[305] in Resnet-Forum
Partners in the ResComp Initiative RECAP
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mike!)
Thu Jun 30 16:22:45 1994
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
From: Mike.W.Miller.40@nd.edu (Mike!)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 1994 15:05:57 -0500
Earlier I posted:
>At your various schools, is the residence hall computing initiative being
>driven by primarily the computing organization, primarily the student
>life/residence hall people, a partnership between the two, or some other
>group(s)?
>
>If groups other than the computing organization are involved, in what
>capacities are they involved? Do they help compensate or manage res hall
>consultants? Are they providing the services (servers and software) once
>the physical plant is installed? Other ways?
>
>I'd appreciate responses from as many of you as possible, regardless of
>what stage your ResComp initiative is at. Even something as simple as a
>single line ("Partnership; student life hires and manages the RCCs, we in
>computing train and support them") would be very helpful.
Thanks again to everyone who responded to my original request. Here are
the responses I received. I've edited out the sender's information in one
response, per that person's request, but the rest are complete with the
author's info:
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Well, at Auburn, there's not really an "initiative" at this point.
However, I've given these matters a fair amount of thought over the
last several years, mainly just so I'd have some kind of plan in
hand if anyone ever expressed an interest. The Residence Life people
have recently contacted me (somewhat tentatively) about the possibility
of an initiative. To this point the central computing facility has
not been involved (I'm the campus network administrator, and I work
for Telecommunications; the computer center is just another client,
although the one that provides the most services campus-wide).
We have a pretty good infrastructure in place -- all the dorms are
wired according to the AT&T wiring plan, although only the newer
ones have fiber to them (although the older dorms can have fiber
pulled to them fairly easily). We also have an "apartment village"
that is more problematic in that the buildings are small (lots of
wiring closets), and a long way from our "collapsed backbone" location.
Anyway, the way I envision things will work is that
a) Telecom and the computer center will develop some standards for hardware
and software;
b) Telecom will make cross-connects, etc.
c) Residence life will hire student consultants (probably with central
admin funding), who will be trained by Telecom and the computer
center. These will probably be the people who install NICs and
software.
d) Telecom or the computer center will be responsible for authentication,
etc.
e) The computer center will probably operate any servers required,
although it's not clear that any "special" servers would be required.
It seems to make more sense to me that the students just access the
same resources that they use in, say, the open clusters on campus.
They would, at any rate, provide software from existing or new
servers.
f) The computer center and Telecom, as appropriate, will provide "second-
line" support for the consultants.
Larry Owen email: owen@noc.auburn.edu
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We are just getting started, using a partnership of academic computing,
residential life, and telecommunications.
-Chip Nimick, U of Rochester
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Academic Computing 'sold' the vision of residential computing to the
college provost. I then solicited the participation of the Director
of Housing (DoH) who is excited about the project. Academic
Computing recommended two candidates for the computer resident
assistant in the one hall that will be our experiment for next year.
The DoH then interviewed both and made the selection. We will train
the student and provide technical consulting help, but he will report
to the DoH and participate in staff meetings with other resident
assistants. Anotherwards, he will be part of the residence-life
program (this structure was my recommendation). We are charging
students $49 per semester for full Ethernet connectivity. The
computing resident assistant will be compensated from the funds
generated by this fee. I would have preferred that the position be
funded by the housing program, but.... Academic Computing will
provide file service, but the computing resident assistant will be
the point of contact for all computing needs of the students in the
hall including managing the laser-printer resource.
William H. Doyle, Ph.D. Internet: doyle@bethel.edu
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We're only in the prep stages at Smith, but the idea is just about entirely
driven by the Information Systems group.
Frank Roach froach@ais.smith.edu Smith College
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Here at Williams College it's an initiative of the Center for Computing. We had
to talk the Deans office into it. :^)
Mark Berman Mark.Berman@Williams.EDU
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The initiative is being driven by the Computer Services Center. a few
students have asked for it, but they are not a driving force behind
it happening. The student life office is not involved in any way
(YET! ;=) ).
We are providing both the physical plant ( running fiber ) and
services ( New server and upgrade software licenses ). We will be
renting network boards to cover the cost of the boards only.
We will be using student workers (CS Majors) to provide help desk
support.
Matt Andres, CNE Centre College
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Sweet Briar College
Dorm wiring/net to dorm rooms is being driven by a telecom manager who is
putting in new wire for phone/TV and so he says "if the wire is there,
we can network the dorms" As usual here, no planning whatsoever, no thought
to the added load on computing/net personnel, and not thought
about any user support.
The Dean wants net in the dorms because a neighboring college says
it is going to.
