Balancing User Friendliness with Institutional Resources and User Commitment


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                    BALANCING USER FRIENDLINESS WITH 
               INSTITUTIONAL RESOURCES AND USER COMMITMENT
                             by Les Lloyd

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Les Lloyd is Director of Computing Services at Lafayette College, where
a comprehensive token ring network running Novell and TCP/IP serve the
campus over a fiber backbone. He will convene his third conference on
"Using Computer Networks on Campus" in conjunction with Meckler
Publishing, January 14-16, 1992, in New York City.

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After reading Charles Thomas' VIEWPOINT article in the fall issue of
CAUSE/EFFECT, I felt that I had to respond with a view about being
realistic about computing design. I also feel that at some point, we
have to stop spoon-feeding people who refuse to "get with the program."

It is all too easy to make statements about "nonsensical
combinations" of characters used for account names or abbreviations for
school names used in inter-campus mail without looking at the underlying
reasons for some of them. In an ideal world, everyone could choose their
own user ID and college names would be easy to figure out by anyone. But
practically speaking, there are system and network limitations
preventing this. In addition, no conventions for naming will ever work
all the time and these exceptions will always wreak havoc on the
computer-unwilling. Some examples:

  *  Some computer systems allow only a limited number of characters
for user IDs. Many restrict the number to eight; ours at Lafayette
College allows four. Perhaps the following will illustrate problems of
using real user names with, for example, an eight-character limitation:

First initial, last name                   User ID
David Johnston                             djohnsto
David Johnstone                            djohnsto

Last name only                             User ID
Goldsmit                                   goldsmit
Goldsmith                                  goldsmit
Goldsmithe                                 goldsmit

Four characters from
first and last name                        User ID
David Goldsmith                            davigold
David Gold                                 davigold
David Goldman                              davigold

Coming up with ways to deal with exceptions to rules that allow
friendly user IDs can wreak as much havoc as having set rules for all
users. If you've ever received mail from bob@uminn, you know how far you
can go the other way in making these IDs friendly!

  *  Many schools have more than one computer system connected to
external networks. While the main school computer might be named
"stevens," other computers on campus need unique names. In some cases,
where dozens of campus computers are connected to the Internet,
individual departments may give special names to the machines, such as
Rutgers does with Zodiac names. Students and faculty get accounts on
those machines and then have IDs like steve@orion. My contention is that
if Steve has registered his address with a nameserver and his address is
on his business card and regular correspondence, then others should be
able to reach him. I would argue that typing my address as
lloy@lafayette.edu is just as easy as lloy@lafayett1 or lloy@lafayett2,
etc. You still have to know what machine at Lafayette College you are
sending my e-mail to.

  *  There are as many arguments in favor of limiting typing strokes as
there are about being friendly. I would rather type "vtech" than
"virginia_tech" anytime!

I do concur with Thomas that all members of the campus community
should have e-mail accounts. And they should be published in the campus
directory. And electronic distribution lists ought to be maintained by
the same departments that maintain the paper lists. Which, of course, is
easier said than done if the particular department has not yet
subscribed to the concept of electronic mail.

Thomas offers his opinion that e-mail should run the same on all
computing platforms and especially that it should allow for standard
pull-down windows and the like. I hope he is affiliated with an
organization that has unlimited programming time for spoon-feeding! As a
director of computing at a small college, I was immediately threatened
by this challenge that a small computing staff, already pushed to the
limit by expanding computing facilities and prowess on the part of our
clients, should be pressed into service in this fashion. In thinking
about my counterparts at larger institutions, I questioned whether our
situation is any different from that at larger schools. In an era of
downsizing and careful attention to the bottom line, how important is it
that "everyone gets what she wants" out of computing? At what point do
individuals need to make adjustments in their expectations? When is it
the responsibility of the computer user to learn a new interface rather
than having the computer department invest resources in making the
interface like the old one?

Many schools have committed to maintaining multiple computing
platforms--DOS, Macintosh, Unix. The smaller the school, the more likely
that one type of system is predominant. But even large universities have
colleges within them that choose a particular brand or operating system
for conformity in curricular usage.

