Information Technology Services Annual Report, 1998-99

Michael R. Sherer, Director of Information Technology
August 4, 1999

The 1998-99 academic year marks the establishment of Goshen College as a technology leader in academia and the Mennonite Church. In August 1998, Goshen College and MMA formed Mennonite.net, a technology outreach which succeeded in putting the entire North American Mennonite Church on the web and is shaping up to be a major force in churchwide data and global technology services. In April 1999, Goshen College was named to the prestigious Yahoo "Most Wired Colleges List." While these two events were emblematic of the leadership role the college is assuming in the area of technology, there was plenty of other hard work going on behind the scenes that deserves recognition. These achievements included the following:

Administration

• Did significant work in the area of policy creation, particularly in ITS-Media.
• Wrote a $750,000 Lilly grant for Mennonite.net and submitted it.
• Wrote grant abstracts for classroom modernization and administrative modernization.

Classrooms

• Toured all classrooms on campus with the Academic Dean, the Registrar, the Business Manager, Bill Frisbie and myself. There were significant learnings, and a new-found appreciation for the need to renovate Ad building classrooms.
• ITS donated $500 toward classroom renovation.
• Classroom team formed, including Bryan Falcon, Patty Goodman, Pam Weishaupt, Bill Frisbie, Paul Housholder, and Michael Sherer, to address the specific issues involved in supporting teaching in our classrooms.
• Installed 5 new multimedia classrooms during fall of 98.
• Improved the interface on Crestron remote for the classrooms.

Community Relations

• Goshen College was the network service provider at St. Louis 99 and provided 25 computers and a wireless network for St. Louis 99.
• Mennonite.net is shaping up to be a big PR boon for the college. Many in the church are appreciative of this valuable service the college is providing.
• Making the Yahoo "Most Wired Colleges List" a big PR win for the college. We need to make the most of it.
• Worked with Mennonite Archives on electronic archiving options for the Mennonite church.
• Worked with Mennonite Publishing House to improve the way they gather data for the Mennonite Directory. In turn, got access to this key database for use by Mennonite.net.
• Peter Hartman and Jay Christner started GLUG, the Goshen-area Linux User Group and provided significant leadership over the course of the year. The group met in UN-004
• Hosted several training sessions for INCOLSA and the Goshen Public Library in UN 004
• Assisted Indiana-Michigan conference in wiring their offices.
• Provided media support for the Violence Prevention Conference.
• Michael gave Y2K presentations at Clinton Brick Mennonite Church and Nappanee Public Library. The Clinton Brick presentation resulted in a front page article in the Goshen News. Michael also gave two seminars on technology issues and Mennonite.net at St. Louis 99.
• Hosted the Junior High Computer Camp in UN-004, summer 99.
• Working with Mennonite World Conference on global congregational data gathering and web-site hosting.
• Did support and planning for Ethnic Fair, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Alumni weekend and numerous other high profile public events.
• Peter, Jay and Michael gave a presentation to MMA IT personnel on our web development efforts.

Computer Upgrades

• Virtually every computer system on campus was upgraded during Summer of 98.
• The transition to Windows 95, Netware Client 32, and MacOS 8 was completed during summer of 98.
• Office 97 and Windows 95 became campus standards for PC users during Summer of 98.
• Began moving to a 17" monitor standard. Purchasing ArtMedia trinitron monitors with 5 year warranties will allow us to lower unit cost on desktops.
• Significantly increased access to regional laser printers across campus. Added two in Newcomer, one in library basement, one in the Art building, 3 in Science, one in ITS Media, one in the Executive Offices.
• Began trial uses of Linux workstations on the desks of some Science faculty.

