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We list here some of the major recommendations of the ITT Research
Subcommittee, in no particular order.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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''.
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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.
Next: Preliminaries
Up: No Title
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Dr. Larrabee Strow
Thu Mar 30 17:21:15 EST 1995