kathy Collins' question about how easy it is to isolate the costs of providing video to IUB, William Deigaard said that we can separate expenses to an extent, but that some costs, like infrastructure, are difficult to calculate. Sara Lowman asked if Rice is adding IT staff to support collaborative learning efforts with IUB. At present, Chuck Henry responded, planning for the use of IT staff is ad hoc. Kathy Collins spoke to the importance of accounting for the expenses associated with Rice's collaboration with IUB. Farrell Gerbode pointed out that a production staff will be need to capture classes, and William Deigaard emphasized that if the production quality is not high, the technology becomes a distraction. Tony Elam pointed out that in the future, as more faculty use IT to create and deliver materials, the university may be involved in a form of distance education anyway. Technology will change how faculty and students interact, so it is important to prepare for that change and look into ways of sharing resources.

3. Randy Castiglioni, Presentation on "Administrative Systems"

   Randy's PowerPoint presentation is online at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/CastigPres.htm; it is best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher.

   Castiglioni opened by remarking that Rice is one of the most complex institutions that he has worked with. This complexity is due to the complicated nature of the fund accounting system, as well as the heterogeneous nature of the university. Rice encompasses research groups, instructional functions, athletics, and so forth--all businesses in themselves, all with different needs. Castiglioni joked that the university is a collection of businesses connected by a parking lot--and by an accounting system. The challenge with these systems is keeping them flexible enough to meet a diversity of needs, but also making them manageable and cost effective.

   Castiglioni gave an overview of Administrative Systems' major systems and architecture, describing the layers of technology in use. Rice licenses the Banner financial and human resources/payroll systems from SCT. Banner is a robust, enterprise class system with thousands of data elements and tables. The size of these systems is also reflected in the amount of data generated at Rice, which writes about 5 million accounting lines to the ledgers each year. Rice has created some custom extensions, which include an endowment accounting and investment management module and modules for interest calculations and depreciation. They have also written enhancements for electronic research administration to make it easier to manage a grant. This module includes labor encumbrances for grant time periods and memo reservations.

   Banner sits on Oracle technology. Because funding often flows across units, Rice had to allow data sharing. Administrative Systems adds robustness to its processes by providing an application security and approval structure. There is also a layer for extracting and reporting the data, which Administrative Systems has made more efficient by creating generic extraction routines and establishing a set of programming interfaces. A majority of the campus now uses web applications to conduct queries and transactions on the system. The first web applications were rolled out in 1995 and were done in the Internet architecture of day, with perl scripts and file systems. After about 9 or 10 months of generating new html files for each report, it became obvious that such a system would be unmanageable, so Administrative Systems turned to Oracle, which offered a structure to provide content out of a database. The campus also makes use of a card system to provide access control. All of these technologies currently run on Open VMS Alpha systems.

   Castiglioni discussed Administrative Systems's production operations as well as its current projects. Web applications include budget status, buy/pay, and human resources queries. Payroll processes run over one hundred times annually, since Rice pays about 5,000 people per year. Administrative Systems operates an online help desk/problem system that handles about 2000 requests a year, or about 80% of the total problems addressed by the organization. Production support includes troubleshooting system problems, data analysis, desktop support, and security administration.

   Administrative Systems works with a number of production interfaces, transmitting and receiving data from such organizations as Chase, IRS, First Chicago, FedEx, Sysco Foods, Exeter, and so forth. It also runs an internal billing and gift interface. A grant proposal interface is planned with the Office of Sponsored Research as well as a billing interface with SIRSI.

   Currently, Administrative Systems is working on the travel system, which leverages the purchasing card so that it is opened up for travel and business entertainment. The transactions are fed into the system, opened up in a web form, and then sent to approvers. Once the approval is given, the transaction will hit the Banner system and check is cut the next day, without being touched by anyone in accounting. The pilot for the Travel System is now being tested by Resource Development, Finance and Administration, Electrical Engineering, and Geology. Administrative Systems and Buy/Pay will begin deploying the system in January. The system is flexible, eliminates paper and steps, speeds reimbursement, and enables the effective purchase of travel.

   Administrative Systems has also created an Encumbrance System that will allow organizations to encumber grant funds so that they can plan resource allocations more effectively. In designing this tool, Administrative Systems got input from a number of groups about their needs; these needs include the ability to handle interdisciplinary awards, stipends, multiple cost sharing, and other complexities. The manager of a grant-funded project can use the system to view calculated future payroll and other costs, and to reserve funds for anticipated uses. No longer will grant managers need to do shadow accounting. The Dean of Natural Sciences commented that the Encumbrance System might be a good faculty recruiting tool, since faculty members would be better able to manage their grants.

   Administrative Systems follows a methodology that emphasizes teamwork and testing. They do extensive prototyping, since people often don't know what they need until they start to work with a tool. Administrative Systems also goes through a review and refinement process, which entails testing, iterative feedback, training, and documentation. The testing phase includes unit tests, integration tests to make sure that the tool works with other systems, stress tests to see whether the system can handle a lot of data, and pilot tests. They have separate development environments: a "crash and burn" environment, a development environment, and a production environment.

   Other projects underway at Administrative Systems include:

   • a web check request system
   • personnel actions for one time payment
   • web-based purchase orders
   • credit card processing
   • card system upgrade

   Future projects include:

   • budget transfer forms
   • expense transfers forms
   • additional personnel actions
   • a budget development system

   Castiglioni compared Administrative Systems at Rice to other universities. Rice has a robust set of tailored web applications for financial purposes. Castiglioni referred to the anecdotal information from other universities that are spending large sums of money ($30 to $80 million) on enterprise systems; many are continuing to struggle with implementing them.

   Challenges facing Administrative Systems include staffing, cross training, and security administration. User training and change management are particular concerns, since user departments are thinly staffed. When new technologies are introduced, users must be trained on the new system and provided with consulting assistance to help rework their operating procedures. Administrative Systems currently has more systems functionality than they can quickly deploy. The critical path is user training and support.

   Andrea Martin commented that new technology transforms business practices, and that consultants must be on hand to advise clients how to take advantage of the new technology. Chuck Henry argued that we want new systems not to replicate the old model of business, but to enhance it. It's important to think through how technology can contribute to the evolution of processes and practices, even while acknowledging the difficulties that change can entail.

   At the end of his presentation, Castiglioni addressed the future evolution of Administrative Systems, which is working on new web applications and greater integration with student system. The face that various systems present to campus should be coordinated, so that users feel like they are using a single system. Ease of use can also be facilitated by developing pop-up help windows and other web-based user training. Administrative Systems is also enhancing its disaster recovery capabilities. In terms of data administration, Administrative Systems recognizes that Rice has a lot of data that mean different things to different people, so it needs to do more to define those usages and provide meanings for people trying to use the data. As systems evolve, Administrative Systems must prepare for new infrastructure, upgrades, and the integration of custom modules into changing technologies.

Minutes submitted by Lisa Spiro, December 28, 2000.

Present: Chuck Henry, Rich Baraniuk, Randy Castiglioni, Kathy Collins, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Kerry Keck, Sara Lowman, Andrea Martin, Lisa Spiro, and Alan Thornhill

Absent: Tony Elam, Quintus Jett, Eric Johnson, Werner Kelber, Jonathan Patschke, and Barbara White

Guest: Thomas Prochazka, IT Project Manager

Agenda:

1. Announcements

   The meeting scheduled for December 8 has been cancelled. The next CODE meeting will be on December 15 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Founders' Room. A week prior to the meeting, Chuck will send out an outline of the strategic plan. At the December 15 meeting, committee members will discuss this outline; there will also be a brief presentation.

