Fast Facts: An Online Campus Information System 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 FAST FACTS: AN ONLINE CAMPUS INFORMATION SYSTEM by Katie Slabaugh and Henry W. Newsom ************************************************************************ Katie Slabaugh is Assistant to the Associate Dean of Students at Ball State University. Formerly a writer in the University's public information office, she was employed by the Division of Student Affairs to author the text of the Fast Facts information system, and now maintains the system and assists with various other publications and staff development projects. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Ball State University. Henry W. Newsom is Associate Director of University Computing Services at Ball State University, where he is responsible for administrative systems, data communications, and technical support for the administrative mainframe. He holds a master's degree in computer science from Ball State University and a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Troy (Alabama) State University. ************************************************************************ ABSTRACT: This article describes how two Ball State University divisions, Student Affairs and University Computing Services, joined together to create Fast Facts, an online campus information system. Introduced during the 1989-90 academic year, Fast Facts makes information on hundreds of topics available twenty-four hours a day to more than 2,000 networked computer terminals in campus laboratories, offices, and residence hall rooms. This article outlines the contributions each of the divisions made to bring the project to fruition. In the last decade, computing at Ball State University1 has grown to become a fundamental part of daily teaching and learning, research, and service work. In recent years, emphasis has been placed on making computer technology an integral component of each student's major coursework so that employers would find Ball State's graduates able to use computers in the workplace. Indeed, a link between students, computers, and academics has been established. But until the spring of 1989 there was no link joining students, Ball State's computer network, and basic campus information delivery. Ball State's students were using computers to improve their writing, to speed the process of locating library materials, and in their coursework to create everything from a recommended daily diet to an energy-efficient office complex. Yet they used conventional methods to inquire about matters such as what sorts of study abroad programs are offered, whether they are allowed to change the draperies in their residence hall rooms, and what organizations exist for Latin-American students. Ball State University believed that today's students would enjoy, and future students would expect, delivery of the information they need by computer. The time had come for a link to be formed between students, computers, and the answers needed for day-to-day campus living. Identifying the need For the 19,000 students attending Ball State, obtaining general information about institutional policies, services, and events had been accomplished the same way for years and, no doubt, in the same ways as on other campuses. In talking with students, the Division of Student Affairs learned that students commonly relied on friends and neighbors and the campus newspaper for answers and information. Other sources of help included bulletin board displays and campus publications such as the undergraduate catalog, the student handbook, the campus telephone directory, and the student advising handbook; classroom announcements and direct mailings; and a campus telephone communication system called STAT, through which callers could ask to listen to recordings providing information on subjects ranging from the academic advising system to voter registration. Perhaps the most common method students and others used to have their questions answered was to make either a personal visit or a telephone call to a particular campus office. Visits and telephone calls were fine providing offices had not already closed for the day, lines weren't frustratingly long, or students weren't kept "on hold" to the point of hanging up; providing the answer to one question wasn't in one building and the answer to a second found in an office four blocks away; and--probably most importantly--providing one even knew where to begin looking for the answer. We also knew that answer- and advice-giving among students could be dangerous, particularly when important decisions might be made based on erroneous information. During the summer of 1987, a small group of Ball State professionals was called together by a Student Affairs representative who had obtained information about Infocat, a computerized guide for students at the University of Vermont. Our investigating committee, comprising staff from Student Affairs, University Computing Services, and the Center for Information and Communication Sciences, met to explore the possibility of initiating an online campus information system at Ball State, the purpose of which would be to make general information and possibly a calendar of events readily available to students, faculty, staff, and other publics[2] On a campus with an increasingly diverse student body and matriculating freshmen who more and more viewed computers as tools to be used in daily academic and personal routines, committee members saw such a campus information system as an exciting advancement. They felt that traditional student services and ordinary methods of information sharing no longer met the demands of Ball State's diversified and computer- competent student body, which used campus computing facilities twenty- four hours a day, seven days a week. They also believed that students needed an information bank that was comprehensive, reliable, readily accessible, and easy to operate and understand. An online campus information system would by no means eliminate the familiar sight of