Campus Profile: Florida State University


Copyright 1992 CAUSE From _CAUSE/EFFECT_ Volume 15, Number 1, Spring 
1992. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is 
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FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSTIY

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This article is based on a visit to Florida State University by editor
Julia Rudy. The Campus Computing Environment department of CAUSE/EFFECT
regularly focuses on the computing and information technology
environment of a CAUSE member institution, to promote a better
understanding of how the information technologies are organized,
managed, and used in colleges and universities of various sizes and
types.

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Founded as an institution of higher learning in 1851 by a legislative
act, Florida State University (FSU) is one of nine institutions in the
State University System of Florida. Located in Tallahassee, FSU is a
public, coeducational university enrolling more than 28,900 students in
276 graduate and undergraduate degree programs, offered through eight
colleges and eight schools.

Planning and Managing
Computer and Information Resources

FSU can readily be described as a computer-intensive university,
where computer and information resources are recognized as playing a
fundamental role in supporting research, scholarship, and the
educational process. According to Charles Tolbert, Chair of the Computer
and Information Resources Committee (CIRC) of the Faculty Senate, "There
has always been top-down administrative support for quality computing
facilities at Florida State."

With a strong tradition of faculty governance, it is not surprising
that the Faculty Senate has in recent years become heavily involved in
computing planning and high-level policy formation. The CIRC, comprising
more than two dozen faculty representing every college and school in the
University, provides the forum for identifying areas where information
and communications technology can improve productivity and educational
delivery. The CIRC works closely with Associate Vice President for
Computer and Information Resources Gene Sherron, to develop a
comprehensive CIR strategic plan.

The position held by Sherron was created in the spring of 1984, in
response to the converging of information technologies and the need to
ensure cost-effective and coherent information management at the
institutional level. Even though the position has a line reporting
relationship to the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs,
Sherron portrays his organization as responsive to all FSU vice
presidents and their areas, as well as to the University Libraries and
the Faculty Senate (see organization chart below).
(Chart not available in text-only version.)

The CIR planning process at FSU is part of a broader, statewide
planning process for Information Resources Management (IRM) required by
Florida statutes. Each campus of the State University System of Florida
submits an IRM strategic plan every other year, using some basic
guidelines provided by the system's IRM strategic plan.

FSU's Computer and Information Resources Strategic Plan 1992-1996
addresses three major areas: telecommunications, administrative
information systems, and academic computing and networking.[1] Major
emphases in the plan include the aggressive development of an
appropriate, up-to-date administrative computing infrastructure at FSU
to improve general productivity, with a focus on providing information
systems for academic users; a move to decentralize academic computing
with careful central coordination of the development and support of a
campus-wide backbone network; and recognition of the need for a major
investment in computing as part of the capital campaign, with less
reliance on external revenues and research dollars to fund the
infrastructure of the future.

Administrative Computing and
Information Systems

Administrative computing services are delivered to the campus
community through the Administrative Information Systems division of
CIR, under the direction of Thomas James. AIS designs, develops,
implements, and maintains information system solutions (primarily
mainframe) and provides related user services. Hardware and systems
software support for FSU's administrative computing is provided by the
Northwest Regional Data Center, one of four regional data centers in the
State University System, located a few miles from the FSU campus.

AIS also supports the administrative SNA network, which provides
access to applications such as admissions, financial aid, student
records, and cashiering. This network also connects to applications that
run at other data centers, such as the statewide library and accounting
systems.

According to James, AIS is guided by the principle that University
data represent a "valuable resource that must be managed in a way that
ensures its integrity, and shared in a way that maximizes convenience
and usefulness." To provide that kind of management, AIS plans to
migrate selected existing information systems to relational database
technology, particularly the student systems .The strategy includes
dealing with older mainframe applications that are still providing
functionality by building a graphical user interface with new
presentation technology to improve user access and interaction.

A major challenge facing AIS is constrained staff resources--staff
spend much of their time maintaining current systems, with little time
for creative development of new applications. This is particularly
problematic at a time when, according to Vice President for Finance and
Administration John Carnaghi, new systems development is just what is
needed to greatly improve the productivity of many campus administrative
units. Using proceeds gained from outsourcing FSU's bookstore, Carnaghi
orchestrated the purchase of the hardware and software needed to
automate all of the University's financial division offices, and has
worked closely with James' department in developing a methodology for
managing and prioritizing AIS projects. A governor's "productivity
enhancement" program is expected to provide special funding to support a
team of systems and training personnel to focus on the development and
implementation of high priority projects at FSU, beginning with an
automated purchasing system, to demonstrate that such systems can
dramatically improve administrative productivity.

Establishment of a departmental consulting team in the user
services unit of AIS has already proved to be an effective way to help
users translate their business goals into information system needs. The
team is designed to provide a critical link between AIS system
implementers and departmental end users in the application of technology
to the administrative work of departments.