2. Presentation on Life Cycling and Computing Equipment by Thomas Prochazka, Information Systems Project Manager, IT [The slides from Prochazka's PowerPoint are available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/ProchazkaPres.html; they are best viewed using a recent version of Internet Explorer.]

   Prochazka began his study of life cycling and computing equipment in 1999, when Arun Jain asked him to work on Rice's contribution to the Campus Computing Project. An annual study of information technology in higher education, the Campus Computing Project has found that unlike most corporations, institutions of higher education typically do not consider depreciation and the life cycling of equipment in making IT decisions.

   For his study, Prochazka drew on 3 bodies of research: the financial planning template, the total cost of ownership concept, and the life cycling of computer equipment. He found that Rice's process for replacing computer equipment is flawed because:

   • There is not much collaboration between IT and the university on technology planning

   • Money for equipment comes first, then a deployment plan, which is in reverse

   • There is no common pool of money for staff replacement machines. Rice does have a centralized budget for replacing faculty machines, but each division handles that differently.

   • Obsolete equipment is not routinely decommissioned. Old machines are cascaded down to someone else, so that the food chain is never-ending. In its life cycle plan, Bucknell addressed this problem by setting in place criteria to determine what machines would not be cascaded down to other users.

   CODE members discussed the problem of obsolescence. Vicky Dean pointed out that the support costs go up dramatically as the machine gets older. William Deigaard suggested that establishing what is obsolete can be difficult, but that his group defines it as a system not able to run a current operating system or application base. There is a relationship between the age of a piece of equipment and its ability to run current operating systems. UNIX machines are typically able to run current operating systems for 7-8 yrs, while PCs and Macs become obsolete much more quickly. Alan Thornhill pointed out the inefficiencies and human costs of obsolence: if you consider the time wasted as users wait for machines to finish tasks, money could have been saved if new machines had been deployed.

   Andrea Martin said that there is a very long food chain for computing equipment at Rice; this practice is a legacy of previous approaches to managing IT here. Often faculty members hold onto old machines when they get new workstations, or older equipment trickles down to graduate students. Chuck Henry pointed out that adjunct faculty, particularly the 70 adjuncts in the humanities, are at the bottom of the chain. Thomas Prochazka argued that a significant problem is that obsolete equipment gets greensheeted, then the buyer expects IT to support it.

   Prochazka moved on to discuss current flaws versus actual needs, using the engineering division as an example. For the faculty machine replacement program in Engineering, there was $43,00 available for new machines last year. Kathy Collins suggested that the underlying theme of faculty replacement was that $43,000 was used to leverage matching funds from the Dean. Andrea Martin explained that when the facuulty machine replacement program was set up, there was a matching fund, but that over time the Deans have lost the idea of the matching funds. In general, IT does not get a 50% contribution from the deans. Collins pointed out that new faculty get computers as part of their starting package, so that there is a separate source of funding beyond the IT budget. As for the staff side, although there is no central pool for staff computers, departments find ways to buy computers; for instance, they draw from unspent salary sources. In part, funding IT equipment is a management responsibility; every need is not going to be separately delineated in the budget. Thomas Prochaszka pointed out that the University of Tennessee has a clearly delineated centralized budget for its computer equipment.

   Alan Thornhill reinforced the idea that personnel issues must be considered in relation to the life cycling of computing equipment. Although it may cost $43,000 to replace old machines, the cost of administering old machines is much greater because of what it costs in staff time to use and maintain old machines. Rather than spending their time managing junk hardware, IT staff can focus on problem solving and innovation, which will improve staff retention and job satisfaction.

   Prochazka noted that in Engineering, not enough is budgeted to purchase new machines, so that the division's desktop machines are on a six-year rather than a four-year life cycle. Extending the life cycle of obsolete machines will require that staff invest more time to support them, which increases the total cost of the machine. William Deigaard asked if a four-year life cycle were in fact too long, given that in many places, a 4 year old machine won't get the job done. Prochazka responded that at Bucknell people could request supplementary funds to get a newer machine. However, only 50 exception requests were made in the past 8 years.

   Because the purchasing process is decentralized, there is not a precise inventory of computing equipment at Rice. To life-cyle machines, IT will need to have more complete inventories. Prochazka presented some figures about the amount of hardware (desktop machines, servers, and networking) that IT is responsible for; research equipment and departmental servers are excluded from these numbers. His figures were drawn from the Y2K inventory done in October of 1999. There was some discussion about whether these 1999 figures were complete; Prochazka will update his numbers and make them available to the committee members on the CODE site.

   Geneva Henry asked if IT knows the configuration of the machines in its inventory. The humanities division keeps such records, and IT is currently installing remote management tools to collect such data. However, some users have objected to having this software on their machines; as a result, the usefulness of the tools breaks down system-wide. Committee members were hopeful that this problem can be addressed by negotiating agreements with the Deans that a full level of support is contingent on machines having remote-management tools.

   Prochazka estimated that it will cost $3 million to life cycle Rice's non-research equipment--and this estimate is based on 1999 numbers. Committee members suggested that this number is low, and that more recent data should be collected to determine how much should be budgeted for life cycling. Committee members guessed that $5 million would probably be more on target. Software costs are not included in this number.

   In making the case for life cycling equipment, Prochazka discussed the total cost of ownership, which holds that the investment in the actual hardware is only a part of the overall cost. According to the Gartner Group, which focuses on the general IT user, technical support is 9-21%, applications are 12-20%, administrative costs are 15%, and end user operations are 30-46% of the total cost.

   Prochazka presented anecdotal evidence about the costs of maintaining old equipment. A technical support person in Natural Sciences was spending 20% of his time tending to a 12 year-old server; once it was replaced, he only had to check on the machine once. In Career Services, a technical support person spent 15-20% of his time supporting 3 desktop machines; once they were replaced, he has only had to check on them one time. The University of Tennessee did a detailed total cost of ownership study and found that their total cost for one machine was $7000, where 36% was the purchase price.

   Prochazka concluded by pointing out the benefits of life cycling for each stakeholder:

   • University: life cycling yields natural efficiencies because decision making is coordinated and planned rather than ad hoc and divergent

   • Faculty and staff would have the resources necessary to do the job; their morale would improve.

   • IT organization: IT would become the steward of a well-funded, well-planned process

   • IT staff would spend less time on maintaining obsolete equipment, and more time on creative planning

   Next steps include getting the input and support of stakeholders and presenting a life cycle proposal to the trustees as part of the IT strategic plan.

   Chuck Henry pointed out that the most crucial question may be what would happen if Rice doesn't move to a life-cycle process. Kathy Collins suggested that we might be surprised at the magnitude of expense, and that we should see if savings can be found. Chuck Henry pointed out that standardization should be explored, so that IT can make clear what will be supported and what won't. Thomas Prochazka suggested that IT needs to develop standard way of deploying machines. Vicky Dean argued that standardization often can be controversial, so a governing body should establish standards and set tiers as to how much support different systems will get. Geneva Henry pointed out that some people oppose standards because they fear that they will be reduced to least common denominator, whereas if IT sets the standards high, there will be less resistance. Vicky Dean suggested that it can be difficult to dictate standards to a university, which doesn't measure success in terms of the bottom line. Andrea Martin argued that some desire the lowest common denominator rather than the highest, hoping to make their money go as far as possible. William Deigaard claimed that standards should include the total cost of ownership, and should look at the entire workstation rather than just the machine. Thomas Prochazka pointed out that the costs of not following the standards can be great. For instance, a faculty member bought a cheap, no-name machine, which an IT employee had to spend many hours configuring. Age isn't the only factor in determining whether equipment is usable; conformance should also be considered.

