Academic Computing Comes of Age in Megabytes

Article regarding the creation and growth of academic computing. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.

The citation for this article is: "Academic Computing Comes of Age in Megabytes," Pieces of Eight, May 1, 1989.

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There was a time not long ago -- in 1981 to be exact -- when computer support for ECU's academic community amounted to one part-time mainframe, a few terminals and a half-dozen or so noisy machines that punched computer data cards.

Things have changed -- dramatically. And are still changing. A computer boom has arrived.

Today the faculty and students have a full-time mainframe and more than 500 terminals and personal computers to support their word processing and research work. In addition, computer software and equipment classes are available to the faculty and staff and there are other innovative developments waiting to be unveiled by an organization within the Office of Computing and Information Systems (CIS) which barely existed eight years ago.

Academic Computing

The organization is Academic Computing. It is one of the units within ECU Computing and Information Systems directed by Blake Price and managed by Ernie Marshburn. A support service provided by this unit is Academic Computing Educational Services (ACES).

Eight staff members are employed in Academic Computing to provide service and support to mostly student and faculty computer users on campus. In 1981, there was only one staff position for academic computing.

At the heart of Academic Computing is a shiny new mainframe computer, a dark blue IBM 4381. It's not much larger than a couple of file cabinets but its power to do the work that computers do is mindboggling.

Its memory can work with 16 million bytes of data. Separate tape storagae units can hold up to 10 gigabytes (1,000 million bytes) of information.

All of the academic terminals and many of the PCs on campus are connected to this machine. This puts faculty and students in easy touch with a $3 million investment and a statistical analysis, research and educational tool that existed only in places like the Research Triangle Park a few years ago.

Pleased With Progress

"We're pleased with the progress we've made in Academic Computing," says Marshburn. "We were far behind in the early 1980s but we've come a long way."

Just how far Academic Computing has come might be gleaned from an unsolicited testimonial presented during the course of an interview with Marshburn. A faculty member stopped by Marshburn's office, complimenting him on the simplicity and ease of the ECU academic computing system. The faculty member came to ECU last fall from the University of South Carolina. "We do the best with what we have," Marshburn says. And he adds that departments and individual faculty appreciate having a computer service that is free.

Relatively New Equipment

ECU enjoys some advantage in the fact that much of its computer equipment is relatively new. Many larger schools invested heavily in computer technology a decade ago and are now finding that their systems take up a lot of space, are prone to breakdowns and don't perform as effectively as the more modern, smaller mainframes and storage hardware.

ECU's academic mainframe takes up about a fourth of the space in the special area of Austin Building that houses the university's four mainframe computers. Two of the mainframes are used for administrative computing. Another is used for administrative "software testing."

During peak times of the year -- in September, October and November and in January and February -- the academic mainframe logs about 700 users a day and as many as 22,000 users a month.

Gaining access to the mainframe or using a personal computer can be done at any one of more than two dozen computer labs located in academic buildings as well as in residence halls. These labs contain a total of more than 500 computer work stations open to members of the university community.

Faculty and students use the computer facilitiies for research activities, writing and classroom assignments. A variety of programs including most of the popular wordprocessing, and data and statistical programs are available for use on IBM, Zenith, Sperry, AT&T, Apple IIe and Apple Macintosh machines.

Free classes teaching the fundamentals of the various computers and the "ins and outs" of the programs are taught throughout the year.

The ECU system also offers access to several networks enabling the user to communicate with other faculty and administrators on campus and to tap into the computer systems at other universities and research organizations. ECU is connected with TUCC and Linenet, the computer network linking the 16 state university campuses in North Carolina. Library and research documentation are available through Library-Net and access to international computing networks such as Bitnet are also offered to ECU computer users.

Marshburn said the cost of staying on the cutting edge of technology is high. "The budget for the hardware, software, and communications requirements alone would necessitate the expenditure of at least an additional $1.2 million a year over the next five years," he said.

Helping to decide on budget and overall direction of computing at ECU is the task fo the Information Systems Advisory Committee (ISAC), chaired by C.G. Moore (vice chancellor, Business Affairs). The committee is comprised of each vice chancellor and representatives from other campus academic and administrative computer committees. Charles Ziehr (Geography and Planning) chairs the committee representing academic computing interests on the main campus.

The Faculty Computer Committee placed a resolution before the Faculty Senate in support of "sufficient resources" to add to computer disk space for the academic mainframe. The resolution noted that 97 percent of the disk (storage) space is exhausted and it urged "that university budgeting for next year and beyond recognize that the growth of computing needs is accelerating."

Projects for the Future

Academic Computing is working on several projects for the future. One is to establish computer graphics centers in the Schools of Art, Industry and Technology and Home Economics.

Another project being developed and involves expanded capability for computer-aided instruction. Another project being developed involves expanded capability for computer-aided instruction. Another project being planned is a computer sound center for the School of Music.

Marshburn says Academic Computing plans to enhance its mainframe and personal computer base and provide broader access to these facilities. The goal, he says, is to put a computer on the desk of every member of the faculty.

"It will be the equivalent of placing a multi-million dollar writing, research and communications tool at your fingertips," he said.