[2061] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
NREN and the Economics of Mainframes Versus Workstations
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Stephen Wolff)
Thu Jan 23 09:23:46 1992
To: cook@tmn.com (Gordon Cook)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 92 08:22:15 EST
From: Stephen Wolff <steve@ncri.cise.nsf.gov>
->The NREN legislation lets researchers use their grants for network expenses
->for the first time.
Not so. At NSF, at least, there has NEVER been a prohibition against
a network charge as a line item in a grant application budget; in practice,
though, program officers interested in holding down the bottom line tended to
cut "frills", so the record is spotty.
The former Director of NSF, Erich Bloch, in fact issued a Memorandum to Staff
*specifically* allowing network charges on grants - but in the event, the
"bottom line effect" continued to prevail.
It's nice that the NREN bill also gives permission for network charges, but I
predict that the Congress will be just as unable to effect the needed social
change in funding agencies as the Director of NSF was.
Of far greater importance for universities would be a modification to OMB
Circular A-21 (?) specifically allowing the inclusion of network charges in
the **indirect** cost. This is the cleanest way to provide for ubiquity of
network access within the University - to extend network access beyond the
traditionally wealthy science and engineering departments to traditionally
grant-poor departments ( e.g., philology, history). It is of course a "soak
the rich to feed the poor" strategy, but it has the property that it does
soak *all* the rich and all at the same rate and so is equitable in that sense.
Unhappily, given the pressure - including "caps" - on the indirect rate, as
well as the recent celebrated indiscretions at some schools, the actual effect
of even such a radical change to A-21 would likely also, IMHO, be nugatory.
-s
