CURRENT ENVIRONMENT

NATIONAL

           Information is one of the nation's most critical economic resources. 
      By one estimate, two-thirds of U.S. workers are in information-related
      jobs, and the rest are in industries that rely heavily on information.  In an
      era of global markets and competition, the technologies to create,
      manipulate, manage, and use information are of strategic importance for
      the United States.  Those technologies will help U.S. businesses remain
      competitive and create challenging, high-paying jobs. They also will fuel
      economic growth, which in turn will generate a steadily increasing
      standard of living for Americans.
      
           In response to the development of technology, the Clinton
      Administration has launched the National Information Infrastructure (NII)
      initiative.  NII encompasses an ever-expanding range of equipment
      including cameras, scanners, keyboards, telephones, fax machines,
      computers, switches, compact disks, video and audio tape, cable, wire,
      satellites, optical fiber transmission lines, microwave nets, televisions,
      monitors, printers, and much more.  The goal is to use this technology to
      provide all Americans with the ability to access information and to
      communicate with each other using voice, data, images, or video anytime,
      anywhere.
      
           Meeting this goal depends on the development of the high-speed
      and high-capacity National Research and Education Network (NREN). 
      The purpose of NREN is to establish a communications infrastructure that
      will significantly enhance researchers' access to distributed computing
      capabilities at research and educational institutions nationwide.  The
      NREN program will advance the state-of-the-art of networking technology
      and access to current high-performance computing facilities.  The NREN
      will serve as a catalyst for the development of a truly general purpose
      high-speed communications infrastructure for the entire nation.
      
     
 OHIO
      
           Ohio is often called an information state because it is home to a
      sizable number of international providers of electronic information (e.g.,
      Chemical Abstracts, Compuserve, Mead Data General, and Online
      Computer Library Center).  Ohio is leading the nation by creating
      innovative library and information networks to link academic and school
      libraries.  OhioLINK will connect seventeen major university libraries, the
      State Library, and seventeen two-year colleges by 1995.  It is currently
      operational at ten universities.  INFOhio is designed to automate and
      electronically link all school building libraries in Ohio.  There is also a
      plan, still at the discussion stage, to link all public libraries through a
      network to be called OPLIN.
      
           Internet access in public schools is supported in part through the
      Ohio Education Computer Network (OECN).  This project of the Ohio
      Department of Education provides Internet access to designated "A" sites
      throughout the state.  Each "A" site will be providing Internet access to its
      regional school districts.
      
           Access to information and network based communications tools
      such as electronic mail will be the applications which initially attract a
      large segment of the user community to networks.  Few users, however,
      will stop at e-mail for they will discover other resources instantly available
      to them through the networks.  As use of these networks increases, it
      should become clear that accessing information resources will be one of
      the central applications of networks in Ohio and across the nation.  
      
      
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
      
           Persistent technological change along with budgetary constraints
      create major challenges for the University to meet the technological needs
      of the academic sector.  The Self-Study Report for North-Central
      Accreditation notes that Kent continues to allocate an ever-greater
      proportion of its resources to computing in an effort to improve its
      networking, mainframes, instructional delivery, and information systems. 
      The University is in the process of constructing a Kent Campus fiber-optic
      network.  The use of computing and instructional technology in some
      academic programs, such as architecture, art, business administration,
      library and information science, and philosophy, is in the mainstream, if
      not at the forefront, of technological innovation. Further, Kent's Strategic
      Plan suggests that this trend will continue. One of the seventeen major
      initiatives identified in the Strategic Plan for the next three to five years
      states that the University should "enhance access, teaching, and learning
      by utilizing state-of-the-art instructional and communication
      technologies."
      
      
COMPUTING RESOURCES
      
           The Network and Information Systems Study, completed in March
      of 1993, made a number of recommendations for administrative
      computing.  Because implementation of these recommendations is likely
      to interact in significant ways with the development of academic
      computing at the University, a brief summary of the more important
      recommendations from that study is provided.
      
           The most critical of these recommendations for both administrative
      and academic computing at the University is the completion of the Kent
      Campus backbone of the university network. Two million dollars for
      Kent's FY95 and FY96 biennial capital appropriation have been requested
      from the Ohio Board of Regents to extend the backbone to all major
      buildings on campus.
      
