Electronic Mail and Networks: New Tools for University Administrators


Copyright 1990 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 13, Number 1, Spring 
1990. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this 
material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed 
for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its dateappear, and 
notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association 
for managing and using information resources in higher education. To 
disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For 
further information, contact CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, 
Boulder, CO 80301, 303-449-4430, e-mail info@CAUSE.colorado.edu


                       ELECTRONIC MAIL AND NETWORKS:
                  NEW TOOLS FOR UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATORS
        by Daniel A. Updegrove, John A. Muffo, and John A. Dunn, Jr.

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This article was adapted for CAUSE/EFFECT from the authors' "Electronic
Mail and Networks: New Tools for Institutional Research and University
Planning," AIR Professional File, in press.

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Daniel A. Updegrove is Assistant Vice Provost for Information Resource
Planning and Data Administration at the University of Pennsylvania.
Previously he was Vice President for Membership Services at EDUCOM.

John A. Muffo is Assistant Director of Institutional Research and
Planning Analysis at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University. He is an officer of the Association for Institutional
Research and editor of the electronic AIR newsletter.

John A. Dunn, Jr. is Executive Director of the Center for Planning
Information at Tufts University. He was previously Tufts' Vice President
for Planning and is now President of the Society for College and
University Planning.

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ABSTRACT: This article was written by and for university administrators, 
although the principles described apply to faculty and students as well. 
The authors share their knowledge of electronic mail -- what it is, how 
it works, how it can be used by campus administrators -- and national 
and international academic networks -- how to get connected, how much it 
costs, how to use BITNET and Internet. Included are "pointers" to 
additional resources such as special interest group mailing lists and 
selected Internet-accessible library catalogs and databases.

  *  A newcomer to data administration subscribes to several electronic
mailing lists and soon learns about both current issues and
knowledgeable authorities in the field ...

  *  An administrator researching campus information security policies
sends a query to an electronic mailing list and is informed of an on-
line archive of such policies at a university 2,000 miles away ...

  *  An institutional researcher needing comparative financial
information for a report to the provost sends electronic mail to a list
of colleagues and has useful data from around the country the following
day ...

  *  Three colleagues at different institutions collaborate on a paper,
using electronic mail and networks to exchange outlines, drafts, and
critiques of their work in progress from colleagues around the country;
when finished a "preprint" of the paper is made available in an on-line
articles archive and over a dozen requests for permission to publish are
received within six weeks ...


Use of electronic mail has grown rapidly in recent years, reflecting the
proliferation of microcomputers and networks -- departmental and other
local area networks, campus-wide networks, and inter-institutional
networks. University administrators, even those in non-technical areas,
are joining their computing center and faculty colleagues in making
extensive use of these systems for convenient and inexpensive access to
colleagues and data sources. Moreover, current and planned developments
in campus and inter-campus networks promise to make these capabilities
even more accessible and powerful.

Those of us already using networks would benefit, of course, if
more of our colleagues and their data were accessible. In addition we
observe that many people currently connected are using only a small
fraction of the power and resources available on the world-wide academic
networks. Thus this article both introduces electronic mail and networks
and provides a set of "next steps" for those who are relatively new to
networking.

Given the wide range of computer sophistication in the higher
education community, we have tried to present concepts and
recommendations in non-technical language. Networking is a fast-changing
field, so some of this material may be different by the time you read or
try to use it. Moreover, specific commands are for example only; you
will need to consult local documentation if these commands do not work
in your environment.

What Is Electronic Mail?

Electronic mail (or "e-mail") is a computer-based system for
exchange of messages and other information, which may include textual
and numeric data, computer programs, and (in some advanced systems)
graphics. E-mail is one of the most common applications of time-shared
computers, mainframe computer networks, and (more recently) local area
networks of microcomputers; it fulfills a widespread need for rapid,
easy, inexpensive communication with individuals and groups, all of whom
need not be available simultaneously.

