Copyright 1998 CAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 21, Number 1, 1998, pp. 3, 4. 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 date appear, 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 Jim Roche at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: [email protected]

CNI Report
Another Essential Element of the Campus Network

by Richard P. West

Lately I have found myself falling into the trap of overusing the word "infrastructure." Although I was made familiar with the concept when I received my education in economics, I have become weary of the term. The word is used so often that I am afraid it has become cheapened and does not serve its most important role, which is to communicate.

In a regional development sense, infrastructure describes all the things necessary to allow a community to develop economically: water distribution and waste control systems, the provision of electricity and gas. Roads, rail systems, harbors, and airports all form the basic transportation system. These investments establish the foundation upon which commerce and economic well-being can be developed. They are necessary before individual economic transactions can take place between parties. In politics, they have traditionally been called "public works."

Public works connotes the common-good nature of infrastructure projects. These projects are done for the well-being of all community members. It's difficult, however, for any one person or group to pay for these projects. The benefits of these projects are too widely distributed to charge any one user. There are often fees associated with the use of infrastructure, such as toll roads, or charges for water or electricity. These charges usually serve to ration, rather than recover, the basic costs of investment, which are funded by the collective. Collective goods are characterized by single providers and therefore often are regulated or governed by the greater community served.

In our campus environments we have come to view our information networks as an important common good. Fees may be charged to help ration a scarce common good in certain instances, but we accept that the network has to be funded collectively so that teaching, learning, and research can proceed using modern communication methods such as information network technologies. Routers, cable plant, and terminal equipment are all part of these campus public works. It is increasingly clear, however, that to make the information technologies comprehensive we need to assure that other features are included in our underlying common foundation.

CNI is committed to the promise of networked information for the advancement of scholarly communication. Over time, networked technologies are expected to replace print technologies because of their superior speed and their ability to better bridge the obstacles of time and location. If you are on the network, you are immediately part of a larger community.

A project on authentication and authorization is a major component of the CNI program. This project plans to explore an essential element of the campus network. Simply put, the issue is: How do we identify those on the campus network who may appropriately use the campus information and technological resources? It is -- by design -- easy to get onto our campus networks, but because our local campus pays for the information and machine resources that are on the network, we want only those who are part of our local community to use these unique resources. We need to add to the network easy ways to identify those who are part of the campus community and also to provide differential levels of access or service to campus resources. Not all resources on the network are -- or should be -- provided to all members of the community on an equal basis.

Like water or electrical use, some information resources will be rationed, by price or by time, as to the volume of use allowed for any one student or faculty member. It is essential, however, that all community members know how to present themselves to the common good (campus network) and that this presentation be consistent for all resources and for all users. Although our network and its associated resources have been around for more than fifteen years for common use, we are still early in the maturity of providing the infrastructure to allow easy communication and rationed transactions to occur across the network. Without this public works investment, our information network environment will not be successful. The networked environment needs to provide all the functions that have been provided in print or by physical means. We recognize that these functions will be provided in significantly different ways.

CNI's authentication and authorization project will encompass elements characteristic of standards development. The project will also recognize that there are a variety of ways of pricing and rationing information databases or electronic journals. Site licenses, the number of simultaneous users, and every other combination of rationing and payment are being negotiated by our campuses to provide network services. Authentication and authorization techniques need to be able to handle this variety of buying rights to information resources for our faculty and students. To date, these strategies have relied on a single server, IP source addresses, or multiple password control to meet the concerns of payment and security. A single, common strategy as part of the campus network, regardless of where the information resource is located, is an essential part of the authentication and authorization project. And now, we are also in a networked world where users may not be physically connected to the campus network when they want to access licensed resources. A new conceptualization of these approaches is essential.

Clifford Lynch, Executive Director of CNI, has received expressions of interest from more than fifty institutions to help develop, explore, and serve as potential test sites for this effort. As progress is made, reports will be provided on the progress of the conceptual framework or the series of standards and strategies that information providers (the private sector) and information users (our campus constituents) can expect in a campus network. This project is timely in helping our community develop a strategy to meet the needs of an any-resource, anytime networked world. The common good we have previously thought of narrowly as routers and cable plant needs to be expanded to recognize this broader environment.

Librarians and information technology professionals have common interest in this project. As providers of goods to the campus community at large, you are particularly vested in this project. The provision of these elements in the "commons" of the campus infrastructure is essential for the success of your individual responsibilities.

CNI Report is a regular CAUSE/EFFECT department that provides reports about the activities of the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI), formed by the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and Educom in 1990 to promote the creation of and access to information resources in networked environments.

Richard P. West ([email protected]) is senior vice chancellor for business and finance for The California State University System. He has chaired the steering committee of the Coalition for Networked Information since its establishment in 1990.

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