This paper was presented at CUMREC '99, The College and University Information Services Conference. It is the intellectual property of the author(s). Permission to print out copies of this paper is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage and that the title and authors of the paper appear on the copies. To copy or disseminate otherwise, or to republish in any form, print or electronic, requires written permission from the authors.

Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health provides opportunities for graduate education, research and service in the diverse fields of public health, including the primary intellectual disciplines of public health; quantitative sciences such as biostatistics, epidemiology and demography; basic and applied research; social policy; planning, management and evaluation of the delivery of health services; and in the environment health sciences. These programs are designed for individuals from a wide variety of professional and academic backgrounds and experience in health. The school enrolls approximately 1500 full-time equivalent students and has approximately 500 faculty.

Abstract

Over the past year, the installation of a wireless laptop network has been part of a fundamental change in the way Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health has approached student computing. The wireless network has been one part of a three-part approach to making analysis and presentation of public health data an integral part of the curriculum. The two other parts include a pilot program of laptop computing involving 200 students to-date in acquiring laptop computers at reasonable cost, and the creation of a faculty resource center to facilitate faculty in adding an electronic component to their courses.

This paper describes the school�s efforts to date including: a brief history of the changes made over the last three years to the school�s academic and administrative computing environment; the implementation of the wireless network; a status report of the student laptop pilot, including summary of the data collected on student computer use during the first year of the pilot; and future plans for student and faculty computing.

This paper is of interest to those planning changes within their student and faculty computing environments, those who would like to know more about wireless networking, those who are considering requiring or facilitating student laptop computer use, and anyone interested in making large scale changes in their computing environments.

The Office of Information Systems (OIS) serves as the central computing resource for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. The goal of OIS is to provide state-of-the-art computer hardware and software for public health instruction and research.

Over the past three years, the school has completely revamped both the computing infrastructure and the computer facilities. A number of technological changes have taken place in SPH since the summer of 1995. For example, in 1995 �

• The school�s network was very fragmented, at that time the most recent piece of networking equipment was of 1988 vintage.

• Faculty and staff did not trust the network enough to allow their printers to be attached to the network.

• Network outages were frequent and sometimes lasted several days.

• Email was not a mission-critical application. Email outages were an almost weekly occurrence and lasted from several hours to several days.

• The Internet was not a critical research or communications tool.

• Dial-in access was limited to 12 modems and required special software for access of email.

• The school did not have a website.

• Distance education was not offered at the school.
• The school's 3 computer labs housing fewer than 60 computers were grossly inadequate for the school's1500 students.

Many factors in the outside world have changed since 1995 and have affected the technology development in SPH. For example in 1995 �

• Electronic security was a concern for governments only.
• The word "hacker" was not a part of our everyday vocabulary .
• The shortage of qualified information technology specialists was not severe.
• The Year 2000 was just a date not a cause for information technology panic.

In 1994-5 the school undertook strategic planning in the information systems area. As a result of that plan several areas were cited for improvement and change. Those areas included:

• Replacement of the school�s mainframe
• Upgrading of the school�s networking system
• Improved computing access for students
• Improved facilities for the computing staff

One by one all of the areas in the strategic plan have been addressed. In 1995-96 the entire network for the school was redone. A Digital 8200 AlphaServer replaced the school�s aging IBM mainframe. This server has over 3,500 accounts on it and is used as the primary email server for the entire school. A secondary use of the machine is as an application server for SAS, SPSS, and S+. This service is offered to all faculty and students.

In 1995-96 new network electronics were installed and all new wiring was run to each faculty, staff, and student work area. Each computer is now part of a 10 MB Ethernet network with a fiber backbone connecting the hubs and providing high-speed access to the rest of the university network

In 1997, all three computer labs containing a total of 75 machines were upgraded to state-of-the-art computers running Windows NT and the Macintosh OS. These facilities are available 24 hours per day, seven days a week.

Internet and email access are two of the primary services provided by the school. Access to those services is provided at the three computer labs, as well as through a remote access server containing 96, 56 kbps modems. The remote system was installed in 1997 and has been upgraded in 1998.

The OIS office space was completely remodeled in 1997 allowing, for the first time, all of the OIS staff to be located in the same area. Additionally, the data center was remodeled improving the arrangement of the room and providing redundant data and power systems.