3. Presentation by Rich Baraniuk on "Connexions: Education for a Networked World"

Submitted by Lisa Spiro, November 13, 2000

Present: Chuck Henry, Rich Baraniuk, Randy Castiglioni, Kathy Collins, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Quintus Jett, Eric Johnson, Kerry Keck, Sara Lowman, Andrea Martin, Jonathan Patschke, Lisa Spiro, Alan Thornhill, and Barbara White

Absent: Tony Elam, Werner Kelber

Guest: Stan Katz (snkatz@princeton.edu )

Agenda:

1. Announcements

   Chuck Henry announced that the next CODE meeting will take place this coming Friday the 17th of November in the Founders' Room at 11 a.m. It will feature two presentations: one by Rich Baraniuk on Connexions, and one by Thomas Prochazka on cost accounting in IT. Following this Friday's meeting, the typical structure of a CODE meeting will change. Instead of focusing on two presentations, future meetings will have one brief presentation, then about 45 minutes will be devoted to strategic thinking and discussion. Chuck will soon provide an outline for the strategic plan to the committee and ask most members to write sections of the document.

2. Presentation by Stan Katz

   Katz began by describing his varied career as an academic. He earned a Ph.D. in early American history, then shifted into legal history and got a law degree. After teaching law and history, he founded a school of public policy at Chicago, then returned to Princeton's Wilson School for Public Policy. One of his major research interests is the history of philanthropic foundations.

   In the mid 1980s, Katz became the president of the American Council of Learned Societies, the national organization in the humanities. The ACLS serves as an advocate for the humanities, raising funds for fellowships and a range of projects. In thinking about the role of ACLS in the future of humanities, Katz realized that information technology (IT) would be very important. Katz thought that the humanities were the "poor relations" of the sciences and engineering in IT, despite some of the work being done in computational linguistics and humanities computing. For instance, humanists typically had to retrofit other people's software to do their own research. Katz believed that the ACLS could serve an important role by promoting new approaches to publishing, so the organization launched a project to overhaul the Dictionary of American Biography (1928-1936). This important reference source needed to be revised, given the great deal of new information available since 1936, the rise of new approaches of history, and the new opportunities for research opened up through electronic publication. The Dictionary of American Biography contained 20 million words, and took 11 years to complete.

   Through this project, the ACLS gained an education in the complexities of working in the digital environment, including the technical, legal, and commercial dimensions. The ACLS collaborated with the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) and the Getty Trust to found a new organization: NINCH (National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage). NINCH is building a consortium of not-for-profit users of networked information, such as libraries and museums. Katz is the current president of the organization, and Chuck Henry will take over the position in December.

   Katz identified intellectual property problems as being central in the digital environment. According to Katz, the 1990s witnessed some significant developments in both international law and domestic legislation. Katz concluded that during this period "we didn't lose," but that intellectual property issues continue to develop. Three weeks ago, for instance, those advocating for fair use were set back by Library of Congress's ruling allowing only two exceptions to the anticircumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see, for instance, http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon/alwn9085.html). Katz urged cultural heritage organizations to devote themselves to protecting their own interests and those of the users of information.

   In 1997, Katz retired from ACLS and returned to Princeton, where he began a new Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. This center studies policy issues related to the arts and humanities, including intellectual property and information technology. The Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies is working with NINCH to promote the intelligent use and development of technology in the humanities and not-for-profit cultural organizations.

   Katz compared Rice to Princeton, saying that the two schools are similar in their size and resources. However, for a small university, Princeton is quite Balkanized, and there are few mechanisms for bringing the faculty together. But technology, which affects everything a school does, can foster collaboration and communication. Princeton is now searching for a new CIO, since Ira Fuchs, former vice president for computing and information technology, left to become vice president for research in information technology at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Princeton's IT office hasn't been that interested in research or curricular uses of technology; for instance, Fuchs abolished social science computing support.

   Katz highlighted three efforts at Princeton to encourage collaboration and communication regarding IT:

   • GWA (Group without Acronym): David Dobkin, the department chair of Computer Science, organized this group of computer scientists, engineers, social scientists, and humanists to promote free-form discussions about the intellectual side of technology, such as the controversies surrounding Napster.

   • Ruby Lee, an electrical engineering professor, developed an NSF proposal to research and develop new devices that will integrate computing, television, and telecommunications. This proposal will cut across institutions (Princeton and Stanford) and disciplines, and will involve corporate collaboration. Katz would head the "Normative Group," which will address the biases that computer scientists unintentionally build into systems by analyzing problems of privacy, security, and access.

   • Henry Luce Professor of Information Technology, Consciousness, and Culture Princeton has established a new tenured professorship to stimulate interdisciplinary work in information technology, cognitive science, humanities, and the social sciences. They are writing the job description this year, and hope to hire in 2 years.

   Princeton (without much help from the administation) is trying to figure out how information technology can enhance research and teaching. Already social scientists and humanists at Princeton are doing innovative work with IT--for instance, the psychology department is now doing MRI research on the brain; Tom Levin in the German department is researching new media; and Katz is investigating intellectual property and IT. But Princeton, like other universities, seems to be too focused on distance education for alumni, which is basically an ill-conceived attempt at fundraising. Katz is also worried that the administration and trustees are trying to claim ownership of the intellectual property of non-science and engineering faculty. Most universities have 2 different IP regimes: patents for scientists and engineers, and copyright for humanists and social scientists. That's changing. If a humanities professor writes an article, the university doesn't try to claim ownership, but it is interested in courseware because there is money in such resources. The university argues that without its investments in equipment and support, scientific research could not have been conducted and courseware could not have been developed. Katz responds that Princeton doesn't demand money from those who use the library and research assistants to produce their work, even though the library requires substantial budgets for space, books, journals, librarians and so forth. Likewise, the university does not claim ownership if a professor sells lectures to the Teaching Company, but it does insists upon having rights to online courses.

   For Katz, one of the central problems is that we don't yet know how to think about education in a digital environment. He recently wrote a paper called "Don't Confuse a Tool with A Goal," which argues that some universities are making the technology the goal, when it's really a tool. Katz claims that many universities haven't begun to think about how education is and should be transformed by technology. Too few institutions are asking where they want to be in 5 years, and what kind of skills, equipment, and staff are needed to bring about educational and research goals. Universities have gotten too interested in money, but their educational mission needs to come first. Higher education is in a momentary soft spot, so it is a wonderful time for universities to probe how they want to invest money and human resources in information technology. According to Katz, the model for information technology in higher education is UVA. On the whole, the library is the right place for exploring how the university can be transformed through information technology, since it is where technologists, faculty members, and information professionals come together.

   Question and Answer

   Chuck Henry commented that Fathom is attempting to claim intellectual property so that it stays in academia. But it's not clear how they will run their courses or who will referee them. Katz replied that groups like Fathom need to define their efforts in view of their larger mission to educate.

   Eric Johnson pointed out that universities like Rice, MIT, and Stanford have the resources to launch initiatives that others cannot, since investments in technology can be quite expensive. He also questioned the commericialization of intellectual property, pointing out that there is no evidence that patents will bring in money, except for occasional spikes. Katz responded that many leading universities have made bad decisions in the past, but that with the strong economy many schools, including state universities, are in a strong position to do innovative work.