Data Systems

• Began migration of Oracle off the DEC VAX.
• Deployed Oracle databases on NT in production mode. Front ends and applications continued to run on the VAX.
• John Glick was on sabbatical during the first half of 1999. Gordon Bontrager, and Peter Hartman, with the help of Helena Mirtova and a host of students helped keep Administrative users working during his absence.
• Migrated from Allaire Cold Fusion to PHP for web application development.
• During Summer of 99 Migracorps undertook the massive project of porting every com file, screen and report off the VAX.
• Worked Y2K compliance issues on administrative systems.
• Ongoing discussions with key administrative stake holders regarding administrative modernization options.
• JAD session with Peter Messervy began the process of documenting our administrative processes.
• Out-sourced some Admissions-related work to Jon Werbianski, a local Oracle programmer.
• Wrote a white paper/grant abstract for TOSCA, The Open Source Collegiate Administration project. GC Online technologies would form the foundation of a freely distributed administrative package. We are still evaluating whether to develop this into a full-blown grant proposal.
• Wrote a PHP-based query-builder application, currently in use in Admissions that could have broader application on campus.
• Wrote a web front-end to the Admissions database that allows faculty to view prospective student data and add contacts. This eliminates the need for departmental recruiting databases.

Educational Technology

• Introduced CourseInfo to the campus, a web based service for publishing course content. Rolled out two upgrades to the product during the year that significantly enhanced its capabilities.
• Working towards automatically creating online courses and class lists for each course offered, using registrar data.
• Helped the library select and implement a high speed scanner for scanner reserve materials.
• Hired Tim Boshart to replace Bryan Falcon in December.
• Hired Mike McHugh. Mike and Paul Housholder will take over Bill Frisbie's responsibilities.

Labs

• KM Lab became a 7 X 24-hour-day lab
• Schertz Lab hours is now open 24 hours/day on weekdays, and holiday hours were expanded to accommodate DCP students
• The lab standard PC was upgraded to a 300 MHz Pentium II multimedia system with 64 MB RAM running Windows 95. This is up from a P200 with 32 MB RAM. The lab standard Macintosh was upgraded to a 266 MHz G3 PowerPC with 96 MB.
• Added a color laser printer and an 11 X 17 laser printer to Schertz lab
• Upgraded to PC-RDist 2.0, which provides us with new flexibility in our PC template
• Added CD-R, higher resolution flatbed scanners and Slide scanners to the Mac lab.
• Added MacAdministrator to the Mac lab, which forces authentication to Netware before users can access a lab Mac.
• Added a handicapped station in Schertz lab for students using wheel chairs.
• Upgraded our Digital Cameras to Kodak DC260's
• Added a Sony Digital 8 video camera for checkout.

Media

• Worked with Architects and GC staff on audio/video issues for the new Music Building.
• Defined A/V equipment standards and lifecycles for budgetary purposes and for creating a centralized A/V equipment management program to complement to the one in place for computing hardware and software.
• Acquired a Audio CD Recorder to improve the quality of music department recordings.
• Reviewed Micing placements for performance spaces.
• Developed training materials for audio engineering aesthetics.

Networking and Infrastructure

• The main campus network switch was upgraded to a Cabletron SmartSwitch 9000, capable of full-duplex 100 mbs speed. Ad building, Union and Newcomer also received network upgrades.
• Ad building was upgraded from Category 3 to Category 5 wiring
• Completed networking of all primary campus classrooms
• Added East Hall to the campus network.
• Successful wireless networking trials led to the deployment of a wireless network at St. Louis 99 and plans for use of wireless networking technology on campus for fall of 99, providing better connectivity for off-campus housing.
• Summer 99 switched to 100 Mbps switched ethernet in all labs.
• Began migration to switched ethernet in offices and classrooms.
• Began Server Room "Rackification" project, which will ease maintenance and space constraints in the server room.
• Networked the Merry Lea campus
• Implemented wireless remote control for WGCS transmitter.
• Began planning for gigabit ethernet backbone upgrade
• Began exploring possibilities of upgrading GC's internet connection from T1 to 45 MBit ATM.
• Made improvements to network monitoring and management systems to allow for automatic paging of support staff in the event a service outage.

Organizational

• After months of discussion, Computing Services and the Instructional Materials Center merged and became Information Technology Services
• The former IMC moved into newly renovated quarters in the south end of the Union Building.

ResNet

• Installation Fairs got students on ResNet in short order. Approximately 45% of students in the dorms had computers on ResNet, with these computers often being used by two or more people.

