The CWIS is Dead! Long Live the CWIN!

Abstract

This paper compares two models for delivering wide, easy information-access for members of our institutional communities and beyond. It contrasts between centrally managed and supported systems and distributed networks and services. It uses this comparison as a means to explore several interesting management challenges which the deployment of these technologies have created, many of which are still to be addressed. Newer information technologies support, and even encourage, widespread information sharing. Relatively easy-to-use protocols plus easy-to-obtain client and server code ported to a wide variety of platforms has made publishing information campus-wide, and even world-wide, a simple matter for anyone with a network connection and the will. These new technologies are replacing the notion of the Campus Wide Information System (with its implied central control) with the much more managerially complex concept of a Campus Wide Information Network (CWIN).