Electronic mail should be distinguished from two related forms of
electronic communication, voice mail and facsimile (fax). Voice mail is
a computer-based system for exchanging voice messages, which can be
recorded, reviewed, forwarded, filed, and retrieved from local as well
as remote telephones. Such systems are especially popular among non-
typists and those who travel frequently. Fax is a system for
transmitting images via telephone lines; the typical fax machine is a
dedicated device containing a scanner for converting printed images into
digital form, a modem for sending and receiving the data, and a printer.
Fax machines are extremely easy to use and have the advantage over most
e-mail systems of transmitting graphics as well as text; unlike e-mail,
however, the transmission is not easily manipulated on the receiving
end, since most faxes produce only paper output.

Although it is useful to keep these three technologies distinct
conceptually, they are, in fact, merging. For example the computer
workstation introduced in 1988 by NeXT, Inc. features voice mail
integrated with electronic mail, and several companies have recently
announced add-on hardware and software for sending and receiving fax
transmissions via personal computers.

How Does Electronic Mail Work?

The specific implementations of electronic mail vary across many
software and hardware environments, but the basic concept is a computer-
enhanced memorandum:

  *  "Date" is included automatically.

  *  "To:" is the correspondent's computer user identification, which
could be "Catherine," or "Smith," or "AYG93G." If you are sending mail
to another computer, the address will commonly include both a user ID
and a computer (or "node") ID, such as "Dunn@Tufts," or"IRMUFFO@VTVM1,"
or "Updegrove% a1.relay@upenn.edu." The last address is in the so-called
"domain" style, with the suffix "edu" designating education, as opposed
to commercial ("com"), military ("mil"), etc. Alternatively the
memorandum could be sent to a pre-defined list, such as "managers."

  *  "From:" is the sender's user identification, inserted
automatically by the system.

  *  "Subject:" is usually a few key words typed by the sender.

Once this "header" is complete, the content of the memorandum is
entered either from the keyboard or by including a previously-composed
file (perhaps from a personal computer). The completed memorandum is
"sent" to the recipient(s), who at some later time can issue a command
(again, depending on the local system) to read, reply, delete, print,
forward, or file. Reply is especially convenient, since most systems can
simply reverse the "To:" and "From:" in the header.

This sounds pretty simple, but what does "send" mean? If both
sender and recipient are users of the same time-shared computer (or
local area network file server), sending is simply storing a copy of the
message on a system disk and alerting the recipient that mail has been
received. In the case of a networked campus, the message may travel from
the sender's IBM PC through a departmental network connected to the
campus backbone network, which relays it to another departmental network
where it is accessed by the recipient using an Apple Macintosh. If the
correspondents are in different institutions, the message could be
transmitted via the rapidly growing national and international networks.

National and International Academic Networks

Networks now interconnect the mainframe computers and campus
networks of hundreds of colleges and universities in the U.S. and
abroad. The earliest academic and research network, ARPANET, was
established nearly twenty years ago by the Department of Defense to
facilitate advanced research projects. Other specialized networks have
been created to support specific fields -- such as computer science
(CSnet), magnetic fusion energy (MFEnet), and high energy physics
(HEPnet) -- and specific operating systems such as UNIX (UUCP/USENET).
The largest general purpose academic network is BITNET, founded in
1981 by City University of New York and Yale, which now links over 480
American colleges and universities with a similar number in Asia,
Africa, Canada (where the network is known as NetNorth), Europe (where
the counterpart network is EARN), Latin America, and the Middle East
(see Exhibit 1). The primary uses of BITNET are electronic mail and file
transfer, with transmission speeds typically limited to 9600 bits per
second (bps) over leased phone lines. (At 9600 bps, one screen full of
text can be transmitted in under 2 seconds.) BITNET is governed by an
independent Board of Trustees and is managed under contract by EDUCOM,
which works closely with NetNorth and EARN to ensure the dependable
operation of a network that connects 2,850 computers and provides
"gateway" connections to numerous other networks (Exhibit 2).

In September 1989, the governing bodies of BITNET and CSnet agreed
to an administrative merger, under the aegis of a new Corporation for
Research and Educational Networking -- CREN. The basic BITNET network
services described in this article are not expected to be affected by
this merger.

NSFNET is a newer, higher-speed network created with support from
the National Science Foundation to provide remote access to
supercomputers and other resources needed for advanced academic and
commercial research and development. NSFNET is a three-level network:
the backbone (national trunk lines) interconnects twenty-three mid-level
nets, which in turn provide connection points for over 250 campus
networks (see Exhibit 3). Collectively, the NSFNET backbone, mid-level,
and campus nets, plus several other interconnected networks that all use
a common protocol (TCP/IP) and the domain naming convention, are often
referred to as "the Internet."

The NSFNET backbone provides 150 times the capacity of the typical
BITNET line (1.5 million bps), to enable researchers to send large files
to and from supercomputers and to support remote log-in. That is, unlike
BITNET, the Internet allows users in one institution to log in to
another institution's computer, which might contain a specialized
database, statistical analysis program, or an on-line library catalog
(see Exhibit 4). Of course, NSFNET also supports electronic mail and
file transfer.

Although NSFNET offers much greater communications capacity than
BITNET, an even more powerful network is being proposed. The National
Research and Education Network (NREN) will support communications at 3
billion bps by 1996 if leaders in education, industry, and government
are successful in attracting the necessary funding for research,
development, and infrastructure. NREN is essential, according to
proponents including Tennessee Senator Albert Gore, to support the
research and development needed for long-term American technical and
corporate competitiveness. Academic support for NREN is led by EDUCOM's
Networking and Telecommunications Task Force (NTTF), a group of about
sixty universities. While the average university administrator may not
need remote access to supercomputers, we stand to gain from any
developments that improve linkages among universities.

A good way to learn more about technical, economic, and political
prospects for NREN is to attend the annual spring conference on
networking initiatives in Washington, D.C., co-sponsored by EDUCOM's
NTTF and CAUSE.

Institutional Costs for Network Membership

What are the costs of institutional membership in one of these
networks? In the case of BITNET, current membership fees for campuses in
the U.S. range from $750 to $8,000, depending on Educational and General
budget; different fees apply for non-degree granting institutions and
corporate research labs. Additional costs include the leased phone line
to the nearest connected campus (several hundred dollars per month);
9600 bps modems at each end of the line (several thousand dollars); e-
mail and interface software (from free to several thousand dollars,
depending on your hardware); plus personnel to provide technical and
user support.

Institutions do not join the NSFNET directly, but instead join one
of the mid-level networks (Exhibit 3), each of which has its own
schedule of fees. In general, costs of attaching to one of these
networks are higher than BITNET, because of the greater transmission
speeds and complexity of the Internet.

How University Administrators Use E-mail
and Networks

Probably the most common use of electronic mail and networks is for
day-to-day communication traditionally accomplished by phone, postal
service, and overnight courier. Electronic mail provides timely,
convenient, and inexpensive access to colleagues (assuming that they
routinely read and answer their electronic mail). Committee work,
program planning, plotting strategies for dealing with government
agencies, and "just keeping in touch" are typical uses of e-mail. Such
communication is increasing across and among campuses, and between
campuses and associations like CAUSE, EDUCOM, Association for
Institutional Research (AIR), CUMREC (College and University Computer
Users Conference), Society for College and University Planning (SCUP),
National Association of College and University Business Officers
(NACUBO), National Association of State Universities and Land Grant
Colleges (NASULGC), and others.

Another use of electronic mail is making data requests or
conducting surveys of colleagues. Many of us have "peer" institutions
with which we compare ourselves regularly or occasionally, exchanging
data and policies on many subjects. The traditional way of soliciting
quick responses from our peers is to make telephone calls -- with all 
the attendant problems of "telephone tag." Data exchanges using 
electronic mail have now become commonplace. A key advantage is that 
information has to be entered into a computer only once. (A disadvantage 
is that the old excuse of the survey's being "in the mail" has very 
little credibility!)