   Johnson suggested that universities are not used to cooperating with each other, particularly in fund-raising. Katz pointed out that libraries provide a fine model for collaboration through their work on developing joint collections, controlling the costs of serials, and so forth. According to Katz, there must be more collaboration among institutions; state universities need to assume regional responsibility so that smaller schools do not get swallowed by big costs. The Pew Charitable Trusts sponsors an interesting program to pair large universities with local colleges to enable them to use lab resources. The Portland Area Library System (PORTALS) joins together smaller institutions with the state library to ensure access to information. Similar programs should be launched in information technology.

   Katz pointed out that technology can promote collaboration. For instance, humanities research has traditionally been conducted by a solitary scholar in a library with a notepad, but now it requires collaboration among scholars and technologists, as well as a significant investment of resources. Already technology is transforming how research is done in the humanities, and is making possible international collaboration.

   Geneva Henry suggested that the thoughtful use of technology can increase the visibility of universities. For instance, digitization efforts have raised the interest in special collections, though some had worried that the use of collections would decline. Katz agreed, and went on to suggest that distance education has been defined in the wrong way. Distance education can be defined as any kind of education where the teacher and student are not in same room, so that a student accessing the library from a dorm room would fit this definition. Continuing education is just one form of distance education, but universities have been focusing on it because they see possible revenues. Universities and instructors need to understand how technology is changing the educational experiences of students who are learning through these resources. For instance, how have the rise of new communication tools such as email and chat rooms affected students' intellectual experiences? Cognitive psychologists have begun to make sense of the process of learning and have developed powerful tools for reconceptualizing teaching. Such research is beginning to be applied in K-12 education, but not really in the university. In making efforts to transform higher education through technology, we need to take a systematic and scientific look at how the process of learning is changing.

   Eric Johnson asked whether the library, which has been a tradition-bound institution, should be responsible for revolutionizing the use of technology in teaching. Katz suggested that two functions should be shifted into the library--IT, and the Teaching and Learning Center. By housing these groups under one virtual roof, synergies are developed. Alan Thornhill testified to the importance of providing training in new approaches to teaching, describing a program at the Unversity of California-Irvine to offer teaching and learning training to graduate students. Unfortunately, the program was discontinued after 6 years, in part because there was resistance among older faculty, who wanted to stick with traditional ways of teaching. Katz commented that there are some excellent models for similar programs, but that it can be difficult to convince faculty to support the program, to find resources to maintain it, and to recruit right people to lead it.

   Quintus Jett asked how technology can facilitate the larger goals of an institution, and serve alumni and staff as well faculty and students. Katz observed that those who promote distance education do aim to serve that larger community through lifelong education, which will become increasingly important as lifespans are extended.

   Vicky Dean asked if any universities are using technology as a way to recruit students. Katz mentioned Carnegie Mellon in science and engineering, as well as Vanderbilt with its library technology. William Deigaard commented that often efforts are directed more at "keeping up with the Jones" than at becoming anIT leader. Katz asserted that that's what competition is about, but that the finding the resources necessary for keeping up is a problem for smaller universities. Chuck Henry suggested that one college that is marketing itself as a high tech mecca is Bard.

   Alan Thornhill argued that one problem facing higher education is brain drain. If faculty members do not receive adequate support, and if their work with IT is not recognized in the tenure process, then the university risks losing them to industry or to another school. Katz called this the "Greg Crane" problem; you devote a lot of time and energy to building the best database in the world, then are denied tenure.

Submitted by Lisa Spiro, November 13, 2000

Present: Chuck Henry, Rich Baraniuk, Randy Castiglioni, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Tony Elam, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Eric Johnson, Kerry Keck, Werner Kelber, Andrea Martin, Lisa Spiro, Alan Thornhill, and Barbara White

Absent: Quintus Jett, Sara Lowman

Guests: Steve Lerman (lerman@mit.edu), Jim Kinsey

Agenda: Presentation on educational technology at MIT by Steve Lerman, the first director of MIT's Project Athena and the head of MIT's Center for Educational Computing Initiatives.

Lerman explained how MIT is using technology to revise thinking about teaching and learning by:

• Focusing on learning rather than teaching
• Facilitating a shift of the teacher's function from being a lecturer to being a mentor
• Moving from synchronous to asychronous learning
• Emphasizing achieving goals rather than covering material

Lerman next described the MIT Council on Educational Technology (MITCET),

• Appointed by the Provost, Robert A. Brown; Brown co-chairs the committee with Professor Hal Abelson, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
• Membership includes faculty, alumni, students, and IT staff.
• The committee's charter is to provide strategic guidance for applying technology to education.
• The committeee reports to the provost and president.

Working with a group of management consultants, in approximately three months MITCET developed a set of possible strategic initiatives for the application of educational technology. MITCET insisted that MIT's strengths and core values would underlie its decision-making. MITCET and the consultants developed six proposed strategic initiatives:

1. Forever-tech: developing a lifetime educational community.
2. Global-tech: offering degree granting programs around the world to reach MIT-quality students who can't attend the university.
3. Ed-tech: fostering research and innovation in educational technology.
4. Venture tech: pursuing joint ventures with other top universities to support and market online education to the mass market.
5. Flex-tech: sponsoring a flexible program to reach those not able to participate in the typical four-year residential university experience. Promote international exchanges.
6. Teach-tech: becoming a leading educational provider to the corporate world.

After looking at its own values and strengths, MIT decided it shouldn't pursue global-tech, since the university draws on the best students rather than every student. Moreover, if MIT moved toward global tech it would have to create a group of faculty members focused on distance learning, which would destroy its unitary faculty and undermine its key values.

The planning process led MITCET to the following findings and recommendations:

1. MITCET decided that the university's fundamental goal should be to use technology to enhance the core educational experience. Therefore, it launched two initiatives:
   • To increase R&D in educational technology (currently on hold)
   • To transform the MIT experience from a short-term immersion in learning to lifelong membership in an extended learning community.
2. MITCET proposed 4 programs:
   • Providing flexible educational options by loosening constraints requiring students to do their academic work on campus. Most MIT students do not study abroad because they must meet such strict and idiosyncratic curriculum requirements. MIT decided that it was important to promote international exchange.
   • Promoting lifelong learning among alumni. MIT decided to focus on alumni in part because they already have completed the prerequisites for advanced coursework, so that it is easier to design classes for them.
   • Establishing the information infrastructure for an extended community by asking alumni to participate in the education and mentoring of graduate and undergraduate students. MIT recently launched a pilot project for a freshman course in which students break up into teams of five and work on part of a project to send mission to Mars in 2004. Each group has an alumni mentor, often from NASA. So far the program has been quite successful. The alumni have been enthusiastic; whereas typically MIT gets about a 3% response rate from its alumni, about 30% have responded to this program. Likewise, the students have enjoyed the program. 80 applied for the course, 52 were admitted, and only 3 have dropped.
   • MIT has entered into an agreement with Cambridge University to promote collaboration and exchange. One part of the agreement is that MIT will send 50 students each year to Cambridge and vice versa. The program will enable Cambridge to learn about the entrepreneurial climate at MIT.

At MIT, there are four major groups involved with educational technology.

1. Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES):

   CAES provides educational support services to faculty across the university. It runs distance learning programs and recently entered into an agreement with the PBS Business and Technology Network. MIT creates the content, which the PBS Business and Technology Network markets and distributes.