Services

• Rolled out GC Online, a framework for delivering secure web applications, to the campus in fall of 98. Students are now able to check grade history, fill out their time cards, check account balances, apply for graduation, check personal information and other administrative tasks from a web browser.
• Online Budget application allowed administrators to view their budgets online. A second revision allowed proxies in their department to view portions of the departmental budget.
• Added Certificate security to GC Online and calendar.goshen.edu allowing for secure transmission of data across the internet.
• Online registration, drop-add, grade change, hour change services are ready to enter production mode.
• Upgraded to Netscape Directory Server 3. Experimenting with OpenLDAP, a free Linux-based Directory.
• Deployed CS&T CorporateTime, the campus-wide calendar-scheduling program.
• Migrated to Netware 4.11
• Upgraded our Netware server hardware to faster processors and RAID, fault-tolerant disk arrays.
• Moved listserv services to Majordomo running on Linux, added an easy-to-use GC Online front-end to ease subscribing and unsubscribing
• Productionized calendar.goshen.edu's web client.
• Switched webmail.goshen.edu to IMP and continued testing.
• DNS and DHCP services moved to Linux

• Testing Netware 5, ZenWorks and latest versions of NDS.
• Experimented with Roaming Access for Netscape Communicator.
• Experimenting with QuickTime 4 streaming media server.
• ITS now provides FTP access to the M: Drive from home.

Training, Support and Staff Development

• Taught 30+ training classes for DCC's and other faculty/staff.
• Moved to a student student run help desk
• Began implementing a PHP-based Problem-tracking system.

Web

• Hired Pete Oakley, who took on the task of creating the new ITS website--a model for how other departmental websites should be structured.
• Communicator is now delivered via GC Online so that GC users coming in from non-GC ISP's are able to read it by authenticating to GC Online.
• Worked with Lyle Miller to create a Web Governance Document that is now guiding our web development.
• Formed GC-Web group, a cross-divisional group overseeing web development at GC.
• Paul Meyer Reimer led WebCorps, a team of student web programmers and found it to be a very successful model for departmental web development.
• Mennonite.net provided web sites for every Mennonite church, organization and area conference in North America.
• Registered domains for all anabaptist denominations served by MMA.
• Began initial explorations into the use of XML and related technologies.

Academic year 99-2000 is an unusual year for technology, in that Y2K hangs over all IT operations like specter. Assuming we are able to meet our obligations and complete our Y2K objectives, the second half of the year should be very successful, as our refined development methodologies and increasingly mature GC Online environment allows us to tackle problems that departments have been eager to have addressed. The removal of the Y2K burden will also allow more energy to be redirected toward maximizing our use of GC's state-of-the-art technology environment for the furtherance of our institutional objectives.

Challenges

Goshen College, despite enjoying a considerable amount of success in the are of technology, faces several short term and long-term challeges:

0. Y2K. More than most institutions, the college has maintained its technology infrastructure and should weather Y2K with relatively little disruption. The one are of exception is administrative systems, where a decade of neglect has left ITS scrambling to get prepared for the new millenium. Currently, ITS is on target to complete most departmental Y2K compliance issues by the end Q3 1999, with the remaining departments to be completed by November, when we are scheduled to complete the VAX migration.
1. Funding. The college current has a sustainable funding model for computing, however, there is continual pressure to cut the budget. Furthermore, there is ongoing pressure to expand services and to improve service quality. Solutions under discussion include Technology endowment, grants, designated giving in the area of technology, and using Mennonite.net to subsidize R&D. The alternative is to find acceptable ways to reduce services or pass along costs to departments.
2. Staff turnover. While ITS has had relatively little staff turnover compared to most IT operations, we did have three staff members leave employment at GC for various reasons and several staff outside ITS with significant computer knowledge either quit or took different jobs within GC. This puts considerable additional pressure on already overburdened IT personnel. We need to continue to find creative ways to make it attractive to make an IT career at Goshen College. We also need to provide simplified systems, good documentation and adequate training for administrative staff so that they can work independently.
3. Expectations are rising quickly. The rapid addition of services and software over the past year has meant that users are doing more with their computers and thus have increased need for training and support.
4. The user base is expanding rapidly. The addition of ResNet has increased the expectation among students for general computing support. The addition of dial-up network services has increased expectations among faculty/staff and retirees for support at home. The expanding enrollment in the Degree Completion Program and rising expectations for technology use in the curriculum is driving increased support demands among these students. The expansion of the installed base of computers also increases the support burden. We are adding an online problem tracking system to improve the efficiency and quality of support delivered through our help desk.
5. Human Resource issues. ITS staff has grown to the point that supervision, evaluations, reclassifications and hiring processes now consume a significant amount of administrative time.
6. Security and ethics in a networked environment are consuming increased amounts of time. We are working towards being proactive, but are often put in the position of being reactive.
7. Space issues are approaching a critical point in ITS. As we do more and make greater use of student labor, we are quickly running out of space. Also, the addition of mennonite.net and the exploration of entrepreneurial IT models hold significant possibilities for expansion. Moving a lab out of Schertz Computing Center into the library would alleviate the space problem, but also create a more distributed, and more expensive support model.

