Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
In This Issue
IT from the Ground Up
8/19/2005
UC Merced CIO Rich Kogut’s visions and plans from the past three years will materialize as the first new University of California campus in nearly 40 years officially opens in Merced, CA on September 5.
UC-Merced's Kogut: The advantage is: We have no legacy. The challenge is: We have no legacy.
You’ve been working toward the opening of the new UC Merced campus this fall. How long have you been working on this project, and what are the goals for IT? I came onboard in August 2002, so it’s been just over three years. The goals for IT are, of course, the same as any campus has: We have to support everything. But there are three cornerstone strategies we’re trying to follow in implementing IT. First, we are very much trying to use a flexible, open-standards-based infrastructure, so that we can allow freedom of choice for the services that are going to be added later. We want to be able to leverage new and emerging technologies without being locked in to any particular solution or vendor, so it’s important to create a solid and open infrastructure that we can build on. Second, we’re trying to provide service from the user perspective, avoiding silos not only in the actual function, but also based and structured around the user’s point of view. Part of that will be heavy reliance on portal technology so that users can see everything they need, via one location. We’re trying to structure our services so that students, faculty, staff, or others have as unified an interface as possible. The third cornerstone: to build in identity management and automated provisioning as a fundamental part of the IT infrastructure. We want to automate as much as we can from the start, and make it totally scalable.
You’re opening with 1,000 students and plans to scale up in coming years. What types of programs will initially be offered on this campus? Of those 1,000 students, some will be graduate students, some will be junior-year transfers, and the majority will be freshmen. On the academic side, as well as in IT, everyone is trying to take an integrated approach. In terms of academics, that means a lot of interdisciplinary work. We’re not opening with standard departments; there is no biology or Spanish department. We have three schools, and majors are intended to be higher level, with the ability to select emphases…The idea is to have as much interaction among our three schools as possible, to prepare students for the cross-disciplinary challenges of the 21st century.
Will you connect to NLR, Internet2, or other research networks?
We are currently connected to CalREN (http://www.cenic.org), which, in turn,
is connected to virtually everything in the world. We now have 96 strands of
fiber connected to the CalREN backbone; we’ll be running multiple connections
to it. We’re currently running a 1-Gig connection for basic work, but
we will add a research link, as needed, that can go up to 10-Gig.
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