Let's look at the practice of choosing a campus- or college-wide
standard. Does it make sense? If the purpose of using computers on
campus is strictly for individual use as word processors or terminals to
mainframes or network systems, then probably not. Any system runs
software that performs these functions. But what about the faculty
member who wants students to run a simulation in their discipline? Most
software written for school use or, in fact, most software except for
the business market leaders, is written for one computer platform or
another. If you enter a school and are told that there is no standard,
what happens when the software you need to run for a sociology
assignment is written for a Macintosh and you have an IBM?

Most courses have required or recommended readings. A calculus
professor would rarely tell his class to purchase "a book on calculus"
so why should computer platforms be left to chance? Granted, this is a
college-wide decision and not up to each individual faculty member, but
aren't the rewards of a "standard" worth some compromises? For a college
with under 5,000 students, there are substantial savings in support, to
say nothing about avoiding the software and hardware costs incurred in
trying to make sure each camp has equal access to facilities.

Many schools have such standards. This doesn't mean that if Macs
are standard, DOS machines aren't allowed. It does commit the school to
find the best available software, hardware, and networking protocols for
the machine of choice. It is incumbent on the institution to make sure
there are substantial computing facilities for students without a
computer, or for those who arrive with a "non-standard" machine. The
institution must provide incoming students with information about the
computing standard so those purchasing computers before arriving can
purchase a compatible system.

What is the responsibility of a college towards students and
faculty who chose a system not compatible with the standard? This is
where I think Thomas' article misses the mark. Suppose a college
develops a DOS standard. It is the belief of faculty, students, and
administration that DOS systems will best serve students both in and
outside of school. Should the college devote resources to ensure that
course software and networking protocols are identical on Macs and
workstations? Should computing support staff be diverted from supporting
the majority of the campus to provide service for those who for whatever
reason chose a system in contrast with the campus standard?

It is my contention that a college should not do everything for
everyone, nor can it. If a standard exists, then staff time and
resources should be devoted as much as possible towards enhancing that
resource for what should be a vast majority of the institution.
Purchasing DOS and Mac copies of the same or virtually identical
software doesn't further the academic mission of the college. Rather, it
makes things more convenient for some. But if a campus network is deemed
desirable by an individual, that individual will seek out a platform
that runs the network to her satisfaction. At Dartmouth there are Macs,
at Drew there are DOS machines (both are schools that require computer
purchases by all students). It would have been virtually impossible to
make a DOS machine react the same as a Mac before Windows 3 in terms of
the interface to Dartmouth's network. And at Drew, where students do
most of the systems and applications programming, it would be difficult
to justify writing a separate Mac interface to the network, though most
terminal emulation packages would provide an adequate, if not identical,
entry point.

The way to get people to use electronic mail is to make it
impossible not to use it! Some people might not like this approach, but
if it is important to use it, people will learn and most will eventually
like it. How does one make e-mail impossible not to use?

  *  Put the interface on a system that has lots of other features on
it. If someone is checking the campus network each day for the weather
report, chances are they'll also check their e-mail.

  *  Assist the president, provost, committee heads, and other chief
officers of the college with using electronic mail. If important notices
are being sent out electronically, chances are people will read them
because no one on a college campus wants to miss the opportunity to
critique them!

  *  Provide a system where people can indicate a preference of
electronic or paper mail and encourage departments to send mailings on a
system that can send electronic or paper mail, depending on those
preferences.

  *  Any creative approach to making people feel that they are missing
something by not using e-mail will stir their interest.

It's one thing to talk about ideals for computer systems. But with
budget cuts and priorities changing, we have to be ready to face the
fact that where we are now might be where we will stay for a while.
Investing in changing current systems is not as appealing as using those
systems to their fullest. I would rather invest the time in exciting
people to use our current system than to re-write it. The inability of
people to program VCRs and telephone answering machines and faxes has
certainly not affected the sales of those fast-moving items. Let's teach
our clients to explore what we have, not to dictate what they want
before they will look at it!

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