A third application is subscribing to interest-group lists, which
now number over 400 on BITNET alone. Topics range from agricultural
expert systems and AIDS to yachting and yeast genetics. Some lists, like
the one for data administration (DASIG), operate as open forums, wherein
subscribers pose questions and problems and anyone on the list can
reply, either directly to the questioner or to the entire list. Others
have moderators who receive all contributions and distribute a weekly
newsletter, for example AIR-L for institutional researchers and SCUPNEWS
for university planners. Some newsletters, like NetMonth, which is
devoted to news and commentary about BITNET, run to thirty pages and
feature cover art and regular columnists. Although a few lists are
closed or open only with permission of a "list owner," most are open for
subscription by anyone. Since there are no charges assessed for any of
the lists, it is worthwhile to try several in order to find the optimal
point between too little and too much information. Exhibit 5 offers a
sample of lists likely to be of interest to university administrators,
and Exhibit 6 provides details of how to join a list and access other
network resources.

Getting "Connected"

Virtually all research universities and many comprehensive
universities and liberal arts colleges are already connected to BITNET
and/or one of the mid-level networks on the NSFNET. If you have an
account on a campus mainframe connected to one of these networks, you
are probablyauthorized to use the network facilities described above.
Alternatively, if your departmental local area network is part of a
campus-wide network that is, in turn, connected to the larger networks,
you may need nothing more than some documentation (usually available
from your campus computer center) to send and receive messages
nationwide.

If your campus is not connected, you have two choices: find other
colleagues on campus who would benefit from a network connection and
lobby the powers that be, or obtain a computer account on the nearest
campus with a network connection. In the second case, the payoffs you
report -- and demonstrate to interested colleagues -- from your personal 
guest account at another institution could be instrumental in convincing 
the campus to join a network.

To obtain a guest account at another campus for network access,
contact their computer center. Most centers have standard procedures for
issuing such accounts, and will inform you of charges for connect time,
disk storage, etc. Depending on the rates charged and the time of day
that you log in, you can expect to pay $25-$50 per month for a
moderately active account. In some cases, accounts are available to
academic colleagues without charge. Finally, unless you want to use that
campus's public terminals, you will need a terminal or microcomputer
with communications (often called "terminal emulation") software, a
modem, and a phone.

Lobbying appropriate administrators on your campus for a network
connection will be more time consuming, but could have greater long-term
rewards. For one thing, you are likely to pay less (perhaps nothing or
"soft money") for an e-mail account on your own campus computer. For
another, your colleagues will share the benefits of connecting to this
worldwide network of colleagues, computers, and information resources.

Using these Networks

Even for those interested in exchanging simple e-mail with
professional colleagues, the proliferation of software (terminal
emulators for personal computers as well as e-mail systems) and networks
is daunting. Here are some hints for getting started.

First, there is no universal microcomputer communications software
(although Kermit, Red Ryder, VersaTerm, and MacTerminal are in
widespread use). Most campuses support one or several. Check with the
computer center for the best fit between your microcomputer, your needs,
and their systems and support expertise.

Second, there is no universal interface to BITNET or the Internet.
Even the most common mainframes -- Digital VAXes running VMS and IBM
systems running VM/CMS -- have several available electronic mail 
systems, and some campuses make modifications or design their own. Our
recommendation is to find -- and read! -- the campus documentation about 
e-mail and networks.

Third, campus support for e-mail and networks varies widely. Some
campuses provide a comprehensive guide book on computing and networking
to all entering faculty, staff, and students; others seem to operate on
the perverse philosophy that "real networkers don't need documentation,
since it's all available on-line through the network!" The best tactic
on some campuses may be to hang around the computer center and buy sodas
for programmers and students until you catch on.

Fourth, there is not yet a universal equivalent to the telephone
white pages and directory assistance, although campuses and associations
increasingly are listing e-mail addresses in printed or on-line
directories, and some provide a "postmaster" account to which questions
can be sent. In general, you have to call or write to colleagues to
determine their network addresses. They, in turn, would benefit from
your using your network address on business cards and correspondence.

Fifth, although virtually all academic networks are interconnected,
some require sophisticated "gateway" computers to convert their
otherwise incompatible technical protocols. Fortunately one protocol is
used widely in the U.S., the TCP/IP protocol originally developed for
ARPANET and now the basis for the Internet. Unfortunately TCP/IP is not
compatible with the emerging international standard (ISO/OSI), nor with
the protocol used by BITNET. Users with access to a TCP/IP network can,
however, take advantage of remote log-in, an increasingly important
option. Though you need not be concerned with these underlying
protocols, you may have to learn extra local tricks to send mail through
certain gateways.