Goals for the Coming Year

ITS has identified numerous goals for the coming year. They are, by category:

Administration

0. Finish placing ITS policies on the ITS web site.
1. Continued refinement of the ITS formulaic budget.
2. Continue refining the entrepreneurial IT model as a means of improving and expanding IT at Goshen College.
3. Refinement of Technical Staff Career Path document.
4. Write and receive one or more grants
5. Get team infrastructure in place
6. Create service level agreements for ITS services

Community Relations

0. Promote Mennonite.net
1. Implement Alumni Technology Advisory Board

Data Systems

0. Continue to expand GC Online
1. Continue progress on administrative modernization.
2. Y2K compliance
3. Complete migration to Oracle 8 and Windows clients
4. Phase out Cedar VAX

Labs

• Add more PC scanners.
• Provide more disk space for students.

Media

0. Continue refining ITS Media policies.
1. In cooperation with the Music Department, define recording methodologies and microphone placement standards for all performance spaces and all ensemble types.
2. Document current and propose new Multimedia classroom planning and equipment acquisition procedures.
3. Upgrade cable television infrastructure.
4. Develop a web-based workorder request and tracking system to provide customers with a better interface and ITS with a better way to assure requests are being processed.
5. Capitalize on new developments in streaming media technology.

Networking

0. Continue migration to switched ethernet
1. Make the campus "laptop-friendly"
2. Improve IP address management.
3. Implement wireless LAN technology

Public Relations

0. Leverage mennonite.net to strengthen college/church relations
1. Capitalize on Making the Yahoo "Most Wired Colleges" list.
2. Highlight applied learning programs like WebCorps, DevCorps, TechCorps

Services

0. Reduce printing in general in favor of on-line access to data. Replace central printing with local printing in or near each department.
1. Test and possibly deploy Netware 5.
2. Provide dial-up access to the M: drive
3. Move toward a central printing budget
4. Single ID and password access to all services
5. Authenticated Online phone directory
6. Tighter integration between campus services and corporate data
7. Deploy GC image database
8. Deploy Web/Email Kiosks
9. Improve our client management capabilities using utilties like Novell ZenWorks.
10. Deploy Welcome Center Kiosk
11. Explore Winframe, X Windows thin client solutions
12. Continue exploration of Linux on the desktop

Training, Support and Staff Development

0. Continue to leverage the DCC program to train peer consultants
1. Continue developing the student-run Help Desk.
2. Implement the problem tracking database and knowledge database
3. Increase the quality and availability of Macintosh Support
4. Increase the quality and availability of Linux/Unix Support
5. Look for outsourcing opportunities in the training area. Train where we add value.

Web

0. Continue to improve and expand the ITS web site.
1. Add GC Online services for alumni and prospective students.

ITS has done much to strengthen Goshen College over the past year. An infrastructure is now in place which fosters collaboration, communication and innovation. The college's strategic plan calls for ITS to apply technology in innovative and effective ways. To achieve this objective, we will continue to improve the college's IT infrastructure over the coming year in new and exciting ways. Furthermore, we will work with members of the community to use that infrastructure in ways which further the academic and administrative goals of the college, build relationships, attract and retain students and differentiate the college from competing institutions.