NDSU Computer Planning and Goals Committee

Subcommittee on Internet User Needs

3 year plan

March 31, 2001

 Values Statement 

A strong World Wide Web infrastructure and support system facilitates dynamic community building and growth at NDSU.

 Goal

NDSU should empower all NDSU constituents to develop, provide and retrieve web content in a secure manner. Support and access mechanisms should be available from anywhere, at anytime. By constituents, we connote students (including those enrolled in continuing education and distance education courses, student organizations and clubs), staff (including those from all categories of classification: Professional, Technical, Office, Crafts & Trades, and Service), faculty (including instructors and adjuncts), administrators, and others (such as alumni, outreach groups).

 Rationale

Over the next three years, computing will move from desktops to the web. Applications and data will reside on the web, and desktops will become display devices (thin clients). Communities, which are groups of constituents with common goals, will also exist on the web. NDSU should provide user level support to help all constituents (students, staff, faculty, and others) to not just be passive receptors of information, but to become contributing members of these communities.

Community Building Priorities

1. All NDSU constituents should have easy access to web server space, including support for database, streaming video/audio, and live conferencing.

2. Technical innovations should be sought out and evangelized to the user community.

Recommendations

1. Self-sufficiency of all constituents to populate web pages – “a course-info for the rest of us.” Currently only limited members of the NDSU community create and populate web pages. Students may use the ACM webserver, faculty and staff may use webdev or in many cases departmental or personal servers, but there is no general provision for webspace. By year two of this plan, every member of every NDSU constituent group should be provided webspace and user-friendly tools for populating it[i]. Web storage space should increase in anticipation of needs.
   
   This recommendation addresses the following visions of the NDSU IT Visions (9th draft): "Apply information technologies to remove circumstance and location barriers to academic participation, degree completion and student success" and "Develop information technologies that foster reciprocal strategic alliances."
   
   
2. Campus-wide web access – “a web browser in every hallway.” Currently web browsers are not available in many study nooks, hallways and lounge areas of various buildings across campus. An effort should be mounted to distribute many low cost web access devices, essentially “thin clients,” across the campus[ii].
   
   This recommendation addresses the vision: "Apply information technologies to remove circumstance and location barriers to academic participation, degree completion and student success."
   
   
3. Database access and support. Access to database services will become one of the most important issues for constituents over the next three years. Constituents will be amassing, organizing, and mining various data types including everything from video clips, to pictures, to sounds to other types of binary information, to conventional lists. They will want to serve these data to other constituents and to the world, from their databases. Currently, NDSU constituents use a variety of database tools to manage and serve data over the web (Microsoft Access; or writing their own CGI’s, Oracle, etc.). However, there is no simple campus-wide system that is easy to use for non-technical people. A committee consisting of Dr. Jim Ross, Rod Cody, Elizabeth Smith, Laura McDaniels, Jody French, Carol Tschackert, Meredith Sherlin, Micky Klocow, and Nancy Lilleberg is investigating options and should report its findings to ITS and CPG. Over the next year or so, a user-friendly “content management system,” which empowers constituents to populate and dynamically serve data, should be acquired and deployed. Potential users should be educated with training sessions and on-line tutorials.

Smooth integration of the campus user database with other databases will be important. These include the K-12 and Higher Education Enterprise System (administrative database) that is planned to be acquired by the state, the library database, and others.

A database administrator position should be considered by ITS.

This recommendation addresses: "Develop information technologies that foster reciprocal strategic alliances," "Apply emergent information technologies that enhance the rigor of academic programs and advance NDSU in new ways,"and "Employ IT in new and innovative ways to carry NDSU’s message of teaching, research, and service."

4. Streaming media – sound and video. As visual and audio information becomes easier to create and distribute on the web, user-friendly tools should be provided for NDSU community members to serve real-time or archived video and sound. These tools should be developed in tandem with support of distance learning initiatives on campus.
   
   This recommendation addresses: "Develop information technologies that foster reciprocal strategic alliances," "Apply emergent information technologies that enhance the rigor of academic programs and advance NDSU in new ways,"and "Employ IT in new and innovative ways to carry NDSU’s message of teaching, research, and service."

5. Videoconferencing carts in each building. Following the model of the Multimedia Carts available across campus, carts with videoconferencing equipment should be supplied in each building[iii]. The carts could be reserved and scheduled using the Resource Reservation Request system already in place. As the technology becomes more commonplace and lower cost, implementation can be phased in across campus, similar to the phased introduction of the Multimedia Carts. Support will need to be provided.
   
   This recommendation addresses: "Develop information technologies that foster reciprocal strategic alliances," "Apply emergent information technologies that enhance the rigor of academic programs and advance NDSU in new ways,"and "Employ IT in new and innovative ways to carry NDSU’s message of teaching, research, and service."

Respectfully submitted,

 B. Saini-Eidukat, chair

Nancy Lilleberg

Nem Schlecht

Justin Pratt

Paul Juell