The FMRC originally proposed the GSA program in January 1998 in reaction to specific goals stated in the final report of the UAPC initiative, Advancing the Legacy. The creation of the campus network, upgrading of desktop workstations and shared systems, and acquisition of software and databases has been responsive to faculty and graduate student needs. Overall, however, Boston College faces a sizable and costly challenge in meeting the UAPC's quoted goal.
Support constitutes a major missing element.
We have designed the GSA program in order to address issues of support for statistical computing. This includes many of the computing needs of researchers in the social sciences, and in the professional schools of management, nursing, education, and social work. These considerations likely address some research computing needs of science and humanities scholars as well. The use of data handling tools such as a database management system to provide storage and manipulation capabilities for sizable and complex datasets, as well as Web-based access and retrieval of customized extracts. Few researchers may be concerned with all four of these elements, but all four make up essential components of any research university's computing environment.