Budgets for computing equipment have been very low the past 3 years
but now we are supposed to do this. That is typical here: no planning,
no budget -just do it.
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While our initiative began with a bold cross-divisional working group,
the Residential Life folks have, bar one, more or less dropped out of
the picture. The one who is still working with us is a great one,
indispensible, actually -- Bill Tempelmeyer, the Director of Housing
here at NU. He is a lot of help in knowing how his side of the
machine works, and he's excited about the project.
Housing did provide preferred room picks for our volunteer Residential
Computing Consultants (but we already suspect that the position will
shift to a paid one by next year, with more responsibility as well as
more compensation). Housing is also helpful in helping us know the
systems available for contacting large numbers of students, like mass
mailings and such.
But in general, our model is such that the project is primarily
technical and training oriented, and so Housing does not play a very
strong role in the planning or deployment.
joe germuska * j-germuska@nwu.edu
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Here at Stanford, Residential Computing is part of Residential
Education (the "student life/residence hall" people). We work
very closely with Networking and Communication services, but have
little contact with the CS Department or the folks who manage the
library and non-residence clusters.
Networking and Communication services does help train and pay the
Resident Computer Coordinators (RCC's) that have to deal with in-room
network connections. Other than that, our funding comes from
a combination of Res Ed money and Room rent.
For more information on Residential Computing at Stanford, check out
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/
DANE SPEARING | Residential Computing | Stanford University
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At our small (1800 student) liberal arts college, we will network our first
two dormitories (200 jacks) this summer. The push for residential
computing has been entirely from Computing Services.
A survey in November showed 65% of our students owning a computer, so their
dial-in load on our modem pool from their dorms, is tremendous. We are
eager to give them network access to free the modems for faculty dialling
in from home.
hhorton@cc.brynmawr.edu (Helen Horton)
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At Stanford, Residential Computing, an organization within our residential
life
group, hires, trains, manages RCCs and backs up RCCs on most technical
problems. RCCs manage computer clusters, consult with computer owners, support
in-room connections, provide computer skills training, and work with residence
staff to support the residence community (maintain email lists, dorm web
pages,
etc). We have basically created a fairly robust computing support group
within
our residential life department. We even do software development as necessary
by funding undergraduate programmers and graduate Research Assistants. We
work
very closely with Stanford's Networking support group, which is located within
an entirely different vice provost area. Networking actually pays part of the
quarterly RCC salary and helps train and manage RCCs who support in-room
internet connections.
Stanford is a very decentralized campus, so a good deal of our time is spent
creating and maintaining linkages with other campus computing groups.
Jeff Merriman birdland@dagobah.Stanford.EDU
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Primarily by Telecommunications, which just loves wiring new buildings.
(Seriously. They actually didn't even ask us (Network Operations), but
went ahead and wired the buildings and told the students they'd get some
kind of 'ethernet service'. We've been picking up the pieces all year...)
:-)
Residence Hall folks are helping publicize the service. The Computing
Center isn't really involved at all. My group registers the students for IP
addresses, gives them a package of free software and handouts on
installing and using it, and supports them using it. We administer the
Cisco router into the dorms, as well. Telecomm does the main wiring, and
fixes any wiring breaks.
We're still kind of new at this; there aren't that many student users.
Next year, we'll be training a few dorm residents to serve as local
support to the students, and giving them free installation and
connectivity in exchange for it (as it stands, students pay $45 install
fees and $15/month use fees, nearly all of which goes to Telecommunications
to help pay them back for the investment they made in wiring. We get
$3/month per connection, and none of the install fee.)
valerie@nothing.ucsd.edu (Valerie E Polichar)
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Information Technology is driving the change. We hire and train the
consultants that work in the res halls and find the residence folks
impossible. They don't have a clue. The senior administration and the
deans are solidly behind this initiative. It's the residence folks who
kind of want a hands off policy and want to be sure that the heads of house
do not have to assume any responsibility for this.
We put the common dorm computers into place almost in spite of them, but the
students want this so much that it has now taken on a life of its own.
Information Technology pays for the salaries of the student consultants.
The dorms work out their own paper policy and reserve policies (and each dorm
is different) and the dorm residents must pay for the paper used in the dorm
laserwriter. If we have a concern or need an opinion, we deal directly with
the House Council for the dorm. We try to get each dorm to name a liaison
to work with our own student consultant. Most have done this and it makes
the communication much better.
Pattie Orr <PORR@WELLESLEY.EDU>
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Holy Cross is networking (low-speed terminal access) the dorms. One was
already done as a pilot 2 years ago (the building previously was offices).
