[416] in Resnet-Forum
Recovering ResNet costs and supporting students
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Helen Peterson)
Wed Nov 23 10:40:40 1994
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 94 10:19:57 -0500
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
From: hpeterso@cc.brynmawr.edu (Helen Peterson)
Rich Peterson, from Randolph-Macon wrote:
> 1 - How much do your institutions charge students for access to
> "communication services" in their dorm room? Under "communication
> services" I would include phone, voice mail, cable TV, and of course,
> computer network connection. Do you charge them an all-encompassing
> one-time fee or separate fees? Also, how are the fees levied (as
>part of room bill, separate itemized fee, etc.)?
Bryn Mawr does not have cable TV or voice mail. All student rooms have
telephones. Our first two dorms (200 students) were wired for computing
network this summer. 82 of the 200 students registered for networking.
Bryn Mawr students receive a separate phone bill each month. There is no
charge for network connection at this point. They pay for their network
connector with a 10% markup to cover the cost of the RJ-11 or RJ-45 patch
cable.
The cost of the network electronics was covered in the capital expenditures
for wiring the dorms.
>
> 2 - How do you support student network connection from their dorm
> room? I am worried about connecting every type of PC under the sun,
> yet want to be flexible in meeting the needs of the students.
Your concern is well-founded. Of the 82 students, 69 were Apples and 13
were PC clones from ten different vendors. We decided to start out with
all Apples using Farallon Phonenets on AppleTalk, because it's so
inexpensive for the students. Next year, we will offer the Apple owners
with Ethernet capability that option.
The 69 Macs went on like a charm, with the students installing their own
software from servers, through AppleShare. We did insist that all Macs
upgrade to System 7, which for some students required them to purchase
memory upgrades.
It was very difficult to get the 13 PC clones online. They were nine
desktops and four laptops. We had to insist that some students upgrade to
DOS 6.0 so we could use the MEMAKER utility in our troubleshooting. We
ended up stocking three different Ethernet cards: SMS Elites for the
desktops, Xircoms for laptops: Pocket Ethernet III's and PCMCIA Credit Card
adapters.
>Do you
> have additional staff just to support students, do student assistants
> support students, or are students supported with current staff
I have five students, who are each "on call" one three-hour slot in the
evening per week. We paid them each a $100 stipend, because there aren't
many phone calls after the initial installations. We've did three evenings
in each dorm with a professional staff member there for the mass installs
of the Apples.
The PC clone installations were each unique and time-consuming, according
to the students' configurations. We finally had to ask the students to
bring their PC's into the Computing Center. That way, staff members could
work on the PC's in between their other duties.
One father was very angry that we would ask his daughter to carry her PC
across campus, even though I pointed out that students carry computers to
their dormitories when they purchase them new through us. (We have wheeled
luggage carts which we loan out to the students to carry the PC's on). I
ended up giving her a refund and I removed the Ethernet card from her PC in
her room.
>
> Any suggestions/answers/caveats that you would like to share would be
> most appreciated.
One special note, since Bryn Mawr and Randolph Macon are both women's
colleges, there is the added discomfort for our male staff members, when we
first tried visiting the student's room to install PC cards. The male
staff would have to be accompanied by a student employee, where I feel fine
there as a women. So I do the patching in the electronics closets, and
expect to have students do that next year.
Next year, we will do two more dormitories. We will separate the purchase
of the network connector/Ethernet card from registering for activation of
your room port. The connector purchase will be handled by the computer
resales students, and I will create some separate kind of database to keep
track of student requests for activation.
Dorm networking has increased the workload for the professional staff, and
we are going to double our networked rooms next summer. It would be smart
for you to request additional professional staff to cover the increased
workload.
The nice part is, the students really appreciate the capability. We hope
dorm networking will reduce residential student use of the modem pool,
freeing modems for faculty and off-campus students.
Good luck.
Helen Horton Peterson hpeterso@cc.brynmawr.edu
Associate Director, Academic Computing Phone: (610)526-7435
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010-2899 FAX: (610)526-7432