Major recent advancements in systems at FSU include implementation
of the Seminole ACCESS card (which functions simultaneously as an ATM
bank card, a photo ID card, and a debit card),[2] touchtone telephone
registration, and online cashiering, academic advising, resident life,
payroll/personnel, and master menu/security systems. Self-inquiry
terminals have been set up to provide students access to course
enrollment and fee information, and FSU has been one of the pioneer
campuses in the use of electronic data interchange (EDI) for exchange of
academic transcripts.

Networking and Telecommunications

The growth of voice, data, and video networks has increased
dramatically at FSU in the past few years. With the decreasing cost of
fiber optic technology, a campus-wide fiber-optic backbone network
became affordable and was completed last fall to provide integrated
network services to the FSU community. The network will carry Ethernet
and FDDI services.

Fundamental to the network's implementation was the creation of a
Networking Subcommittee of the CIRC, made up of faculty and staff from a
variety of departments. A major committee accomplishment has been the
establishment of networking guidelines, connectivity standards, and
operating procedures for the three CIR divisions. The academic network
is based on Ethernet technology and supports TCP/IP, DECnet, CDCnet,
AppleTalk, and IPX-Novell protocols. Administrative SNA network users
will connect to the fiber network via Ethernet cards. The 
fiber optic cabling for the campus network was installed by the Office
of Telecommunications (OTC), which provides and manages voice, data, and
image communications capabilities to all campus users. OTC installed a
Northern Telecom SL-100 digital switch (which is leased from Centel--the
only tariffed campus PBX lease arrangement in the U.S.) in 1988, and
since then has installed 6,800 new phones on campus.

According to Director Duane Bennett, OTC operates in two major
areas--administrative services and enterprise operations. Enterprise
operations include providing services to some state government offices
in Tallahassee for a fee, as well as five revenue-generating projects at
FSU--student long distance, voice mail, alternate operator services,
custom calling features, and student video services. The latter project
involved bringing up cable TV service for the dormitories. OTC also
successfully piloted a two-way, interactive video system to the
University's Panama City campus.

FSU is a major participant in SURANET, a wide area regional
network that provides access to the NSFNET and the Internet. A contract
is currently being negotiated with SURANET that will allow the statewide
Florida Information Resources Network to merge with SURANET to take
advantage of a special pricing structure offered by the MCI Corporation,
saving 75 percent of the current costs of SURANET participation.

Instructional and Research Computing

FSU is the site of two very high performance computers, a Cray Y-MP
supercomputer operated by the Florida State University Computing Center
(FSUCC) and a CM-2 at the Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
(see sidebar above). In addition to supporting supercomputing, the
Computing Center also operates a variety of large central computers
(including a Cyber 850, an IBM 4381 and 9370, and a VAX 8700 and cluster
processor 6210) to support research and instructional computing.
However, the Center is increasingly less oriented to providing access to
central mainframe systems, and more focused on services that support and
enhance decentralized and distributed computing. FSUCC already supports
distributed computing through its micro support group, network support
team, and operation of the FSU Computer Store, which maintains an
inventory of most in-demand micros for purchase with special discounts
by faculty, staff, and students.

The undergraduate curriculum at Florida State includes heavy
exposure to computing and information technology. Nearly all of the
University's colleges and schools have invested funds in micro labs for
their students, with eighteen labs providing more than 500 micros for
student use. In addition, the FSUCC maintains several public-access
student computing laboratories providing an additional 150 terminals and
micros for students who are not affiliated with a college or department.
One special lab that provides individualized instruction to about sixty
students a semester is the Disabled Students Lab, where facilities have
been modified to provide access to computing for students with a wide
variety of disabilities.

According to Director Robert Braswell, "A top initiative of the
Computing Center is working toward assisting faculty to integrate
computing technology into the classroom." FSUCC has established a
Faculty and Staff Development Lab which provides access to hardware and
software not otherwise available, and maintains a growing library of
evaluation and demonstration software packages. The lab is used as a
training room for the Center's short courses, which include faculty
workshops on courseware development using HyperCard and computerized
presentation design. The Center has also begun an alliance with the
College of Education's Program for Instructional Excellence to offer
workshops on computing skills to teaching assistants.

An ad hoc committee on computer-assisted instruction has been
meeting for more than a year to determine a University-wide strategy for
the use of technology in instruction, under the leadership of Robert
Morgan, director of the Learning Systems Institute (see box), and in
cooperation with the Computer and Information Resources organization.
FSU President Dale Lick would like to see efforts to support faculty in
this area expanded. According to Lick, "We want to enhance the use of
instructional technology in the classrooms at FSU and, in turn, in K-12
in Florida by providing a new instructional development and support
center. The center will offer technical expertise to make it easier for
faculty to incorporate new technology into their teaching." Developed
with the support of the Learning Systems Institute and College of
Education, the center will also be a special laboratory where the rich
expertise in instructional development and design can be applied to
faculty development and teacher training.

