The Information Technology Fee, Viruses, and the Network at Eastern Connecticut State University
According to Steve Frazier, Information Center Manager from Eastern’s Information Technology Services (ITS), many students have computers that are vulnerable to virus attacks. Resident students often bring their computers to Eastern without anti-virus software or fail to obtain updates to protect them from the newest viruses.
Frazier says that ECSU may be one of the first universities to make a deal with McAfee to offer free anti-virus software to students. Purchasing individual licenses to cover the entire student body would have been nearly $150,000 but because of negotiations by Kevin Gill, World Wide Web project leader the cost was only $3,000.
The Information Technology Fund
The $3,000 cost is being paid for using the Information Technology Fund (ITF). Students are required to pay $100 each semester towards this fund.
Frazier went on to give a breakdown of how the ITF is being used. He said that the goal of Eastern is to use the funds to provide technology that is available to all students.
The money provides students access to 117 PC’s in WH 410 and 87 PC’s in four computer classrooms in Webb Hall (WH 206, 307, 314, and 407) and 114 PCs in the Library classrooms(LI 107, 108, and 109). Costs of paper and toner as well as repairing printers and projection units in these areas are also paid for through ITF.
Student workers and part-time university assistant staff in WH 410 and Residential Hall Network (RESNET) student workers are paid using ITF. RESNET student workers live in eight of the nine residential halls and assist students in connecting to the Internet using their computer in their rooms. ITF enables WH 410 to be open for students for 24 hours a day during midterms and finals.
New, faster computers were installed in Library 107, 108, and 109 replacing the older computers that were first installed in the labs when the Library opened three and a half years ago. This came at a cost of $299,856 that was paid for by students who attended ECSU Fall 2001 and Spring 2002. Sixty-one percent of the ITF fund that year funded the project while students paid $83,170.74 (17%) for the yearly computer lease on the computers in WH 410.
Approximately every three years, older computers in the classrooms and WH 410 are replaced with newer, faster computers. These costs are also paid for using ITF. Frazier says that next summer the PC’s in WH 410 will be replaced with newer computers.
One of the goals Frazier has is to “replace the standard mice with optical mice when computers are upgraded”. Although not paid for through ITF, residential hall computer labs and the Library computers now have these new optical mice. Standard mice operate through wheels inside the mouse, which get dusty causing the cursor to move erratically across the screen. Optical mice work on any surface and don’t require a mouse pad.
A faster and more efficient network
Students can access the Internet faster thanks to an upgrade done on November 21, says Dave Bachand, Data Network Manager of the Information Technology Services Department (ITS). The upgrade means that we now log on to a network that can handle 10Mb/s (10 megabits of traffic per second) compared with the 7Mb/s network that we used to log on to. The upgrade was done by the State of Connecticut Network Department of Information Technology who handles Internet traffic at all four CSU’s.
Bachand explains that “there have been complains that Internet performance in the residence halls is substantially slower than in the labs. It is true that the peak browser performance from a station in the labs is about seven times faster than a station located in the residence halls.”
To understand why this is so, one must realize that our network is separated into two categories: academic buildings, with approximately 1100 computers, and residential halls, with approximately 1500 computers. Computers in academic buildings such as the Library and Webb Hall are guaranteed access to the network at 3.5Mb/s but seldom use more than 2Mb/s. Computers in residence halls (both student-owned and in residence hall computer labs) are guaranteed access to 6.5Mb/s but typically have 8Mb/s or higher.
The more resources being used by the academic buildings means that less resources are available to residence halls. Since all academic buildings are closed between 12am and 7am, students in residence halls have access to 10Mb/s.
“It should be obvious that the difference between the areas of the campus is not because the Resnet network is slower than the rest of the campus but is due to the way that the network is used in the residence halls,” Bachand said.
On computers in academic buildings, most network traffic is local to the campus. An example of local traffic is the ECSU e-mail server. Internet file sharing and games are not commonly used in these areas. Even though there is a small amount of bandwidth per station, there is a large pool of free bandwidth available that is shared among all the stations.
Most network traffic is going to the Internet in residence halls and student use patterns show that there is a great deal of file sharing and gaming which creates a high steady rate of network traffic. More stations on average are using more of the bandwidth, which means there is less bandwidth to share among all the stations. This means that if much of the bandwidth was being used in the past, some students either couldn’t get onto the Internet or experienced extremely slow connection speeds.
In an effort to provide equal access for all students in the residence halls, each computer there is guaranteed to receive a minimum of 40Kb/s with the ability to peak to 125Kb/s. 40Kb/s is comparable to a typical modem connection while 125 Kb/s is comparable to many broadband services. The minimum speed still allows students to play online games but will make file transfer speeds slower than in the past.
“The guaranteed limit takes us out of the loop of managing how students are using their share of the network,” explains Bachand.
Many universities have stricter network policies that limit the amount of information a student can download in a month. For example, the University of Connecticut limits students to five gigabytes of Internet usage per month. Those who exceed this are automatically given a slower connection speed for the rest of the month.
File sharing
Peer-to-peer file sharing applications such as Napster, Gnutella/Bear Share, Audio Galaxy, and Kazaa/Morpheus pose a problem at universities worldwide explains Fraizer. These applications not only hog up the bandwidth but allow students to download copyrighted material. Not all files on these applications are copyrighted but many are.
Downloading copyrighted music files is illegal and many universities are cracking down on offenders. The U.S. Naval Academy recently seized 100 computers from students who are suspected of downloading copyrighted music files. They could face penalties ranging from loss of leave time to court-martial and expulsion in one of the most severe crackdowns on online piracy, according to a November 26 article in the New York Times.
According to The Times, in the past, the strictest universities required students to attend copyright forums or their Internet access was temporarily shut off.
Fraizer suspects students at ECSU might be downloading copyrighted materials but says the philosophy at Eastern is to err on the side of academic freedom.
However, The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) monitors downloading of copyrighted files and those users who upload numerous music files or DVD movie files are traced.
In the past, a student from ECSU uploaded the Spiderman DVD onto the Internet. The RIAA found out about this and contacted the administration at ECSU. The student was given a judicial hearing since the university is obligated to deal with students who break federal law. In this case, the student was simply warned not to do it again. However, repeat offenders who are caught by organizations like the RIA can face more serious consequences. Frazier believes that most cases at ECSU involve first-time offenders. He explained that illegal downloading of copyrighted files is a misdemeanor once the value of the files exceeds $30.
Illegal downloading of copyrighted files is a problem that will only rise in the future. The popularity of downloading files from the Internet increases the acceptability of this behavior but record and movie companies claim that theft of intellectual property should be treated the same as shoplifting. However, the most compelling reasons to download music is because of the inability to pick and choose what songs you want and that a typical CD can cost as much as $20.
As a result of this, some students have suggested that Eastern purchase a faster Internet link so that they can more effectively download files and play online games. Fraizer says that for a noticeable difference the line would need to be upgraded from 10Mb/s to at least 45Mb/s.
Providing such a link would cost approximately 1/3 of a million dollars per year and would come at the expense of other programs such as new computers in the labs. “It would be difficult to explain the business case for spending money on what is at best an unacceptable activity (file sharing and gaming), and not part of the University’s mission,” said Frazier.