           As a result of a recommendation to evaluate, select, and implement
      an integrated student information system and a data base management
      system, the University has purchased IBM's DB2 and the SCT IA-Plus
      integrated student information system.  The University also purchased an
      IBM ES9000 9121-732 computer system with enterprise server capability
      as a replacement for existing 3090-200s and 4381 mainframe computers. 
      In addition to administrative support, the new mainframe has the
      capability to serve as the cornerstone for advanced multimedia
      applications and their distribution.
      
           The Network and Information Systems Study also recommended
      that the University conduct a study of academic computing, complete the
      initial stage of distance education infrastructure, establish site licenses,
      develop an e-mail directory, update and disseminate the University's
      network plan, and enhance and expand dial-up access to network
      resources.  In recognition of the importance of computing to students,
      faculty, and programs, the University is moving forward on these
      initiatives.  A more detailed status report of progress on these
      recommendations can be found in Appendix G.
      
           Although there is a significant central computing facility on the
      Kent Campus, the academic computing environment is very dispersed
      throughout the campus and is quite extensive at all of the Regional
      Campuses as well.  In addition, the Library merits special discussion due
      to its importance in support of instruction and research and its broad use of
      technological applications.  The current computing environment is
      examined in four parts--the central facility, the dispersed facilities on the
      Kent Campus, the Library facilities, and the Regional Campus facilities.
      
      1. The Kent Central Facility
      
           Office of Computer Services.
      
           The Office of Computer Services supports two major computing
      systems--an IBM ES9000 9121-732 and two DEC VAX 11/780s--plus a
      large lab of personal computers.  The IBM is partitioned to run two
      operating systems, MVS for most administrative applications and
      VM/CMS for academic and research applications.  The DEC VAX
      11/780s can be accessed from twenty-one dedicated terminals in the
      central Library lab as well as via network connections from many other
      sites on and off campus and dial-in phone lines. There are eighteen
      dedicated IBM terminals in the Library lab to access the IBM mainframe,
      which can also be accessed from dozens of other sites on campus as well
      as via network connections and dial-up phone lines.  In addition to the
      VAX and IBM terminals, the Library computer lab contains forty-six
      MS-DOS personal computers.
      
           The VAX computers are intended mostly for undergraduate
      interactive computing but are also available for individual research and
      electronic mail.  The MVS side of the IBM is only accessible by classes
      using systems that are unique to that system and also includes the NOTIS
      library system.  The VM/CMS side is used mostly by graduate students
      and faculty, but is also used by some undergraduate classes and is
      available for all types of individual research.  In addition, it is currently the
      major electronic mail source for both academic and administrative users. 
      All of these systems require an authorized userid which is issued for
      specific classes for a semester or for individual research on a continuing
      basis.
      
           Software on the VAX systems is mostly geared to instruction. 
      There are several compilers for various languages, the standard system
      software, the EDT and Emacs editors, and other applications.  VM/CMS
      not only supports several compilers, but is also the central source of many
      statistical packages, including SPSS, SAS, BMDP, EQS, and LISREL.  In
      a typical semester, there are between 1,500 and 2,000 individual userids
      active on the combined VAXes, and there are currently over 2,500 userids
      active on CMS.
      
           General purpose computer labs.
      
           The personal computer lab in the Library is available to the entire
      University and does not require a userid for use.  The microcomputers
      located there are connected via a Novell network and run dozens of
      application programs, including word processing, spreadsheet analysis,
      and graphics.  Specific examples are WordPerfect, Lotus, Harvard
      Graphics, and Quattro Pro, but there are dozens of other packages, such as
      specialized CBE programs, available there.  On a typical day in the lab
      toward the end of the semester, there may be over 1,000 individual
      sessions of an average length of about half an hour.  This lab is the largest
      general purpose computing lab on campus and is undoubtedly the most
      popular due to the ease of access, the available hours, and constant
      staffing.  Most of the time it is at or near 100 percent utilization.
      
           There are other general purpose labs available to students. Audio
      Visual Services maintains a Macintosh lab in the Library and the
      Undergraduate Student Senate runs a lab in the Student Center.  There are
      three labs in residence halls, all of which have both DOS and Macintosh
      computers available.