students popping into offices to ask questions, and no one would really expect or want it to, but its advantages seemed many: * It would enable students and others to obtain information after business hours and on weekends * It would bring together the nuts-and-bolts information from numerous campus publications, making it possible for users to obtain information on several subjects from one location * It would increase the efficiency and accuracy of information distribution because, unlike a printed publication, an online system could be updated quickly, making a change in policy available nearly immediately * It would be useful to secretarial staff, academic advisors, faculty members, and others who often make student referrals and answer questions about matters outside the realm of their own areas * It would allow users to make a printed copy if needed of current information on any given subject * It would create a starting point for future campus-wide communications projects Besides being a valuable component of the overall mission of Student Affairs, such an information system--to be known as Fast Facts-- was seen by the advisory committee as a logical companion to two other initiatives at the University: * The Computer Competency Program, begun in 1984, guaranteed that all graduates beginning with the class of 1989 would be able to use computers to solve problems in their chosen fields of study. Each academic department restructured its course content to ensure that appropriate computer technologies were integrated into the curriculum. This resulted in a dramatic increase in the use of campus computing labs. * The Teaching Environment Model of the Campus of the Future (TEMCOF) was created in 1987 in partnership with AT&T, which designed and engineered a campus-wide fiber optic distribution system providing voice, video, and data communications to offices, classrooms, computer laboratories, residence halls, and libraries. With more students routinely working in computer laboratories, and with faculty and staff offices, computer laboratories, and individual residence hall rooms joined together via TEMCOF, an ideal communication opportunity had been created. Choosing and preparing the content It became evident to the committee that while the project's success would depend on the cooperative efforts of a number of campus divisions, someone would have to assume responsibility for overall coordination. The Division of Student Affairs agreed to assume this responsibility, and the Associate Dean of Students obtained special funding to hire a part-time employee to carry out the collection, verification, and organization of the data to be included in the Fast Facts system. In October of 1988, the writer hired by Student Affairs began outlining the topics that would need to be covered in Fast Facts, working independently but collaborating often with the committee. The University of Vermont's Infocat system provided an excellent outline from which to begin. Using existing campus publications, as well as input from students and various campus information sources about subjects they considered necessary or desirable to include, the writer created an outline of subjects tailored to the needs of Ball State's student body. The finished Fast Facts outline contained fourteen broad categories, most of which were broken down into subcategories (see sidebar facing page). Before individual entries were written, the writer gathered the relevant information from campus publications and then consulted appropriate information sources to confirm that the information was correct and complete and to obtain answers to questions not covered in the printed material. No significant problems were encountered in the collection, writing, and verification of data. Once sources felt they had a grasp of how the information system would work, they were happy to discuss how best to convey to students the programs and services they offered. In no instances were sources asked to write the text entries themselves, but they were invited to revise or suggest revision for the drafted text, which was shared with them. In the next seven months, entries were written for nearly 500 individual topics. Keeping true to its name, none of the Fast Facts entries contained more than about twenty lines of single-spaced text, with the exception of calendar listings, which were set up to allow users to press a key to scroll through the listing. The tone of the text was conversational and, where appropriate, even humorous. An important consideration during text preparation was future ease of maintaining Fast Facts files, since different individuals would assume this responsibility over the years (albeit from a single office). It seemed best that the bulk of the text be straightforward, simple, and follow a consistent style. All text was written using WordPerfect software and was organized into files containing submenus and the related text. Diskettes containing these text files were forwarded to University Computing Services. The writing phase of the project was completed on schedule by April of 1989, with the understanding that calendars and schedules for events for the following academic year would be added as they became available. Choosing a platform Without question, a system such as Fast Facts needed to be as comprehensive and accurate as possible, but also important was its being "user friendly" in every context that the term implies. The text needed to be easy to read and understand, and the manual operation needed to be simple. The first major decision University Computing Services faced in planning Fast Facts was which hardware platform(s) would be best for the system. There were several platforms available: an IBM 3081 running MVS/XA, a DEC VAX cluster running VMS, several AT&T 3B2s running UNIX, and, of course, a variety of microcomputers.