Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
Date:         Sat, 26 Sep 1992 12:03:27 PDT
From:         Gordon Thomas 5-6384 <ENGLAB@IDUI1.BITNET>
Subject:      Campus-wide e-mail

I haven't written to MBU in a long time, mostly because of a change
I made in how I read it: instead of it being sent directly to me, I've
been trying the experiment of having it sent to the "NetNews" function
on our IBM mainframe.  That way MBU mail doesn't appear in one's personal
mail, and it's accessable to everyone who has a mainframe account.  However,
it also appears that we don't get it as rapidly because it's only updated
nightly rather than as soon as someone writes (when it came to me personally
I was sometimes able to answer someone and get an answer to my message the
same day).  This is sort of test to send anything at all.

I do miss the discussions, even though they were so time consuming,
and I miss the advice as well.  We have a new director of Computer
Services, Fritz Hibbler, who used to be at Michigan Tech.  I guess many
of you at MTU know him.  He has really been changing things around
at Idaho, and it's been an adventure keeping up with him.

One big change is that he managed to build a lot of enthusiasm on
campus (including getting the support of our provost and the managers
of all the other labs) to COMPLETELY replace the equipment in our
the 56-station lab that the English dept. has operated for the last
six years.  It's starting to look as though the administration is
serious about spending about $200,000 on this project.

I've been working closely with the Computer Services people and we
are awash with ideas about how this works.  Our consensus so far is
to have build a 60-station Novell network consisting of 486 33-MgHz
PCs, backup up by a Unix workstation capable of handling mail accounts
for approximately 3000 people.

As you might suspect, the support we are getting on campus is not simply
because everyone has been so impressed with the fine job we have done
for the past five years in introducing students to computers that they
decided to give us the very best equipment on campus for the exclusive
use of the English dept.  Although I like to the think that our lab
enjoys some respect for how we've used to help teach writing, the real
reason for this (potential) bonanza is that many faculty and Computer
Services people (and managers of other general-purpose labs) see our
facility as the cornerstone in building a networked set of student labs
run by various departments (including the central Computer Services)
and that INTRODUCES the students to this environment.

Perhaps you can see a little bit of my dilemma:  on the one hand, the
writing program is in a position to influence heavily the design and
the services that will be offered not just in our lab, but in every
"open" lab across campus that offers word processing facilities to
students.  For the first time, we'll be able to run up-to-date software,
including the whole Daedelus package.  We can also advertise our services
in any of the general education courses, especially the ones that require
writing (our dean is very enthusiastic about this).  Because the lab's
network will be attached to the campus backbone, users in our lab will
be able to load other software packages from other LANs on campus that
allow their software to be loaded in this fashion and Computer Services
is willing to encourage this kind of activity for certain software.

On the other hand, the "English Lab," as it's usually called is in some
danger of losing its identity.  As manager of my lab, I will have to rely
more than I have so far on Computer Services people for technical
support and direction (a burden I would gladly give up in certain
areas).  We also plan to end restricting our users to only those students
taking English courses.  Although we will still be able to schedule classes
to meet in the lab, obviously the pressure to use them as an open lab or
even (heaven forbid!) for ANOTHER DEPARTMENT's classes to come in will
inevitably increase.

My question for people on MBU is this:  has anyone else directed a lab that
has undergone a similar transformation?  From that experience (or even without
that experience), what pitfalls await us as we effect this transformation?
The earliest that we could actually purchase new equipment would not be
until next summer, but all the big political moves will have to be made
this fall.  (The Univ. of Idaho has a total enrollment of about 10,000
on its main campus, including 2500 first-year students, almost all of whom
take at least one writing course.  For several years now, all these students
have been required to word process their papers; using our lab has not been
required, but it has been the main place students in the intro. courses go.)

-- Gordon Thomas, Univ. of Idaho (ENGLAB@IDUI1)
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU