Campus Profile: New Mexico State University Copyright 1991 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 14, Number 1, Spring 1991. 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 NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY ************************************************************************ This article is based on a visit to New Mexico State University by editor Julia Rudy. The Campus Computing Environment department of CAUSE/EFFECT regularly focuses on the information technology environment of a CAUSE member campus, to promote a better understanding of how the information technologies are organized and managed in colleges and universities of various sizes and types. ************************************************************************ Founded in 1888 as Las Cruces College, New Mexico State University today serves a student body of 14,300 students. With 5,800 acres, NMSU is the state's largest campus. Besides the bachelor's through doctoral degrees offered at the main campus in Las Cruces, the University offers two-year programs through four branch campuses. One of the Southwest's major research universities, NMSU ranks 28th among the top 100 public universities receiving federal funding for research and development and holds $150 million in research contracts. Information technology in context According to Joseph Denk, director of the computer center, "The NMSU community considers information technology our critical asset." This is not surprising, given the University's rich research culture and the fact that it is located in a state characterized by strong national laboratories, intense scientific research, heavy defense-related activity, and twice as many supercomputers as any other state. The budget for computing and information technology (IT) at NMSU is not particularly large, nor is there a surplus of central professional staff to deliver IT services. But there is a significant ingredient that Denk believes has contributed to the successful development of information technology at NMSU--cooperation. "Until I came here, I'd never been in a place where people want to work together and actually strive to do coordinative functions. There's a real absence of 'turf' here which leads very naturally toward cooperation." According to Executive Vice President William Conroy, NMSU's administration, which is very "lean" and intentionally kept that way, has opted to distribute power. The result is that the colleges must work together, and this institutional culture has greatly influenced the growth and importance of networking and information technology. Planning and developing IT strategies Planning for information technology development and delivery takes place at both the state and the institutional level, through mechanisms that reflect this "working together" style. The computer centers of New Mexico state institutions cooperate through the Council for Higher Education Computing Services (CHECS), an organization that takes a public service stand for higher education computing and hosts an annual conference where campus computing professionals from across the state meet to share ideas about technical transfer issues. Such efforts are helping to encourage efficient use of computing resources and cost avoidance, a significant contribution toward assisting the state in economic development. At New Mexico State University, an annual planning retreat (called DUNE) was instituted eleven years ago by Denk when he joined NMSU. Invited to attend this off-site summer retreat are members of the computer center as well as members of the Academic and Administrative Computing Advisory Groups. The former comprises a representative from each of the University's six colleges as well as other selected individuals, while the latter is made up of key administrative office users and executives to whom these offices report. Papers are invited for presentation at DUNE both from center staff and members of the advisory groups. Specific computer center objectives are identified and numbered, with work toward these objectives incorporated into operating plans and progress reviewed at the next retreat. Most importantly, these retreats represent an opportunity for representatives of the broad campus community to share their needs and visions with the professional staff charged with helping to fulfill them. The computer center currently is operating under a five-year "base plan" (1988-1993) created from a compilation of DUNE-identified objectives. Campus research is represented in this planning process by Computing 2000, a committee that fosters coordination between the research community and the computer center. Information technology organization Like many universities today, NMSU is wrestling with the question of what is the best way to organize to deliver IT services to the campus community. According to Denk: "We've known about the commonality between delivery systems for many years, and realize that the difference between academic and administrative users has now broken down entirely and there's really no distinction anymore. So we have moved toward highly decentralizing the support function for computing, have emphasized networking, and now will work to coalesce the elements that are going across the network." The fact that the University recently purchased an IBM ES9000 Model 440 to be a single processor for both administrative and academic computing, he says, is a signal to the community that computing is a unified, fully merged support function. Currently the computer center functions through four major divisions: * Large Systems Services, under the direction of Richard Waugh, provides mainframe computing services, including computer operations, systems programming, software support, and user support and education for these systems. * Small Systems Services, managed by David Rocks, is responsible for all microcomputer and some minicomputer services, including user support, operation of clusters, and acquisition services for both hardware and software. * Networking and Maintenance Services, managed by Mark St. Paul, is responsible for network development and management for NMSU and its branch campuses, for maintenenace of devices on the network, including workstations, and for supporting visualization technology. * Administrative Services, under the direction of John Eoff, is responsible for data processing for the administration of the University, including production and control, maintenance of production applications and archives, new system development, and software support for database management systems. Critical to IT planning and coordination on campus was the creation of a "shadow" organization comprising the library, computer center, telephone communications, the Center for Educational Development (which oversees