Establishing Ubiquitous Electronic
Communications in Education...

By Ernest G. Marshburn and Richard Brown

Following the completion of an ATM-based fiber-optic network linking the entire campus, East Carolina University implemented an initiative to provide a messaging solution that would give its 18,000 students and 4,000 faculty/ staff members a new way to interact. The choice? Microsoft Exchange 5.0 on a Compaq Proliant 5000 platform, making ECU the first university in the nation to implement Exchange 5.0 in an educational enterprise-wide model.

Solution Overview

School
East Carolina University
Greenville, North Carolina

Solution
Campus-wide messaging solution based on Microsoft Exchange 5.0 installed on Compaq Proliant 5000 servers.

Architecture
Microsoft Windows NT Server�based network, with six Compaq Proliant 5000R 6/200 computers each with 384 MB of RAM, 512K L2 Cache, and 16 GB of RAID (5) storage subsystems. There are approx. 4,000 university workstations, plus student-owned computers.

Products Used

• Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0
• Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Server

Benefit
Provides a seamless gateway for intranet and Internet services. Enables fast and reliable electronic mail from any port on campus, plus excellent remote access from any location on earth via the internet. Increases communication between students and faculty.

In education, nothing is more important than communication

Life experiences in a University are characterized by the free exchange of ideas, intense passionate debates, and long conversations that can take place during any hour of the day or night. From the unique perspective of students, one should say especially at night. In education, nothing is more important than communication.

East Carolina University is the third largest institution in the 16 campus University of North Carolina System offering more than 200 undergraduate and graduate degree tracks in fields ranging from medicine to underwater archaeology. Although similar to many medium sized state universities, ECU is atypical with respect to its priority on communication. While many universities say their goal is to stimulate communication between the faculty and student communities, ECU has implemented an initiative to empower university faculty, staff, and students with the tools to promote electronic communication across the university intranet and global internet. Underlying this decision is the shared belief that the integration of enterprise-wide electronic messaging technology in higher education is an urgent priority. Thus the initiative seeks to improve communication by tearing

down many conventional barriers to learning and leading to a new paradigm in which it no longer matters who you are or where you are; every member of the university community will be provided complete access to the new electronic communication system.

The Great Messaging Paradox

Previously, ECU had a very reliable and effective communication system, but this system lacked a GUI interface, provided only limited gateway support to other email platforms, and lacked office automation features such as document attachments. Moreover, the previous system was not scaleable, was command driven, and difficult to use especially from off-campus locations. As a result, ECU was eager to take the next evolutionary step in electronic communication.

In early 1996, ECU Chancellor Richard R. Eakin, established a comprehensive initiative that radically changed the electronic communication paradigm throughout the University community. This initiative focused on exploring new electronic communications solutions while focusing on real-world problems, challenges, and opportunities that accompany the incorporation of campus-wide messaging technologies in a higher education environment. Beginning with a taskforce composed of faculty, staff, and students, the search for a new electronic mail solution proved to be neither quick nor simple spanning more that 18 months of product research and evaluation before making a final recommendation.

During that period, some departmental units began addressing the need for improved electronic communication independently by installing their own email systems. Consequently, campus electronic communication problems intensified as the number of competing and incompatible e-mail systems on campus increased.

Although many solutions were evaluated, five leading message solutions were identified for extensive study. These solutions included: IBM/Lotus Notes, Novel Groupwise, Microsoft Exchange, Netscape Mail, and Eudora. Each solution was subjected to extensive research and rigorous field tests as a part of the review process.

Factors such as cost efficiency and a scaleable architecture were viewed as strategic requirements; however, the most significant factor influencing our decision was the ability of the product to meet the needs of the "nomadic user". Unlike the business community that defines mobile computing as a "laptop", members of the education community routinely move between dorms, offices, public access labs, etc. while requiring email access from any available workstation.

We�re not just adding technology; we�re changing the delivery of instruction

Following the review process, the decision was made to select Microsoft Exchange as ECU�s electronic messaging solution. This decision was the result of several factors. Office Automation emerged as a strategic administrative priority, POP-only clients were ruled out as not satisfying the nomadic user requirement, and IMAP clients were not yet commercially available. Ironically, none of the proprietary solutions fully met the nomadic user requirement and in addition were significantly more expensive to implement. The turning point was a meeting with Microsoft officials who expressed an interest in developing a partnership with ECU. The partnership objectives were designed to demonstrate that Exchange could be successfully implemented in an educational setting. The partnership also offered ECU the opportunity to become a model for other universities interested in capitalizing on cost-effective intranet and Internet based educational information technologies. Although Microsoft Exchange had been widely accepted within the business community, the unique environment of academia caused institutions to exercise great caution before considering the adoption of significantly different email technologies.

While cost efficiencies were a major consideration, implementation costs, long term maintenance and ongoing training requirements played heavily into the decision making process as alternative solutions were reviewed. Significantly, the cost of implementing Microsoft Exchange end user support was significantly lower due to its GUI interface and techniques for seamless integration with other highly-used Microsoft products. The chart on the following page outlines the total project costs of the ECU Exchange Initiative.

A New Mode of Interaction

When Microsoft Exchange 5.0 was introduced in March 1997, ECU became the first educational institution in the nation to implement it on an enterprise-wide basis.

As mentioned earlier, University administrators emphasized communication as a vital part of the educational process; therefore, Microsoft Exchange was selected as the campus electronic communication standard with the intent of increasing and strengthening interaction across the university and especially between university faculty and their students. Notably, university officials credit this top-down broad-spectrum campus approach as being the single most important factor contributing to a successful outcome of this initiative.

Now that Microsoft Exchange is the new ECU electronic communication standard, for the first time ALL faculty, staff, and students have been issued an e-mail account and PIN number. Additionally, everyone is provided access to the campus intranet and Internet. Individual on-line calendars provide an efficient way to schedule campus meetings. A Web-browser interface allows access to campus resources from any location with Internet access, including email access from both on and off campus. As a result, the Microsoft Exchange web connector became the campus standard designed to meet the needs of nomadic academic users. Our goal, to actively engage everyone in fully integrating electronic technology into all aspects of university life. From simple easy-to-use electronic communication to the complexity of integrating instructional technology and distance education into the curriculum, the electronic communication choice for the educational environment became clear. The Microsoft Exchange Initiative created an easy-to-use ubiquitous environment in which all have the option to pursue their academic goals. We�re not just adding technology, we�re changing the delivery of instruction.

Epilog

Certainly hindsight is 20/20 as we reflect upon the successes and failures of the ECU �Microsoft Exchange Initiative�. The period between the faculty/staff roll-out and the student roll-out proved uneventful with the exception of two incidents which reinforced our confidence in this solution. The first incident occurred when a faculty member inadvertently initiated a looped email message sequence that generated more than 11,000 email messages in less than an hour. Only a slight degradation in system response time was noted. A similar problem on another campus crashed that email system for several days. In a separate incident, two separate unexpected power outages occurred during a weekend resulting in two successive Exchange server crashes. To our surprise and delight, the only evidence of these crashes on the following Monday were the reports in the system logs. From our perspective, we have found the Microsoft Exchange LAN client to be exceptionally stable and reliable. Regrettably, the student roll-out did not proceed as smoothly. Student access to Microsoft Exchange was exclusively designed around the Microsoft Exchange Web connector. At first, the web connector lived up to expectations as the ideal �nomadic user� client, unfortunately, as the Fall semester progressed the Microsoft Exchange web connector experienced increasing degradation. Under the previous mainframe based email system, concurrent user loads under 150 were observed even during exams. Within a month following our Fall semester student roll-out, concurrent user loads on the new system were in excess of 600 with more than 6000 logins per day. While the intensity of this load is believed to be a contributing factor in the response degradation, it should be noted that ONLY the Exchange web connector wasaffected. Exchange access through other means showed no signs of system degradation. When intensive efforts and an upgrade to Microsoft Exchange 5.5 failed to ease this degradation, other alternatives to provide students with Exchange email access were sought. It should be noted that Microsoft has remained a steady and committed partner during this ordeal providing significant technical support. However, while progress involving Exchange Web Connector stabilization continues to be made, the solution remained elusive. As a result, the strategic decision was made to enable two alternative Exchange access solutions. Beginning Spring Semester, POP and (new in Exchange 5.5) IMAP access was enabled. Conversely, while the activation of these protocols significantly improved student access to Exchange, neither option provided a solution applicable to the needs of the nomadic user.

Perhaps it goes without saying that in most every cloud, there is a silver lining. In this instance, a staff member in ECU�s department of academic computing developed an interface between the Microsoft Exchange LAN client (the same one used by ECU faculty/staff) and any university user. It should be noted that the installation of the Microsoft Exchange LAN client was not initially possible in public access labs and prior to the development of the nomadic user/Exchange interface due to the complexities of individually configuring access profiles for every person who might utilize a specific public access workstation. The interface developed by academic computing enabled access profiles for any user to be built on the fly. Additional benefits included the provision of personal address books in public access labs (through the use of a diskette) and the development of consistency between the email systems used by faculty and students. This consistency has also proved beneficial to faculty who provide students with assistance in using Microsoft Exchange through knowledge gained from personal interaction with Microsoft Exchange from their office.

In summary, has the roll-out of Microsoft Exchange at ECU been perfect...No, but given the technical complexity of this challenge, should we have expected perfection? In retrospect, if given the opportunity, would we choose to follow the same path again and install Microsoft Exchange? The answer is…Yes. This experience has taught us many lessons concerning the implementation of a client-server system. Most notable is the need to consider the benefit of a carefully managed incremental roll-out, especially with respect to the student community, rather than a ‘hail-Mary’ attempt. Also, while not an option at the time this project was implemented, a closer look at IMAP as an additional strategic component designed to augment the LAN and web client solutions should be considered.

The bottom line, East Carolina University has very high expectations when it comes to its enterprise-wide communication system. Our resolve and commitment to meet these expectations will continue.

Email: [email protected]

Richard Brown is the vice chancellor of administration and finance at East Carolina University.

Email: [email protected]