[3] The microcomputer platform was quickly eliminated from consideration for several reasons: (1) the variety of systems in use meant we would have to develop versions of Fast Facts for several different operating systems; (2) distribution and subsequent updating of the data in Fast Facts would have presented a problem since the University has several thousand microcomputers; (3) media costs alone would have been nontrivial; and (4) we believed that students would have better access to a network-based system. Having eliminated the microcomputer, we began to debate the merits of the remaining potential platforms. In deciding upon a platform, we had several goals in mind. One was to minimize the amount of programming required since we wanted to get a version of Fast Facts up fairly quickly and, like other computing centers, we had (and still have) a backlog of applications waiting for development. Another was to minimize the impact on machine resources while still providing good response time. A final goal was to make Fast Facts readily available to users, including those who lived off campus. With these goals in mind, we began to eliminate other potential platforms. The VAX cluster was eliminated because, at the time, it was already very busy and any additional workload would have impacted it negatively. We eliminated the IBM mainframe because, in our opinion, it would have taken a significant amount of programming to implement Fast Facts under MVS. This left the UNIX platform, which we felt was a good choice. With its wide range of commands, utilities, and other tools, the UNIX platform seemed to offer the best chance of attaining our goal of minimizing programming time and effort. Designing the system Once we had settled on the UNIX platform, we began to design Fast Facts. We considered programming Fast Facts in a procedural language such as C, but decided to do so only if absolutely necessary since, as noted above, we had no "spare" time to write programs. As it turned out, very little programming was necessary. We decided to use UNIX utilities and ended writing very little custom code. We wrote one small C program to input a single-character response to a screen prompt and another small C program to input a single-line response to a screen prompt. We also adapted a public domain version of the file browsing utility LESS for use with Fast Facts, changing the prompt provided at the bottom of each screen to something slightly more descriptive. Other than those programs, Fast Facts was implemented using UNIX's shell language and utilities. Specifically, Fast Facts was implemented on an AT&T 3B2/400 using the Bourne shell. We encountered several problems during the development of Fast Facts, most of which were directly related to the relative lack of UNIX expertise in University Computing Services. For example, we developed an early version of Fast Facts on a DEC VAX 11/785 using the C shell; when we got ready to port it to the AT&T 3B2 Bourne shell, we soon discovered that not all UNIX systems and shells are alike. Other problems revolved around hardware: getting both our asynchronous networks to talk to Fast Facts, a delay in connecting some network users, and porting Fast Facts from the development system to the final "production" system. Of course, these problems were much like the problems encountered on any development project, rather than extraordinary or peculiar to Fast Facts. One of the design decisions we made concerned the quality of the Fast Facts presentation: should we try to implement an interface with "gee-whiz" graphics and other elaborate features or should we present a simple text-based interface? We decided upon a very simple interface because of usability; we had several thousand clients using devices ranging from Zenith Z-29 terminals to DEC VT2XX terminals to a variety of microcomputers emulating various terminals, and we needed to serve as many of these clients as practical. We settled upon an interface that requires VT100 emulation, since almost every device on our network can emulate the VT100.[4] Knowing that the information would be maintained by a single office was important to the design of the input portion of Fast Facts. Basically, since only one office would be updating the Fast Facts files, we decided not to provide any input facilities but to use the UNIX system editor for inputting text. This obviously saved a great deal of work. Finally, we had to decide how clients would access Fast Facts. We chose to make it available through our campus networks to both local (on-campus) and remote (dial-up) clients. Ball State operates two general-purpose data communications networks, one using AT&T equipment, and one using DCA equipment.[5] Our goal was to provide access to Fast Facts on both of these networks, even though the latter is being phased out. We were successful, and Fast Facts is now a choice at our network prompts. After selecting Fast Facts, the user must type "ff" to start the primary Fast Facts script. Since it is a protected script, users are returned to the network prompt immediately upon exiting Fast Facts. In this way, security on the UNIX system is unlikely to be compromised due to Fast Facts. Another advantage of this scheme is that we do not have to generate accounts on the system to allow anyone to access Fast Facts. This obviously saves a great deal of administrative overhead and allows anyone to access Fast Facts without prior approval. Introducing the system Initial testing of Fast Facts centered on two residence halls reserved for honors students. Student Affairs arranged for the hall directors to take part in a demonstration of how to use the system and encouraged them to spread the word to their students. For the balance of that academic year and throughout the summer of 1989, Fast Facts was available only to users of the AT&T network because of the expense of making it available to users of the DCA equipment. Fortunately, the AT&T was the network in place in all residence halls, and a terminal was made available to freshmen students and parents participating in summer orientation. With the allocation of additional funding, Fast Facts was installed on the DCA network in the fall of 1989 and became available to an additional 