Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Robert Grey has directed the Network 21 committee to reconsider how UC Davis will pay for operating and maintaining the Network 21 system. The move is in response to negative campus feedback to a proposed data communication fee.
In addition, Grey endorsed the Network 21 Budget and Oversight Committee's suggestion that it look seriously at a multimillion-dollar capital project to complete the campus network infrastructure.
According to committee chair Carole Barone, associate vice chancellor for information technology, an expanded committee will spend the summer months preparing a new plan for consideration.
Here's what the committee recommended to Grey:
* Postpone the vote on the student technology fee until next academic year, probably winter quarter 1997, while continuing to consult student leaders and the Student Affairs administration about the proposal;
* Until the funding strategy is decided, central campus funds should pay for operation and maintenance of the campus network (funds will likely be required to handle costs during the 1996-97 fiscal year);
* Develop new proposals for completing and using the Network 21 system by Oct. 15 and share those proposals with the campus community during fall quarter. These will address two issues. One is to identify alternative funding strategies to operate and maintain the network that gives campus units some ability to manage their costs and assures that everybody pays a fair share of the costs. The other issue involves the re-examination of funding strategies to build out the network to those areas left out of the $23 million original construction project now under way. This would include the possibility of developing another campus-funded capital project to finance the build-out all at once (rather than construct incrementally over eight-10 years);
* Add new members to the committee, including a dean or associate dean, an assistant dean, and a faculty member from the humanities; and
* Endorse the committee's strategy to accommodate the number of network connections campus units say they need.
The demand for Internet connections is skyrocketing, but Information Technology and the committee believe that the projected campus need can still be accommodated within the Network 21 project.
A May survey conducted by Information Technology identified 11,200 existing campus connections to the Internet within the Network 21 project boundaries. This number contrasts with a previous estimate of 6,500 connections. In the survey, campus units projected another 5,000 new connections, bringing the total needed to 16,200 connections.
Although the $23 million Network 21 infrastructure project is budgeted for 10,000 connections, thanks to the ability to connect multiple computers to a single port, the project can accommodate those 16,200 computers, Barone says. Information Technology is developing a list of recommended solutions to assist units in making the technical choices permitted by this approach.
