Computerized Life at UIUC

by Zachary C. Miller
Literacy in the Information Age - Work, Organizations and IT

Introduction

As a computer science major I am surrounded by computers in my daily academic experience even more than many of my peers. There are a number of areas where computers are entering the lives of all students at the University of Illinois (UIUC). Computerization can make life easier for individuals in an organization but only if it is deployed well by its designers and received well by its users. Many organizational computer technologies that have been deployed at UIUC have been successful, others have had neutral effect. This paper discusses some of these technologies in general and a couple of them in detail.

The List

Here is a sample of the various computer systems which most students interact with in their daily academic lives at the UIUC.

UIDirect
A secure system for class registration and official address tracking. Discussed in detail below.
World Wide Web (WWW)
Used by instructors to distribute course materials (lecture notes, handouts, and homework), as well as by students as a presentation medium for papers and other assignments. The WWW is also used by the university to provide administrative information (such as policies, course descriptions, time tables, etc).
Email
Used by students and instructors to communicate asynchronously. Email allows electronic submission of homework as well as teacher student interaction traditionally reserved for office hours. Email is discussed in detail below.
Newsgroups
A collaborative bulletin board environment used by students and instructors to share group information.
Illinet Online and other Library systems
All library materials (books, catalogs, abstracts) at the UIUC are cataloged by various computer programs.
Accounts Payable/Receivable
All money transactions of the UIUC may be routed through this system. Students are billed monthly for any course related fees, or are refunded if they have received surplus financial aid.
Grade Systems
Transcripts may be ordered by computer. Central grade databases allow the generation of degree audits, transcripts, and other grade reports. During the semester grades may be available on the web or via the Campus GradeBook program.
PacerForum/FirstClass/NovaNet
Many classes use online class software rather than the WWW to publish course materials, evaluate progress, and enable student interaction.
Computer Labs (CCSO and EWS)
Most campus computer labs require a UIUC password to use. Lab services allow students without computers to interact with the computerization of the university.
PH (Campus Phone book)
All campus phone numbers are located in the PH database.
Access cards
Many campus buildings use security key-card based access. This allows for tracking of building use by individuals.

Email

Often very simple technology can be the most important, email is one of these. Email is probably the oldest collaborative computer technology, it has existed in one form or another for as long as computers have been connected to each other. Email is a major innovation because it allows simple, electronically encoded, asynchronous communication.

Email is one of the first things that any new network user learns. Email is the reason many people become interested in using networked computers. I believe email's popularity is due in part to its simplicity; it is text based, it is platform independent and universally compatible, and most importantly it extends a familiar genre of communication (the letter or memo). Email has been almost universally accepted by the university population as a valid means of communication, it is only with this acceptance that it truly is valid.

Electronic encoding makes email superior to the memo or letter because it allows email to act as a glue for other information technologies. Email can act as a transport mechanism for electronic documents or references to such documents. Email can be forwarded and edited with minimal effort. This adds the flexibility to memo-style communication that IT generally promises to add to all information processing tasks.

Electronic encoding has a secondary effect of altering the feel of a message. Electronic messages (unlike phone messages or face to face communication) lacks emotional expressiveness. Email may seem more anonymous (or at least safe) to a sender than a face to face exchange. This effect tends to free the sender, for better or worse, from social power structure roles in the exchange. A student may be more open and honest with a professor over email; a group of students may be more likely to work together on an equal basis.

The asynchronous nature of email is what distinguishes it from many other information technologies. Email frees both sender and receiver to deal with messages at convenient times. The schedule of the sender and receiver need not coincide. In a university context this means the student doesn't need to feel that she is intruding on the instructor's time with questions.

Email is flexible enough that alone it can provide most of the electronic services a class needs. Email lists can be used for group discussion and announcements; individual email can be used for paper submission, grade distribution, and dialog.

I have used email extensively in almost all of my classes, I have found that it is the one technology that is universally understood by even the most technophobic individuals at the university. I have found that my email interactions with many instructors has helped foster a sense of intellectual community by minimizing the sense of intellectual hierarchy. I can see instructors as humans and future colleagues, and I think instructors get a similar connection to their students through email interaction.

UIDirect

The UIDirect registration system is itself a very minor part of the day to day experience of students, but the technology and information organization changes that went into its creation have fundamentally changed the university. The larger system is not just an interface to registration for students, but rather a massive database of academic information that was formerly kept on paper. This system is based in a secure environment that has been extended to many other applications around campus. UIDirect represents a convergence of interrelated technologies within the university.

Before UIDirect was available, the registration process was primarily paper based. Students stood in lines to get papers signed and registration authorized. After registration much information was never transfered to computers but rather tracked using a student's paper based file. The development of UIDirect had as a prerequisite the development of a campus wide unified database of registration information. This database is now accessible (at different access levels) by everyone on campus (deans and advisors may directly override registration restrictions without having to issue special paperwork).

The need for immediate registration has relaxed the strictness with which certain registration restrictions are followed, restrictions that are not easily enforced by computer do not tend to be enforced. Hence, prerequisites now serve as more of an advisory to students than as a hard restriction. Similarly students do not need to spend as much time with an advisor to build their schedule. This gives students flexibility and freedom that was not previously available. For some students (and in the eyes of some administrators) this may be more of a burden for the students than it is a boon, but I have enjoyed the freedom.

In order to provide secure registration services the university had to provide every student with a network id and password to the campus Kerberos system. This is a system which grants secure authentication keys to computer programs which have been provided with the proper password. The choice to use this framework for registration means that all students are familiar with their passwords and tend to understand the necessity of keeping those passwords secure. The Kerberos system is now used by a large number of campus computer services for secure authentication (GradeBook, transcript ordering, student organization web page maintenance, lab computer access, etc.). None of these applications would be possible without this framework.

Another important side effect of UIDirect is that it establishes an up to date database of mailing addresses for all students. This data is linked into the PH system making any campus address available to any campus user given a network id. This means that many non-class registration activities (such as signing up for clubs) can be faster, more convenient, and more accurate. No one on campus needs to track an individuals current contact information except the UIDirect system and more and more organizations within the university are taking advantage of this.

Conclusion

The two technologies discussed (Email and UIDirect) are probably the two most widely used information technologies at the UIUC. They are simple text based technologies with seemingly limited application. Both technologies have fundamentally changed the way students think about their interactions with instructors, advisors and administrators at the university. These technologies have created freedom for their users but they have also placed a responsibility to use that freedom wisely upon those users.