2. The Center for Educational Computing Inititiatives (CECI):

   CECI is the R & D arm of CAES. It also provides video production facilities and a video server.

3. Academic Computing organization

   The director of academic computing is now an assistant provost.

4. Educational Media Creation Center (EMCC):

   EMCC is a new group jointly managed by CAES and Academic Compting. The Provost gives the group $500,00 a year to create web pages for courses so that faculty time can be spent on other projects. The group also provides services in a cost-recovery basis. This financial model will allow EMCC to grow so that it can recruit staff members with specialized skills in design, programming, etc.

MIT has launched several educational technology initiatives:

1. The Cambridge-MIT Institute:

   The British government is funding this program so that it can learn from the example of an entrepreneurial university. The program also sponsors student and faculty exchanges and collaborative research and curriculum development projects.

2. The Singapore-MIT Alliance:

   In this project, funded by the government of Singapore, MIT has sponsored 6 masters of engineering programs through the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Admitted students come to MIT during their first summer for intensive learning experiences, but they take over half of their courses in Singapore through synchronous learning. The courses are taught by MIT faculty who teach in special classrooms at MIT. MIT uses Internet 2 to deliver course content, and it digitizes audio and video on the fly. The Alliance has set up classrooms with dual projectors so that students can see both the presenter and presentation. Flat panel displays are placed close to the instructors so that they can see students. The biggest difficulty has been audio, so the Alliance has invested in push-to-talk microphones. MIT has a central control room where a single operator can run multiple high-technology classrooms to share expensive equipment and reduce costs.

3. Alliance with Microsoft: Project I-Campus

   Microsoft is funding MIT's research into educational innovations using technology at a rate of $5 million a year for 5 years. Faculty submit proposals in an internal competition to receive funding for innovations in education; some money is also set aside for students. The biggest project is Technology Enabled Active Learning (TEAL), which seeks to transform MIT's second semester physics class. Traditionally physics has been taught in the lecture/recitation mode, but the model doesn't work very well. Students stop coming to the lectures no matter how good lecturer is, and students' retention of information is very low. In first semester physics, for instance, 15% of students don't pass, even though they have very good SAT scores. To improve conceptual understanding, John Belcher, the instructor for second-semester physics, has proposed moving away from the lecture format toward one based on active learning. (By the way, Belcher happens to be a Rice alum; he graduated with a double major in math and physics in 1965.) Classes will take place in a studio style learning facility with round tables with laptops and projectors on walls. Each class will begin with a 15 minute mini-lecture; then students will work in groups of three on a series of guided interactive exercises, such as simulations, animations, hands-on labs, and digital data-collection. At the end of class, students will engage in discussion and round-up. Such a model has been successful at RPI and North Carolina State (the failure rate at NC State dropped by 75%). The first section based on this model will be taught in the spring of 2001; ultimately all second semester physics students will take this course. If the project succeeds, the physics department has pledged to transform its approach to teaching department-wide. The project will cost a million dollars a year, but is funded by Microsoft, the d'Arbeloff fund, and the Dean of Natural Science.

   MIT also has a grant to create a digital archive of lectures, help sessions, text books, and FAQs about physics that students can use for after-hours studying. Another project is making possible remote instrumentation of expensive, fragile lab equipment, using a web-based interface that students can use to work on projects from afar.

During the question and answer period, Lerman discussed Project Athena, assessment, planning, and the culture of MIT.

1. Project Athena

   Lerman commented that the current period of innovation at MIT recalls the growth and energy produced by Project Athena during the 1980s. As part of Project Athena, IBM and Digital donated the key elements of the student computing system. The investment in Athena fueled innovations as the Xwindows system and authentication technologies. By 1990, the period of growth and innovation was over, as Athena moved from R&D to service and maintenance.

   Despite Athena's successes, MIT made some errors. For instance, between 1984 and 1987 MIT spent a great deal of money on faculty projects, but there were too many projects, and they were too small. MIT funded 125 distinct faculty initiatives, most of which were not sustainable and not scalable for integration into the curriculum. When faculty interest diminished, the project died. In order to make initiatives sustainable and permanent, MIT is now funding only 8-10 projects.

2. Assessment

   Tony Elam asked what methods are being used to assess the success of the programs. Lerman responded that MIT has one staff member working on assessment, and that they are trying to hire a director of educational assessment. For the physics course, MIT has been doing pre-tests to analyze the conceptual abilities of existing students.

3. Planning

   Barbara White asked how the planning process for educational technology worked--how, for instance, the Council determined the university's identity with relation to technology. Lerman explained that the Counncil interviewed senior adminstrators and faculty members about the central values of MIT to determine what was negotiatable and what should not be transformed. A strategy sub-group of the Council pulled out the key values and made presentations to the adminstrative council and school councils, which gave their appproval.

4. The Culture of MIT

   Eric Johnson observed that it is important to keep in mind MIT's culture. Engineering is dominant-60% of students are in engineering, and 40% of the faculty. The school is extremely entrepreneurial, especially in engineering. Such a culture helps to drive new initiatives. MIT also has a huge research budget and over 1000 professional researchers. With its culture of funding initiatives off of soft money, MIT is able to move rapidly. Lerman commented that the technology initiatives were adopted especially quickly because of the support of the provost and wide agreement among the faculty and administration.

Submitted by Lisa Spiro, October 30, 2000

Present: Chuck Henry, Randy Castiglioni, Vicky Dean, Tony Elam, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Quintus Jett, Kerry Keck, Werner Kelber, Sara Lowman, Andrea Martin, Lisa Spiro, Alan Thornhill, Barbara White

Absent: Rich Baraniuk, William Deigaard, Eric Johnson, Ana Ramirez

Guests: John Ferro, Barry McFarland

Agenda: 1) Announcements; 2) Tony Elam's presentation on CITI; 3) Discussion of Tony's presentation; 4) Andrea Martin's presentation on IT's User Services and discussion of the issues raised by the presentation.

1. Announcements (Chuck Henry):

   a) New members: At least one undergraduate and one graduate student will be invited to join CODE. These new members will collect information and opinions from their fellow students and will contribute to the strategic plan.

   b) Strategic Plan: The writing of the strategic plan needs to begin now. Chuck will ask CODE members to contribute brief (2-3 pp.) sections to the overall plan. Lisa and Chuck will work on the structure and look of the document. The ultimate audience will be the president, provost, and trustees. The plan will be a dynamic, interactive document, delivered either via the web or on a CD. Not only will the strategic plan describe the activity and potential of technology, but the document itself will represent that potential.

   c) The retreat for trustees has been confirmed for April.

   d) The President recommends that this committee work closely with a trustee, who will come to meetings when able and work through the creation and refinement of the strategic plan.

   e) Chuck will soon set up travel plans for committee members.

   f) Upcoming events: The meeting scheduled for Friday the 13th has been cancelled. CODE's next meeting will be on October 27, when Steve Lerman of MIT will join us. Stan Katz of Princeton will follow two weeks later on November 10. Chuck will arbitrarily divide the committee in half so that everyone gets a chance to dine with one of our visitors.

2. Presentation by Tony Elam, "CITI: Computer and Information Technology Institute." Tony's PowerPoint slides are available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/; they are best viewed using the most recent version of Internet Explorer.

