Executive Summary

We list here some of the major recommendations of the ITT Research Subcommittee, in no particular order.

• Every faculty member and support staff member with a demonstrated need should have a networked computer on their desk. Most of these should be capable of running state-of-the-art network discovery tools such as Mosaic and GUI-based email clients. The minimum network connection speed should be 10 MBS ethernet speed.

• Funds on the order of $500 per year per faculty member should be put towards the purchase/upgrade of faculty desktop computers. The average replacement cycle should be on the order of 3-5 years maximum.

• UMBC should begin installation of a new hub-based network that will alleviate bottlenecks in our existing network and allow increased sharing of resources that the next generation network speeds will make possible.

• A standard set of minimal services that can be made available to all users should be established and these services advertised aggressively. These services should concentrate on network communications and information retrieval tools rather than standard applications that are traditionally loaded on local hard disks. Faculty need a single point of contact for questions about desktop services. Presently it can be difficult to find the right person to solve a computer/network problem.

• Sufficient support for both the new networking software and hardware is absolutely vital. UMBC's Academic Computing Services is understaffed in comparison to similar institutions providing similar services. As more faculty use computers and the Internet, more ACS staff will be required for training.

• Network access from outside of campus via modems, and eventually ISDN should be encouraged and supported by installation of sufficient numbers of modems and training on how to use network-based information retrieval software from home via modem.

• UMBC's Internet access should be roughly 1/3 the bandwidth of UMCP's bandwidth, which is expected to be in the 145 Mbit/sec range in the next several years. UMBC presently has a 1 Mbit/sec link to the Internet. However, it makes no sense to increase our Internet access bandwidth until effective backbone Internet speeds increase significantly.

• There should be well defined, and properly staffed facilities for visualization, hardcopy, etc. available for faculty. We have some very nice facilities, but their management is uneven, and not well advertised.

• ACS, and other UMBC organizations, should use the World Wide Web aggressively as the vehicle for providing networked information to users. This allows users to learn only a single user interface for access to large amounts of information that is both internal, and external, to the campus. UMBC administrative units should be encouraged (forced?) to provide information to faculty via the World Wide Web whenever possible.

• The library should take a leading role in providing electronic/network based information to faculty and students. This is an area undergoing great change, with many difficult choices. The library needs to coordinate very closely with other ITT organizations at UMBC and track users needs for electronic information on an on-going basis. It is important for faculty and student to see as uniform an ``electronic window'' to information as possible, and the library should play could play a key role in the management of the organization of this ``electronic window''.

• UMBC's hardware for high-end computing should be kept at the same relative state-of-the-art. High-end computing is a very inexpensive way to provide a large number of researchers with a powerful tool to expand their research capabilities and increase UMBC's accomplishments in science and engineering.