Mr. Fishman was and is a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents, which governs The University of Memphis, and serves as chairman of the board's finance committee. Occasional comments to the effect that I'd not want to tell Mr. Fishman that we could not or would not fulfill our contractual commitments nevertheless proved unusually effective in eliciting cooperation from those predisposed toward the status quo. The NNA contract is a relatively recent development, however, and the prior history of our efforts is of at least equal interest. Finally, CIS software met our needs. Split screen technology permitted users to prepare their comments in one frame while reading those of classmates and instructor in another.
Log files capture verbatim transcripts of every class meeting.
And the CIS e-mail system supports individual and group messaging as well as file transfer. Retrospectively, the decision to use CIS was more beneficial than had been anticipated. A number of administrative obstacles had to be overcome, but no additional university resources were necessary to initiate course delivery. Faculty computers were equipped with modems. CIS software was free to faculty and students alike, and while CIS on-line charges were somewhat higher than those of Internet access providers, few students encountered long distance costs because of the breadth of the CIS telephone network.