Practical Organizational Plans for a Complete University Computing Service

It is intended in this paper to discuss only the organizational aspects of university computing programs from an administrative viewpoint. No attempt will be made to discuss the relative merits of various electronic computing facilities or their ancillary equipment (rented, bought or constructed), or the technical problems relating to computer-oriented numerical analysis and programming. It seems obvious that considerations of alternative organizational plans for a university computing program should be guided by a clear understanding that universities will differ markedly in their present and future requirements in the computing sector. Large universities may have quite different requirements than medium-sized or smaller universities or colleges. Again, universities which are heavily oriented in their research programs towards the physical sciences and engineering may have different requirements than those whose major research programs are in the biological sciences, agriculture, the social sciences and the humanities. Large universities, of course, may have computing requirements in all these fields. Universities may differ as regards interests and availability of staff in mathematics, statistics and computing who are qualified to work in computer-oriented numerical analysis, programming and machine language. Similarly, universities may differ as regards interest and availability of staff in physics and/or electrical engineering who are qualified to work in computer electronics involving logical design, switching theory, computer construction, research on component parts, maintenance, etc. Other things being equal, universities may still differ in their abilities to provide financial resources for the necessary space, facilities and staff for a computer program to meet user requirements. Finally, universities may differ with regard to the existing computing organizational structure (if any) and the status of knowledge about and extent of experience in administering the existing computing program (if any). The recent phenomenal development and improvement of electronic computers and programming procedures, and the realization of their importance in scientific research, education, automation, and in the processing of university records, have properly resulted in universities acquiring computer facilities and establishing computing programs. In many cases, however, due primarily to the rapidity of the growth and change, still underway, many universities have been able to make only ad hoc and tentative organizational plans. In many such cases the responsibility for the university computing program has been assigned to some university department or agency which assumed the initiative in promoting the program and/or was able to provide needed computing service staff and in many cases even provide a large share of the financial support, usually from an off-campus source. In other cases computers, acquired primarily for Business Office and Registrar Office work, have been made available for scientific research service computations on a part-time basis, which may have meant going to a second and even third shift.