   According to Tony Elam, institutes at Rice aim to be "lean and mean," broad in scope, collaborative, and research-intensive. Institutes foster and support interdisciplinary research, and create and spin off centers as necessary. CITI, which focuses on computational science and engineering, has six affiliated centers: the Center for High Performance Software Research (HiPerSoft), the Center for Multimedia Communication, the Center for Technology in Teaching and Learning, the Center for Computational Geophysics, the Center for Chemical Processing Technology, and the Center for Computational Discrete Optimization (to be shut down because the faculty members behind the center are leaving.) Most of CITI’s members come from electrical engineering, computational and applied math, computer science, and Statistics, but it also supports researchers in psychology, physics, civil engineering, and more.

   Since Elam assumed directorship of CITI, the institute's membership has doubled, comunications among the members have improved due to monthly lunches and other events, and the research infrastructure has developed. CITI has won great success in attracting grant money, boasting the highest percentage of funded projects among Texas institutions. In deciding whether to support particular intitiatives, CITI asks whether the activity will enhance Rice's reputation in research and in education. CITI's current initiatives include better disseminating information about grants, establishing a database to track the institute's success in research and grants, and investigating the possibility of extending into new areas such as bioinformatics/biostatistics, computational finance, the digital library, the wireless university, and IT in education. CITI's main challenge has been maintaining equipment, since there often is not much funding available to support this crucial function.

3. Discussion: The problem of providing proper support for research computing.

   Elam pointed out that Rice's peer institutions typically have written into the budget a line item for computer infrastructure support. UT provides $1 million a year, Tech $700,000, and A&M $900,000. Alan Thornill commented that full cost-accounting is often left out of grant proposals. The assumption is that machine room space and power will be provided by the university, while software, upgrades, and technical support are often ignored altogether. Elam said that the NSF, for instance, doesn't give sufficient support in its grants, limiting the budget to 10% of the grant (which is just the maintenance fee). Arguing that CITI's problems extend across the university, Chuck Henry described an ongoing study at Rice of the total cost for IT equipment. The numbers are startling: the cost of a piece equipment is as low as 28%-35% of total cost of ownership, while the rest goes to staff, service, software, and maintenance. There is typically no budget for other 70%--for making sure that the piece of equipment works.

   Vicky Dean asked what CITI does if two or more competitors want to contribute to the Institute. In response, Elam stated that often maintenance costs impede deals with various vendors, and that the best relationship is when the vendor supports research using the equipment. Farrell Gerbode aked if there is any chance of standardizing the machines, to which Elam replied that some researchers want their own unique machines, but the institute should probably settle on 1 or 2 platforms.

4. Presentation by Andrea Martin, "User Services." Andrea's presentation is available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/ (best viewed using the most recent version of Internet Explorer).

   Andrea's presentation was divided into 5 sections: the divisional teams, training, publishing, the library, and the Student Information Systems projects. Each section stimulated much discussion, which has been summarized here.

   A) Divisional Teams

   Andrea Martin described the current structure, resources, initiatives, and challenges of the divisions she manages: the Architecture, Humanities, Social Science, and Music teams. Recounting the origins of the divisional teams, Martin explained that the model was for IT staff to be co-located with customers so that they could provide consulting and one on one training. Andrea and Vicky co-authored an article on distributed computing support that was published in CAUSE/EFFECT in 1996; see http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem9645.html/

   For her presentation, Martin consulted with a divisional team leaders to identify their challenges and goals, including:

   1. Supporting dynamic faculty needs, as they demand new and changing software packages (particularly a problem in Architecture).

   2. Knowing how much is enough in providing support to students, faculty, and staff; balancing services.

   3. Backing up files.

   4. Educating users.

   5. Maintaining departmental web-pages (often the data is not kept current).

   6. Finding solutions for mundane problems so that staff don't need to spend their time focused on repetitive tasks.

   7. Retaining staff.

   8. Dealing with old equipment. If Rice retains outdated machines, IT often is called upon to support them, which causes many headaches.

   9. Gaining the ability to remotely manage machines to leverage human resources.

   10. Addressing problems caused by lean staffing. When staff members are out, it's often difficult to keep up with user demands.

   11. Improving communications so that staff members based in the various divisions remain plugged into the central organization.

   Martin described several possible solutions, including:

   1. Consolidating teams into distributed computing support (like the Cornell and Berkeley models).

   2. Rotating people through various positions so that they can diversify their activities and communicate more frequently with the central organization.

   3. Offering staff the opportunity to collaborate with the faculty on interesting projects.

   4. Re-thinking the consulting function, perhaps by having a central group to support the teams and offering resources for staff in the field when they run into a problem.

   B.) Training

   After a substantial discussion of issues facing the divisional teams, Martin turned next to training. She explained that courses about the design and maintenance of websites are in increasing demand, as well as other more advanced courses. Yet newcomers to campus may need more basic training, which raises the question of where such training should be based. Currently the Training division is working on two new projects: offering training for Fastlane (the new system for submitting grant applications to the NSF and the NIH) and the campus calendar.

   Martin identified two central challenges for Training:

   1. Finding the time to develop courses.

   2. Handling the numerous users who ask for individualized training and support, which overtaxes the training staff.

   In the ensuing discussion, CODE members observed that:

   1. There should be 2 levels of staff: consultants and trainers, to help people use applications; and system administrators, to maintain the equipment and networks. (VD)

   2. IT should provide more consistent support to students.

   3. IT should investigate the need for more centralized support. (KK)

   4. The Fastlane project illustrates the problem of having a significant demand for services, but not having enough people to provide support. CH pointed out that there was a series of failures associated with the Fastlane project: a) The research office knew that Fastlane was coming a year or more in advance, but there was no alert from the research office about the coming change. b) IT was called upon without staff, budget, expertise to support Fastlane. c) Such problems cause frustration among the research office, IT, and researchers. The university's lifeblood--grant funding--is at issue.

   TE asked about the training of current staff. VD said that IT invests heavily in training by, for example, sending staff to Microsoft boot camp. The problem is that training increases the employees' value, so they then ask for raises. But training is important to ensuring that the staffs' skills are up-to-date and to build loyalty. Some companies require employees to sign a document that they will pay the institution back if they leave within 2 years, but VD opposes such draconian measures. AM pointed out that given staff turnover, it's important to keep careful documentation of projects, particularly with complex projects like the Student Information Systems. TE emphasized that training issues must be addressed in the strategic plan. Given the expense of training new employees, it's really cheaper to pay the experienced employee more money. Moreover, staff turnover causes losses in time and in the institutional memory.

   According to VD, Rice will soon have some of first qualified Windows 2000 people in Houston. TE affirmed that it is essential to provide opportunities for IT staff to receive training, and to develop strategies for keeping them. AT pointed out that Rice doesn't encourage staff members to stay because there is no promotion track. As a result, they go across campus or elsewhere, causing more chaos every year.

   C) Publications

   Following the discussion of training, Martin moved to the next core group that she manages, Publications. This group supports the documentation needs of the division by providing guides to support product roll-out, updating the faculty and staff handbooks, and implementing the RiceInfo web template. Martin defined Publication's key challenge as being one of focus: prioritizing tasks, defining who is supported and how, and evaluating where to put resources forward.