Finally, because e-mail is a relatively new medium, network ethics
and etiquette are still evolving. See Exhibit 7 for some widely
accepted guidelines.

Conclusion

Some experts envision a worldwide academic network offering every
scholar fast and convenient access to colleagues, libraries, and other
information resources, experimental devices, and supercomputers. As
exemplified by Apple Computer's engaging video, "The Knowledge
Navigator," we can expect, in the not-too-distant future, to access data
from many sources and produce reports with imbedded graphics (and voice
and video if appropriate), without having to know the location or format
of the data -- and we certainly won't have to worry about "protocols" 
and "gateways"!

In the interim, university administrators would be wise to stay
abreast of developments in this area. If your campus is already
connected to one of the academic networks, we encourage you and
colleagues in your professional association to learn how to use it
effectively; if not, we urge you to take the lead in educating your
colleagues about the advantages -- for effective administration as well 
as scholarship -- of joining the growing worldwide information 
community.

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For further reading:

Arms, Caroline, ed. Campus Networking Strategies. Bedford, Mass.:
Digital Press, 1988. (In addition to ten campus case studies, contains
excellent background materials and index of networking terms.)

Arms, Caroline, ed. Campus Strategies for Libraries and Electronic
Information. Bedford, Mass.: Digital Press, 1989.

Condon, Christopher. "BITNET Userhelp," and "BITNET Servers," electronic
files available on-line from LISTSERV@BITNIC.BITNET.

Dunn, John A., Jr. "Electronic Media and Information Sharing," in Peter
Ewell, ed. Enhancing Information Use in Decision Making. New Directions
for Institutional Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1989, pp. 73-84.

Dunn, John A., Jr., and John Muffo. "Exhilaration and Exasperation: An
Open Letter to Everyone Who Thinks His Professional Association Should
Communicate Electronically," EDUCOM Bulletin, Summer/Fall 1988, pp. 88-
92; available on-line as file "Enews Dunn_ J" from
LISTSERV@BITNIC.BITNET.

Frey, Donnalyn, and Rick Adams. !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail
Addressing and Networks. Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly & Associates,
1989.

King, Kenneth M. "In Search of a National Computing, Information Access,
and Networking Strategy," EDUCOM Bulletin, Fall 1987, pp. 2-4.

LaQuey, Tracy Lynn, ed. Users' Directory of Computer Networks. Austin,
Texas: University of Texas System Office, Balcones Research Center,
1989; Bedford, Mass.: Digital Press, forthcoming.

"NREN: The National Research and Education Network." Washington, D.C.:
EDUCOM, 1989.

Oberst, Daniel J., and Sheldon B. Smith. "BITNET: Past, Present, and
Future," EDUCOM Bulletin, Summer 1986, pp. 10-17.

Quarterman, John S. The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing
Systems Worldwide. Bedford, Mass.: Digital Press, 1990.

Rickard-Bollentin, Wendy, ed. "Articles Index," an electronic file
available on-line from LISTSERV@ BITNIC.BITNET.

"Special Issue on Networking," EDUCOM Bulletin, Summer/Fall 1988.
(Excellent overview of NSFNET and NREN plans and prospects.)

Shapiro, Norman, et al. Towards an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic
Mail. Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation (publication R-3283-
NSF/RC), 1985.

Updegrove, Daniel A. "CCNEWS: A Wire Service for the Wired Campus,"
EDUCOM Review, Spring 1989, pp. 55-57.

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For further information:

About connecting to BITNET, contact: BITNET Network Information Center,
EDUCOM, Suite 600, 1112 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20036; 202-872-4200;
fax 202-872-4318; e-mail address BITNET@BITNIC. BITNET.

About connecting to NSFNET, contact the NSF Network Service Center, c/o
BBN Laboratories, 10 Moulton St., Cambridge, MA 02238; 617-873-3400; e-
mail address NNSC@NNSC.NSF.NET

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