THE WIRELESS NETWORK BEGIINS

With all of the talk of "wiring the schools" it's unusual to find a college wanting to become unwired. But that is exactly what happened at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Following closely on the heels of a 4 million-dollar replacement of the networking infrastructure and all wiring to faculty and staff offices, OIS sought a feasible alternative for students outside of the traditional computer laboratory. Owing to the age of the buildings and the limited space on Hopkins 'urban campus, creating more computing labs was not a viable alternative. Laptop computers have become an essential tool for successful completion of an education, and their presence is becoming ubiquitous in classes and open areas. Realizing that it eventually must provide a way to incorporate student laptops into the network, Hopkins experimented with wireless communications in the spring of 1997.

Designing kiosks for students to check email, briefly surf the web, etc., was an OIS goal in late 1996. While forming those plans, we began to look at wireless networking. Quite by chance, I attended a meeting at the corporate headquarters of Texas Instruments. I noticed staff members using their laptops when not actively presenting and that each laptop had a PC card with a blinking light. When I questioned them about this, the TI folks quickly grabbed an engineer for an impromptu presentation of their wireless network technology. I'd investigated wireless technology a few years earlier and was less than impressed with the bulky equipment and slow performance. It was a technology whose time had not yet come. What I saw in Dallas was different. The PC card was small and unobtrusive and the base unit was the size of a box of Cracker Jacks. When I returned to Baltimore, I invited a company representative to the school to demonstrate the unit to some skeptical network staff members.

We put the unit through its paces and found installation easy and setup quick. Rather than purchase outright, we asked for and received the opportunity to run a performance test with student volunteers. The tests were successful, and students were pleased with the performance. We quickly scrapped the idea for kiosks and provided students the wireless card for their laptops. We put the printers on the wireless network. Now students can print to the printer across the room or to any printer on campus. Students can check their email and complete research on the Internet from the student lounge, the cafeteria, or any classroom.

Table 1 - Wireless vs. Wired Installation

Therefore, the cost factor made the proposal for a wireless network most appealing to the administration. Wireless was so enticing. It made the best use of the school's open areas. Since Hopkins is located in the middle of East Baltimore, an urban site, students tend to arrive for classes in the morning and stay until time to go home. The campus environment, although short of space, is clearly designed to make many open areas inviting to students for a long period of time. Students gather to work on collaborative projects, meet for coffee, and generally enjoy the camaraderie of the professional school "atmosphere" in these areas. OIS wanted to make these open areas as attractive as possible to computer work. We originally placed printers with printer cables at strategic points in open areas for laptops, alleviating the need to wait in line for a seat in the computer lab to print.

With a pilot group of 40 students, the School of Public Health ventured forth to explore the viability of wireless communications. After 6 weeks of trials involving email, Internet access, downloading, and everyday business, the pilot was declared a success. The pilot was arranged with the help of Netwave, Inc., now a division of BayNetworks. Netwave arranged the loan of 40 PC cards and 5 access points for Hopkins to conduct the test. Experimenting with wireless was to alleviate the technological and financial problems associated with wiring classrooms. The school shared the vision of all students attending classes equipped with a laptop for note-taking, collaborative education, and as an aid to research. Providing laptop connections into the classrooms became one of the main challenges facing the architectural and information systems staffs.

Current classroom tables and chairs at the school are light and easily movable to allow faculty maximum flexibility in teaching space design for each class. Dropping wires into the classroom in a pre-set configuration was not going to be conducive to this arrangement. Building a false floor into each classroom and running wire connections into the floor at random intervals was an early idea that was dropped due to cost, aesthetics, practicality, and fear of the resulting "spaghetti wire" appearance. Equipping all of the school's classrooms, libraries, and open areas for wireless connectivity equaled the cost of wiring just the classrooms. (see Table 2)

The project has become so successful that have devoted a website to the project. (see figure 1) We plan on expanding this site to include information from other institutions of higher education who are experimenting with wireless technology and to form a clearinghouse for best practices and the exchange of information on wireless technology.

Figure 1 "Wireless" Web Site

From the humble beginning of 40 pilot users with 5 access points in April of 1997, the wireless network has grown to 350 users connecting via 80 access points virtually saturating the school's buildings.

Figure 2 Wireless Order Form

Figure 3 Student Laptop Survey