   The discussion of Publications led to a larger conversation about how to communicate with users most effectively. As VD pointed out, newsletters are thrown away and web pages are not looked at. TE suggested that in some cases departmental administrators serve as key contact points, while AT recommended taking a department-by-department approach. In some cases, showing up at a departmental meetings is an effective way to convey information; in other cases, it's best to find the point person in the department. FG suggested that there should be several ways to communicate with the Rice community, and that one approach might be to send out email digests with quick blurbs and pointers to a web page for further information. CH pointed out that the underlying issue is: In what medium does the authority lie? No one knows whether the sanctioned mode of communication is a personal appearance, website, email, or newsletter. The university needs to designate an official channel of information, rather than confuse people with a flurry of media.

   D) The Library

   Martin called upon John Ferro, Fondren IT supervisor, to help discuss activities at the library. Recent initiatives include implementing a CD-ROM server, setting up a collaborative workroom and media capture classroom with the $280,000 in TIF funding, and planning for the new library building. Challenges include ensuring a proper budget, providing new services, and finding enough staff time to implement new projects.

   Conversation turned to determining the library's role in preserving and maintaining data for the future. Preserving the datasets generated through the faculty's research and other sources of digital information will entail significant costs. To ensure the continued accessibility of this information, CODE members discussed several approaches, including turning to consortia and professional organizations to take responsibility for preservation. AT pointed out that data is traditionally made accessible through publication in peer-reviewed journals, but now data is often made available before an article is published, or without an article being published at all. GH suggested that in scholarly articles primary source data isn't published, only distilled. Now consortia of groups are trying to archive the data so that people can get to data anytime anywhere. The crucial question is how to help researchers at Rice keep track of data. Appropriate metadata--information about information--will be important to this effort.

   TE raised another problem: the university says that it owns the intellectual property rights of software generated by faculty. But who maintains information about the rights, and who versions, archives, and protects that software? Rice put a policy in place, but it seems that no one is working to implement it. To carry out the policy, versioning and management tools will be necessary.

   E) Student Information Systems Project

   Martin next discussed the Student Information Systems Project, which has been consuming a large amount of her time. She thanked Barry McFarland, Dean of Enrollment, for attending the meeting and offering his insights on the project.

   Rice has been a beta partner with Exeter on its Oracle-based Student Information Systems since 1997. Initially Rice had grand hopes for the project, as laid out in an article that Martin, McFarland, et al. published in CAUSE/EFFECT in 1999 (http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem9933.html). Rice was drawn to Exeter because it seemed that the system was configurable, but would not require writing a lot of code. Although Rice has been aggresively implementing the project, it's been a difficult implementation, as a number of people associated with the project have left Rice. Contractors have been doing a great deal of work trying to get the system in shape, as have Andrea and her staff. In 1999, for instance, the SBS (Financial Aid system) lacked the capability to generate bills, so Andrea was left writing the code. Exeter is now developing a version to run with Oracle 8. Anyone on campus could use an internet browser to get into the system, entering graduate admission data, viewing grades, updating course rosters, and so forth. Training people to use the system has been a significant problem, given its eccentricities. AT observed that the system could be very useful for faculty advisors, and that there should be computers in every college for the purposes of advising.

   To make sure that the data is protected, Farrell and Andrea are investigating how to transmit secure, encrypted data on and off campus. Vicky had several of her best students test the security of Exeter, and they discovered many flaws in the system. CODE members debated whether the data had to be any more secure than it was in an analog world. KK pointed out that security should not be so burdensome that people won't use the system. AM explained that Exeter is talking about providing different kinds of access, so that off-campus vistors could browse the catalog and apply for admission online, but that private information would be kept secure. AM acknowledged that there are inherent tensions between security and access, and that it is important to make information available where needed.

   To sum up, Martin articulated the following challenges posed by the SIS project: slow code, NT troubles, networking, staff turnover, and the training of staff and users. Martin suggested that more money can help solve SIS problems. SIS has been funded out of capital money, but Rice should build in some padding, and will need to buy web servers to support new functionalities. CH agreed that Rice needs to move away from capital outlays and have the predictability and consistency of operational budgets. CH observed that in the 1980s most universities regarded technology as capital outlay, and hoped it wouldn't come up again. Physical infrastructure will also be important, since there is no room in most buildings for further expansion, or even to provide space for current staff. These calculations need to be included in the committee's report.

Submitted by Lisa Spiro, October 5, 2000.

Present: Chuck Henry, Richard Baraniuk, Randy Castiglioni, Tony Elam, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Quintus Jett, Werner Kelber, Sara Lowman, Andrea Martin, Lisa Spiro, and Barbara White.

Absent: Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Eric Johnson, Kerry Keck, and Alan Thornhill

Agenda:

1. Chuck Henry announced that two prominent speakers will be visiting the committee in the fall:

   • Stan Katz (http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~snkatz/) will be joining the CODE committee for dinner on the evening of Thursday, October 26, and will give a presentation at the CODE meeting on Friday, October 27. Katz is the President Emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies, Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, and a well-respected thinker on intellectual property rights.

   • Steve Lerman will be visiting Rice Thursday, November 9-Friday, November 10. The committee will host Lerman for dinner on Thursday night, and he will speak at the CODE meeting on Friday the 10th. Lerman is Associate Chair of the Faculty at MIT as well as the Director of the MIT Center for Educational Computing Initiatives.

2. Chuck asked CODE members to send him an email message (chhenry@rice.edu) by Thursday, September 28 identifying their preferences for travel to the following locations:

   a. West Coast: Xerox PARC-Stanford-Berkeley
   b. East Coast: MIT-Dartmouth and possibly CMU
   c. Southeast: Georgia Tech-Emory
   

   It is probable that not everyone can be accommodated but an attempt will be made to do so.

3. Quintus Jett announced that a Microsoft representative will be on campus on Wednesday, September 13 to discuss Microsoft's mobile strategy. There may be an opportunity for CODE to hold a joint meeting with the business school.

4. During the fall, the CODE committee will probably meet every other week. Chuck Henry asked CODE members to let him know whether they have any potential scheduling conflicts (such as classes or departmental colloquia). Friday at 11 a.m. seemed to work for most in attendance, so long as it is not the first Friday of each month.

5. Geneva Henry gave an overview of the Rice Digital Library Initiative. PowerPoint slides from her presentation are available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/ [please view using Internet Explorer]. Following Geneva's presentation, CODE members discussed the difficulty of dealing with rights management issues, and suggested that Rice become more of a leader in promoting educational fair use. Members also discussed the promise of visualization technologies and the difficulties that language and cultural barriers might pose for the digital library.

6. Lisa Spiro spoke about the Electronic Text Center. Her PowerPoint slides are also available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/. After her talk, CODE members discussed the difficulty of coordinating the efforts of various campus groups involved with computing and electronic resources.

   Some new resources have been added to the CODE site, including web pages on information technology testbeds (http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/testbeds.html) and on evaluating educational technology (http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/edueval.html). If you would like to suggest any links for the CODE web site, please send your recommendations to code@listserv.rice.edu or to lspiro@rice.edu.

Minutes submitted by Lisa Spiro, August 29, 2000

Present: Chuck Henry, Rich Baraniuk, Krist Bender, Randy Castiglioni, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Tony Elam, Farrell Gerbode, Geneva Henry, Quintus Jett, Eric Johnson, Kerry Keck, Werner Kelber, Sara Lowman, Andrea Martin, Lisa Spiro, and Alan Thornhill.

Guests: Gene Levy, Bruce Schatz

Agenda:

1. Chuck Henry welcomed new members Krist Bender, Farrell Gerbode, Andrea Martin, Ana Ramirez, and Barbara White.

2. Lisa Spiro described some new features that have been added to the CODE web site, including a directory of centers focused on technology in higher education and a listing of online sources about emerging technologies. The web site is available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code.

