The availability of networking and pervasive desktop computers has not only changed the character of the institution, it has changed the type of people that we want to hire. It has changed the kind of students we want to recruit. The expectations of these new students, faculty and staff for more and better networking and desktop computers are high and rising. Thus, by satisfying initial needs for networking and information technology access, we have sown the seeds of new demand through fundamental change within the University. The rising expectations produce a new set of issues.
Network bandwidth becomes a critical success issue for students and faculty.
While students and faculty were delighted to be able to up- and download files from mainframe to desktop computer at 9600 baud several years ago, their current usage patterns have made this approach obsolete. Access to the Internet and its wealth of resources has accelerated the demand for file transfers between systems. Users are no longer content with slow transfer rates when they have many files a day to up- or download. Rising expectations have also caused increased demand for support services. Both reference librarians and computing center personnel are increasingly swamped with demands for help with accessing the wealth of information available on both the campus network and the world-wide Internet.