500 users across campus. Once Fast Facts was made available on both computing networks, the time had arrived for its more comprehensive and formal introduction to the campus community. This was accomplished initially through a general news release to campus media, including the faculty/staff newspaper, Campus Update, and the student newspaper, The Daily News. We followed up this initial publicity campaign by mailing to faculty and staff a letter introducing the system, accompanied by an instruction card containing the list of the fourteen main categories of information on one side, and instructions for logging on printed on the reverse side. To reach the student body, stacks of instruction cards were deposited at residence hall main desks, computer labs, and other selected campus locations. Usage and evaluation In the twelve-month period from January through December 1990, Fast Facts was used 5,153 times. More than 2,100 of these uses were outside of the 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. time range, and more than 800 were on Saturday or Sunday. Usage-by-month figures were: January--257 February--1,311 March--438 April--391 May--191 June--270 July--261 August--361 September--541 October--544 November--339 December--249 We are pleased to see that Fast Facts is being used often when campus offices are closed. This after-hours and weekend need for information was among our primary reasons for establishing the system, and we anticipate this usage will continue to climb as Fast Facts becomes better known and as more students have personal computers in their residence hall rooms. The Fast Facts main menu includes the option, "Evaluate Fast Facts," which asks users to evaluate the program's content and ease of use. Unfortunately, this evaluation instrument--revised once since the system was made available but in need of additional work--has netted us little feedback from users. From the limited data that are available, however, we can report that most users indicated they found Fast Facts easy to operate. Many used the evaluation as a means of offering their comments and suggestions about the information contained in the program. A good number complained about the evaluation component itself, and reworking that item is among our planned improvements. In general, we feel we can list Fast Facts' strengths as follows: * Widespread availability on campus * Ease of use * Broad range of subject matter * Availability after hours * Potential to be one of the University's most accurate and up-to- date sources of information * User correspondence feature via the VAX network Among the improvements we believe should be made are: * Addition of a key-word search facility, which would allow users to access all references to the key word entered * Modification of the evaluation component to provide better user interface * Improvement of the menu management system to allow users to return to the top of the main menu from any point * Modification of the menu structure to allow changes to be made to the menu without the intervention of data processing staff. Such changes are presently achieved by changes to the UNIX scripts. Maintaining the system The accuracy of the data contained in Fast Facts remains a top priority for Student Affairs, which has the responsibility for maintaining the system. We have posted on the first welcoming screen of the system the standard disclaimer: "The information presented here, correct at the time of entry, is subject to change." Nonetheless, we make a concerted effort to ensure that information in the system is as up to date as possible. University offices responsible for implementing rules and regulations are contacted as needed to verify that the information presented in Fast Facts is correct. Since Fast Facts was introduced on campus, the question of institutional liability for problems arising because of misinformation has not arisen. Student Affairs has taken a proactive, not reactive, stance to try to avoid such a situation. When University policy is outlined or summarized in Fast Facts, the name of the document referenced and the name of the office in which a copy of the document may be obtained also are included. In addition to this ongoing monitoring, Student Affairs works with campus sources on an annual review of all files. In this annual review, sources are asked to check the validity of material and consider if additional information and menu choices should be included. Some Fast Facts material, such as a weekly campus events calendar, is updated several times a week. In terms of personnel resources needed to maintain the system, the part-time employee hired to write the text has been kept on staff to maintain Fast Facts, in addition to other duties in the Student Affairs office. Fast Facts maintenance requires approximately three hours a week, and requires less than one week a year of technical support from University Computing Services. What Lies Ahead Our primary short-term objectives center on expanding Fast Facts' reputation on campus. Ongoing efforts include: * Making Fast Facts available each year at sum mer orientation * Making periodic checks with computer laboratory and residence hall staff members to obtain information on user comments and/or problems, the need for staff training, the need for additional instruction cards, and so forth * Aquainting new faculty and staff members with Fast Facts by mail In terms of more long-term initiatives, Fast Facts could serve as the nucleus of a campus-wide information system incorporating information sources as diverse as the libraries, our student information data bases, special interest data bases, electronic conferences, and so forth. Of course, providing access to these information resources is beyond Fast Facts' current capabilities. It might be necessary to rewrite Fast Facts to fit into such an expanded system, but chances are that it could be adapted without wholesale changes. The heart of Fast Facts--the information itself--would naturally be useful regardless of the technical