We asked for funding enough to do 30% of the rooms in each building. Falling
prices mean that by this fall, in 5 of 8 dorms we'll have 100% of the rooms
live. The remaining 3 dorms need wiring work and so will have to wait until
semester break or next summer. Turns out that we won't have to ask for too
much more money to complete the project.
All initiative for this project has come from the computing center. Support
staff will be mostly in the form of student work study out of the computer
center.
--Ellen Keohane Assoc. Dir, CIS Holy Cross
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We have had a lab open in the residence hall area since Jan '84.
We expanded into the 24Hour cluster concept starting in Fall'88. I drove
the initiative, as the manager of the computer lab. This was based on
student input (informal) and my seeing a need for some long-term plans.
Now, almost all student input comes from surveys (formal) and my
filtering of what I think they want/need and a few letters to the editor
of the school newspaper.
All residential hall students at Washington University will have
access to a 24Hour computing cluster this fall. We are also putting in
an optical fiber backbone over the summer. InRoom connections will be
made available as we get opportunities to get into the buildings. The
current phone wire is being pulled out and all new phone, data (Cat5),
and cable (TV) are being put in it's place. We (Residential Computing)
will manage everything from the hub's out. In each cluster, the
computers (Mac and PC compatible) will have software and printers.
InRoom connections will have a "suite" of software that will be availble
to any student wanting it. We are working out a system where the
students will download any of the software they want/need. We have RCCs
(student's who manage the clusters) in most of the buildings. The RCC
will provide some level of support to the in-room connection, mostly in
the way of training. We will have a 5-member team of student technicians
to do most of the trouble-shooting of our clustered computers and go into
any rooms that need more than dummy-checks (cable plugged in right slot,
etc..). The campus networking group will provide any "system" support.
Matt Arthur - arthur@wugate.wustl.edu Washington University
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Here at the University at Albany, the impetus to wire the dorms is
coming from the Div. of Finance and Business. This is viewed as a
recruitment and retention vehicle. At this point, we're focusing on
creating the physical infrastructure. All the thorny technical and
political questions have yet to be addressed.
Marty Manjak mm376@FINABUS.FAB.ALBANY.EDU
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The Residence Halls Computing Program (ResComp) at the University
of Michigan-Ann Arbor is a joint program between the Housing Division
(Student Affairs) and the Information Technology Division (ITD). Housing
and ITD equally split the salary of 2 FTEs that manage the program and
coordinate technical support services.
Program Components include:
17 networked sites located in University Housing
Peer education programs in everything from word processing to Internet
hunting
Software Development
Computer loan program that places networked computers in each resident
staff member's room
In-room ethernet connectivity for every student in 3 residence halls
Cable television to every resident room
Face-to-face, telephone and video-based consulting
Local support of "high end" instructional technologies
A strong paraprofessional training program employing about 50 students
as Resident Computer Systems Consultant (RCSC), LAN administrators,
area technicians, graphic artists, and consultants
This year, we're creating a prototype that merges the Residence Hall
Library System with the ResComp Sites to create the residential
library of tomorrow
Mary Simoni, Director Residence Halls Computing Program msimoni@umich.edu
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At UC Berkeley the ResComp Program is driven from within the Department
of Housing. I am part of Housing's Information Systems Group. Two years
ago I was able to convince the Director of Housing that this is an
important project and get the needed funding. From the beginning Housing's
ResLife Group have been involved. We have also been working with the
Central Campus Network Group, who provide the Residence Hall Facilities
with the connection to the Campus Backbone.
As the program has become more popular more groups on campus
are starting to get involved. I am hoping to start sharing the financial
burden with other departments, but so far Housing is fronting the entire
cost.
Jeff Kreutzen Residential Computing Coordinator
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Mike, at UT Martin we have just installed Ethernet connections in all dorm
rooms and campus apartments. They will be available for the first time this
fall. The entire project has been initiated and implemented by the Computer
Center. Housing has been agreeable but has played almost no part in the
process. (As part of the project and as a major funding mechanism, we also
installed a cable TV system.) The Computer Center is responsible for the
entire operation, but the Business Office will be charging and collecting a
networking fee ($10 per semester) from all students (not just campus
residents). We are negotiating with Housing regarding support for the
students. We hope to work out an agreement whereby Housing can supply a
free room to dorm "gurus" who will be the first line of contact for the dorm
residents, but so far no progress has been made along these lines. We think
that this support will be forthcoming, but funding may have to be shared
among several groups on the campus.
Dr. Otha L. Britton University of Tennessee at Martin
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Cheers,
Mike!
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| \ / | e-mail: Mike.W.Miller@nd.edu home/fax: 219 237-0788 |
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<A HREF=http://orange-room.cc.nd.edu/AboutMWM/AboutMWM.html>Mike!</A>