Library Information Resources

Director of Libraries Charles Miller believes it is critical to
recognize that isolated services are no longer the most effective way to
deliver information. With information delivery increasingly dependent
upon shared access to mainframe computers, databases, workstations, a
campus network, and gateways to national and international
telecommunications, the need to have one campus office coordinating all
of these components, he says, is clear. Thus Miller affirms the wisdom
of bringing academic and administrative computing and telecommunications
into one division at FSU and creating a high-level, central coordinative
position to oversee the management of information resources.

Members of the FSU community currently have access to LUIS (Library
Users Information Service), an online catalog of the collections of the
nine libraries in the State University System created by the Florida
Center for Library Automation. LUIS includes bibliographic information
and circulation and acquisition status, and provides a gateway to
networked information all over the world.

Presidential Perspective

Clearly, information technology is considered a strategic resource
at FSU--especially in hard times. According to President Lick, "Tight
budgets are tough on everyone and new technology takes money. However,
we continue to examine both our administrative and academic computing
operations to find ways to provide service more efficiently, and
identify everyday activities that can be made more cost effective by the
application of technology. Management is a 'human' process, but
technology can make a tremendous difference in the way we accomplish
tasks, and greatly improve the quality of education and services we
provide."

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Learning Systems Institute

FSU's Learning Systems Institute is a professional organization
dedicated to the concept of bridging the gap between research and
practice in education and training, under the direction of Robert
Morgan. Through the use of the systematic application of technology to
the educational process, the Institute has contributed significantly to
the design and development of educational innovation and improvement,
and is recognized as a pioneer in the application of computer-based
instruction.

Two years ago Morgan was asked by the state of Florida for help in
achieving the kinds of improvements in Florida that were being achieved
at the internationally the international level through LSI
consultation. The Schoolyear 2000 Project will invest $70-80 million in
the next six to eight years to develop an alternative instructional
delivery model to effectively reform elementary and middle school
education in Florida.

Instructional software is also a product of the Institute. In the
testing stage at present is a software program that teaches lower-
quarter undergraduates "how to survive" in a university environment.
Essentially it is a course in learning skills, built with HyperCard,
running on an Apple Macintosh. It has been developed at a relatively low
cost, and LSI hopes it will help to alleviate the usual "sink or swim"
attitude freshmen may encounter upon arrival at a university.

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The Supercomputer Computations Research Institute (SCRI) at FSU is an
interdisciplinary center for the development and exploitation of high-
performance computation. Authorized by Congress and established at FSU
in 1984, this program is a cooperative venture between FSU, the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office of Energy Research, the State of Florida,
and several computer manufacturers. About 70 percent of the Institute's
budget of approximately $16 million is provided by the Office of Energy
Research, with the remaining 30 percent contributed by FSU and the State
of Florida.

SCRI serves as a key supplier of supercomputing services to
scientists throughout the country who work on non-classified projects
sponsored by the Department of Energy. Research teams from around the
world visit SCRI each year to participate in seminars and conferences,
and the Institute provides valuable opportunities for young, talented
students to gain first-hand experience in supercomputing.

In addition to use of the Cray and CM-2, parallel processing on the
Institute's 24 RISC machines is also enabling high-performance
computational research. Software projects in progress or planning stage
at SCRI include research on vectorization techniques, techniques and
tools for multiprocessing, and vectorized and parallelized numerical
methods and algorithms.

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FSU Site of National
High Magnetic Field
Laboratory

In 1990, Florida State University was selected as the site for the
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory. FSU will be joined by the Los
Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Florida in this $120
million project of the National Science Foundation and the state of
Florida, to be completed by 1993. The NHMFL will be
the premier facility in the U.S. for magnet-related research using some
of the most powerful magnets ever assembled. High magnetic fields allow
scientists to view and examine more complex matter with greater
precision. Areas of research to be conducted at the lab that promise
significant advances in the future include innovative approaches to
materials studies with particular emphasis given to superconductivity
and semiconductors and technological advances in nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

According to Jack Crowe, director of the NHMFL, the lab is "unique
among the national laboratories. It represents an extraordinary
partnership between the federal government, state government, and a wide
range of corporate support. We anticipate that the cooperation and joint
research among its partners will become a model of future national
scientific research endeavors."

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Footnotes:

1 This document is available to CAUSE members through the CAUSE
Exchange Library. For details, call Charlotte Hilligoss at 303-449-4430
or send e-mail to orders@CAUSE.colorado.edu.

2 For a detailed description of the ACCESS card, see Thomas James and
Bill Norwood, "Turning a Private Label Bank Card into a Multi-function
Campus ID Card," CAUSE/EFFECT, Summer 1991, pp. 40-46.
This article is based on a visit to Florida State University by editor
Julia Rudy. The Campus Computing Environment department of CAUSE/EFFECT
regularly focuses on the computing and information technology
environment of a CAUSE member institution, to promote a better
understanding of how the information technologies are organized,
managed, and used in colleges and universities of various sizes and
types.

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