structure in which it were placed. Conclusion If presented the opportunity to develop such a program again, the divisions of Student Affairs and University Computing Services would not hesitate to proceed. The time and resources committed to establish Fast Facts at Ball State have resulted in what the University feels is a useful program that answered a need for a network of campus-wide information. Looking back on the project, we think we made some very good decisions that are perhaps notable for others who might be interested in pursuing a similar project on their campuses. One of these was to assign one individual the task of collecting, verifying, and writing the actual Fast Facts entries. We believe that this decision contributed to the system's timely completion and consistency in style, content, and tone. Another good decision was to keep the responsibility for maintaining Fast Facts' content in the Division of Student Affairs alone, as opposed to assuming that other individuals on campus would monitor the accuracy of information, or inviting them to do so. Finally, we are satisfied with the technical design of the program. While Fast Facts does not have a great many "bells and whistles," it is quite usable by a wide variety of devices. It does not represent any major technical innovation; in fact, it consists primarily of "canned" UNIX utilities. But using this approach, as opposed to developing the system in a procedural language, allowed us to implement Fast Facts fairly quickly and with minimal resources. In conclusion, our experience represents a successful example of how available systems utilities can be used to implement a complete but no-frills system to provide a convenient and accurate information service to a university community. ======================================================================== Footnotes 1 Ball State University is a single-campus, state-supported, doctorate- granting university located in Muncie, Indiana, with a student enrollment of about 19,000. 2 The Division of Student Affairs is responsible for delivering all out-of-classroom services from the time students first inquire about attending the institution until, and sometimes beyond, graduation. University Computing Services manages a multi-million-dollar-a-year operation, with one of its primary goals being to deliver comprehensive and responsive services to meet the academic and administrative computing needs of the University. The Center for Information and Communication Sciences offers a master's degree in communications technology and provides consulting support to University information and communications projects. 3 MVS/XA is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation; DEC and VMS are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation; UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. 4 VT is a trademark of Digital Equipment Corporation. Many of our microcomputers use the Kermit package from Columbia University for terminal emulation and file transfer; Kermit contains an excellent VT102 emulation. 5 DCA is a trademark of Digital Communications Associates, Inc. ************************************************************************ What did it take? What were the resources required to successfully implement the Fast Facts project? Student Affairs * Release time for professional staff members to serve on a steering committee for the project and designating one administrative staff member to hire and supervise the part-time employee in charge of coordinating the text preparation * Funds to compensate a part-time, professional-level employee * Supplies for writing and editing text, including a personal computer, word processing software, and printer (approximate cost $3,200), office space, telephone, paper, and other miscellaneous supplies * Funds for printing Fast Facts instruction cards ($400 for a two- year supply of 15,000 cards) University Computing Services * Three staff members working part-time over the course of several months while Fast Facts was being designed and developed. A large part of the time was spent learning about UNIX. Little more than a month of full-time work went into actually implementing Fast Facts once the design was completed. ************************************************************************ EXHIBIT 1 The Fast Facts outline contains fourteen broad categories: * About the University * Administrative Matters * Academic Services * Student Services * Academic Policies * On/Off Campus Living * Arts and Entertainment * Athletics and Recreation * The City of Muncie * City and State Recreation * Student Conduct/Rights and Responsibilities * For Freshmen Only * Academic Calendar * Pastime Planner Most of these categories are broken down into subcategories. For example, the Academic Services category includes the subcategories: A. Academic Skill Development/Help B. Advising C. Computers D. Honors College E. Independent Study F. Libraries G. Study Abroad Programs In some cases, another layer of menu choices exists. A user selecting item "F," for example, would choose from this set of options relating to libraries: A. Bracken Library B. Architecture Library C. Malcolm X Memorial Library D. Science-Health Science Library E. Computers in the Libraries F. Borrowing from the Libraries G. Library Fine and Cost Policy H. Hours I. Library Help J. Archives and Special Collections Upon selecting one of these options, the user reads a few paragraphs of text providing basic information about the subject. In most entries, the appropriate office name and phone number to be contacted for more information also appear. In addition to the fourteen broad categories, the Fast Facts main menu contains an option named "Browse Fast Facts Outline," which enables users to see an index of the subcategories within each broad category, and an "Evaluate Fast Facts" menu option, which asks users to evaluate the program's content and ease of use. ************************************************************************ Fast Facts: An Online Campus Information System