video communications and NMSU's outstanding distance education program), and the physical plant department. Called the Coalition on Electronic Information, the group has been meeting for more than a year, and last summer held a one-day retreat to update plans for networking the campus with an integrated approach to all media. The Coalition plans to function as an interim organization until the University is able to establish a formal organizational structure for managing and planning all IT-related activities on campus. That future organizational structure will likely include an information center through which all user information and support needs will be met. Though the computer center will be the initial locus of the information center, the Coalition is studying the potential of the library to handle the role of the center for electronic communications. Delivering information electronically The Coalition has strategically focused on the importance of delivering information electronically. At the heart of this delivery system lies NMSU-NET, the campus-wide backbone network. Called an "outstanding intertwining of networks," with few rivals, by the 1988 North Central accreditation team, NMSU-NET is based on an 84-fiber trunk distribution system capable of integrating voice, video, and data applications. The academic network comprises thirty-six segments connecting more than 100 shared hosts to over 3,300 devices, including 130-140 workstations. It links most instructional and research buildings on campus as well as provides links to national and regional networks, branch campuses, remote research laboratories, and the National Center for Supercomputer Applications, of which NMSU is an affiliate member. Currently, connections to an encrypted, access- controlled fiber-optic Ethernet connecting administrative offices are being addressed, to ensure that academic users will have access to administrative data. An important part of the ongoing expansion of NMSU-NET is the acquisition of a new voice PBX within the next two years, to provide moderate-speed data connections over the twisted-pair wiring of the phone system where fiber-optic cabling is not practical or possible. A close working relationship with the physical plant and telephone communications departments has facilitated the computer center's development of an "information outlet" which will allow the delivery of all voice, data, and video communications through a single wall outlet in campus buildings built since 1986, eventually including student dormitories. A new library building will be a showcase "smart building" with potential throughout for all three communications services. A network problem-diagnostic system called LAN-SCAN performs real- time monitoring of the network, reporting failures, identifying possible faults, and recommending corrective actions--a critical function as more and more users come to rely on the network. A multitude of information services are available on the network, including an integrated campus e-mail system; NMSU-INFO, a campus bulletin board including a phone directory, job announcements, sports information, and campus news; NMSU-VIEW, a HyperCard application offering guides to campus computing and student services and an animated "CompuTour"; a database of faculty and staff involved in computing research set up by the Computing 2000 committee; and OLE, the online library catalog. The library plans to connect its many CD-ROM databases through a LAN, which will eventually be connected to the NMSU-NET for access by all faculty, students, and staff. Students can use any campus device to request a free network account. All of the computers and terminals in the dozens of public cluster laboratories are linked to the network, allowing good central management of the multitude of software put up on the network for research, instruction, and administrative use. Besides the centrally managed computer labs, more than forty departments offer clusters, and there is a clear trend for departments to build classroom computing facilities as computing becomes an integral part of the curriculum. More than 900 students each semester pass through a basic computer literacy course, required by many departments. Meeting administrative systems needs Administrative computing has traditionally been centralized, but the growth of microcomputing and local area networks in administrative offices is changing the way administrative user needs will be met in the future. There is a growing demand by users for better access to the data in administrative systems and greater involvement in the development of those systems. The replacing of NMSU's student records system provides a good example of the critical role users need to play in this process. At the cutting edge when it was installed in 1970--one of the first online systems in the country--the Student Online Academic Records (SOLAR) system was modified and enhanced repeatedly over the next two decades to meet user needs. SOLAR worked so well that NMSU was able to develop highly decentralized registration policies and procedures, which created a unique and deeply ingrained work process. Expectations were very high when a commercial student information system was acquired two years ago, but the system installation was halted when it became apparent that either the way of doing business would have to be radically altered or an enormous expenditure and staff effort would be needed to customize the package to fit NMSU's needs. With the decision to start from scratch to build an in-house system, the computer center hired IBM to do a Joint Application Planning session with the users, identifying eight modules that will completely meet their needs. Two University employees have been trained in the JAD techniques to execute the plan and the methodology is proving to be even more successful than envisioned. William Bruner, director of Admissions and Records, has become a firm believer in JAD: "This methodology was a boon for us because we were able to get the key users to define what it is that they want from the system in great detail. We as users are just not very good at telling technical people what we want the systems to do for us, and JAD overcame that problem." While budget cuts are affecting many campuses across the country, NMSU nonetheless expects to have limited new monies in the coming fiscal year. According to Conroy: "We have worked to have the state legislature build into the formula by which we receive our appropriations annual funding for equipment of all kinds. We could--and should--spend several million dollars a year adding equipment and technology. That's the ultimate solution to continuing our emphasis on this critical University asset." ************************************************************************