3. Alan Thornhill presented on Dac-Net, describing the group's history and mission. He demonstrated a few of Dac-Net's current projects, including the faculty and staff data services, a new calendar system, and proposed user-targeted Rice web portals. At the end of his talk, Alan summarized some challenges facing Dac-Net and Rice, including impediments to the smooth flow of information, the difficulty of attracting qualified staff, disparities in hardware and software, and the problem of keeping up with the rapid advances in technology. His presentation is available at http://dacnet.rice.edu/dac-net/code/.

4. Bruce Schatz, who is visiting Rice from CANIS (Community Architectures for Network Information Systems at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), spoke about "The Next Net." He described the evolution of the net from a system that allows data to be "fetched" to one that enables users to analyze and correlate information. To illustrate this idea, Bruce demonstrated several projects in which he has been involved. Through these demonstations, he elucidated the idea of community repositories, navigating related concepts in the "interspace," gaining access to information through sophisticated indexes that "switch" from one discipline's vocabulary to another's, and more. He ended by proposing three possible projects for Rice: a richly interconnected archive focused on the broad theme "understanding the South," a cross-linked scientific database (perhaps focused on nanoengineering or biology), and a "beyond the hedges" project centered on health care or K-12 education. Bruce's presentation is available at http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/archive/talks/rice.it.pdf as a pdf file and http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/archive/talks/rice.it.ppt as PowerPoint slides.

Next meeting:

Date and time to be announced. (For the next meeting, we will break from the bi-monthly cycle and convene later in August.)

Submitted by Lisa Spiro, July 27

Present: Chuck Henry, Randy Castiglioni, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Tony Elam, Geneva Henry, Arun Jain, Kerry Keck, Werner Kelber, Sara Lowman, Joanne Sonin (for Rich Baraniuk), Lisa Spiro, and Alan Thornhill.

Absent: Quintus Jett, Eric Johnson

Agenda:

Presentation by William Deigaard on New Media and Student Computing. His PowerPoint slides are available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/code/presentat/deigaard.htm.

A lively discussion ensued. Topics included:

• How to provide a forum for the Rice community to participate in the process of planning for IT

• How to address the needs of users by providing, for example, remote access to electronic resources through a proxy server

• How to build an organizational framework so that people know where to go to accomplish specific tasks involving technology

• How to finance campus-wide upgrades to avoid the problems that accompany the ubiquitousness of outdated technology, such as high demands for support from IT; inability to run necessary programs; lack of uniformity; and general frustration among both users and IT.

Next Meeting:

CODE's next meeting will be Wednesday, July 26 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. in the Founder's Room of Lovett Hall. Our visitor Bruce Schatz of CANIS (Community Architectures for Network Information Systems, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, http://www.canis.uiuc.edu/) will give a presentation on "The Next Net," and Alan Thornhill will report on DAC-Net.

Lunch will be provided.

Minutes submitted by Lisa Spiro, July 12, 2000

Present: Chuck Henry, Richard Baraniuk, Vicky Dean, William Deigaard, Geneva Henry, Arun Jain, Eric Johnson, Kerry Keck, Sara Lowman, Colleen Morimoto (for Werner Kelber), Lisa Spiro, and Alan Thornhill.

Absent: Randy Castiglioni, Tony Elam, and Quintus Jett

Agenda: 1) Objectives. 2) Process. 3) Nitty-gritty. 4) Planning for travel and for speakers. 5) Upcoming events.

1. The committee's objectives:

Chuck Henry welcomed members to CODE and explained its mission and structure. In November, an external review panel consisting of administrators, scholars, and technologists (largely academics) will be visiting Rice by inivitation of President Gillis. This panel will test the assumption that Rice can achieve prominence in the area of technological applications. By studying the digital environment at Rice prior to the panel's arrival, CODE will enrich what this team can accomplish. More specifically, CODE will:

a) Examine how digital information is produced, used, and maintained across campus. Create a synergy through the exchange of ideas and information among the various divisions;

b) Synthesize what we've learned and construct a map of what's going on at Rice;

c) Develop a strategy for what programs and projects the university should invest in over the next 5-10 years, and why. Attach costs to these recommendations.

Timeline for this work: July through early October: gather information on Rice's digital-based activity; October, November: draft a prioritized strategy for the University, with a projected budget; November-March: review of documents by the Rice community; Spring 2001: submit a report to the Trustees.

2. The process:

At each meeting, committee members and guests will make brief (15-20 minute) presentations on a unit, project, set of scholarly needs, and so forth. These reports will offer a general description of the project, its successes, and the challenges that it has faced. In addition, Geneva Henry is interviewing different groups at Rice to understand what information needs exist and how data is being employed. At the meeting, she passed out copies of the questionnaire that she has been using for these interviews as well as a sample profile based upon an interview. (These documents will soon be posted to the CODE web site.)

Through the committee's reports and Geneva Henry's findings, the committee will assemble a detailed technical profile of the digital environment at Rice.

3. The nitty-gritty:

The committee has a budget to support sending committee members on field trips around the country, as well to bring speakers and consultants to Rice.

Chuck Henry's office is available to help set up meetings and handle other details. Lisa Spiro (lspiro@rice.edu) will maintain CODE's web site, coordinate communications, and perform research.

The committee will usually meet in the Founder's Room in Lovett Hall or in a campus room which is equipped with the tools to support presentations, such as Power Point.

4. Planning for travel and for speakers:

a) Teams of 2-4 will make visits to Rice's peers and to leaders in information technology. CODE members suggested the following locations:

• MIT
• Carnegie Mellon
• Cornell
• Georgia Tech
• Silicon Valley+: Berkeley, Stanford, Xerox PARC, etc.
• University of Central Florida
• Monterey Tech (in Mexico)
• Also corporate leaders in Houston: Enron, Schlumberger, Texaco, etc.

b) CODE will also bring in speakers to address the committee and the larger Rice community. Recommended speakers include:

• Jack McCredie (CIO, UC Berkeley)
• Bruce Schatz (U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; also a Rice grad, and likely to be on the review panel)
• Janet Murray (Georgia Tech, author of "Hamlet on the Holodeck")
• Dan Seth Wallach (expert on computer security, Rice)

Chuck solicited further recommendations for places to visit and for IT speakers. Email them to Lisa at lspiro@rice.edu or Chuck at chhenry@rice.edu, preferably within the next week or two.

Alternatively, you can input your recommendations for IT speakers online at http://cts.rice.edu/rice/code/itspeak/edit/ (If you are on the committee and don't know the user id and password, contact Lisa Spiro at lspiro@rice.edu.)

So that we can identify who recommended whom, you might place your initials at the end of the entry.

The (growing) list of speakers is at http://cts.rice.edu/rice/code/itspeak/

A similar page will soon be established for suggested field trips. (Thanks to Shisha van Horn of CTS for setting up the speakers and travel pages.)

5. Upcoming events:

The next CODE meetings will be: Wednesday, July 12, 11:00 a.m., in the Founder's Room, Lovett Hall; and Wednesday, July 26, same time and location. Lunch will be provided at both meetings.

Information on the CODE website will be coming soon...

Minutes submitted by Lisa Spiro, July 6, 2000.

Home URL: < http://www.rice.edu/projects/code >
Copyright © 2000 by CODE.
Last updated December 28, 2000 by Lisa Spiro for CODE (Committee on the Digital Environment at Rice University).