ISTAB Meeting: November 15, 2005

Student Computing

Student Representation:

• Nici Ames, MechE, ASA Exec Board etc.
• Jeff Arnold, SIPB
• John Cloutiur, Pres. UA
• Jarrett Goetz, Sloan
• Eric Jonas, PhD Course 9
• Hubert Pham, PhD student

IS&T Representation:

• Greg Anderson
• Bill Cattey
• Joanne Hallisey
• Paul Hill
• Vijay Kumar
• Tim McGovern
• Stuart Peloquin, Res Net Coord
• Erica Peterson
• Oliver Thomas

Student Computing Questions:
How are students using the computing environment?
What are the devices you use?
What are the services you value?
What are things you prefer to do on your own?

Background:
IS&T is creating an Infrastructure Software Development and Architecture (ISDA). Some of the areas considered are:

• evolve some of the infrastructure.
• authentication mechanisms. Working with Internet2 and the Incommon group.
• Data Warehouse and leveraging that system.IS&T wants student input to understand how to best to use our development resources? What resources are necessary to sustain the student computing environment?
  

Questions about Athena Use and Student Responses:
Majority login to Athena daily.
“Sometimes I use MatLab”
Confident that most Sloan students do not use Athena.
Course 6, Course 9 uses courseware that is on Athena. Uniform platform for students and easy deployment for staff.

Student Questions, Comments, Assumptions:
A lot of student groups have switched to having their own servers because they can do more (php, process credit card transactions)…..more control, and flexibility than an Athena locker.
Are assuming that Sun Solaris Athena is being phased out and that the trend is toward Linux Athena.
What are the plans to enable more software distribution via win.mit.edu (sometimes called WinAthena) along the lines of Athena?
Not concerned about the trend away from Sun Solaris to Linux.
Concerned about the shift away from the cluster – some are sad to see the spaces converted while others liked the possibilities. Improved communications about changes in the clusters is needed; students felt that they did not have sufficient notice ahead of time. Future transformations of the cluster spaces need a high degree of student input and communications.
Comment that the new whiteboard/collaborative spaces in the clusters is nice, but that they are not always reliable; does not always work. If we are going to make this transition, we should be sure that it is robust and operationally stable. Request for more advance notice

Answer to Question About "Win Athena" i.e. win.mit.edu:
Not the same as Athena….that is a misnomer. Win.mit.edu provides a managed Windows active directory environment that enables distributed access to software at a container level. As a managed environment it does have a file system and users can attach lockers today. For software installs, a couple of groups on campus develop MSIs for deployment of software in a container. Group policies can be used to assign software to a container. There are not a lot of third party vendors who create MSIs but that is changing; seeing more in Open Source projects.
Some students heard that there was a direction to provide software so that it could be downloaded to a personal workstation; e.g. Matlab is now available to students for personal machines through an experiment sponsored by Academic Computing (Certificates required).

IS&T Question: Can we, with the resources we have, provide flexibility to provide software in a way that is more flexible – installer for multiple platforms?
Would like to do this more widely, but what is the cost effective way to do this? MSI is one, PRM’s on the Linux platform is another.
Licensing issue: Vendors are still concerned about installing their software on machines that are personally owned. Lots of the software licenses states “use for teaching”.
Student Comment:
Network file services – would like to make better use of a network file system. Always struggle getting AFS to work. Does IS&T have any plans to make AFS or other file systems more accessible and more ubiquitous?
IS&T Response: The new IS&T group Infrastructure Software Development and Architecture (ISDA) will look at how we provide a network file system.
Summary: Things that are valued: Common delivery platform
Network file system

IS&T Question: What are the common minimum set of functionality that students want, given the current environment? What should the student computing environment include?
Student Response:
Share files without having to email large pdf attachments: 1:1, 1:many.
Students can submit large files without exhausting email quota of instructor.
Platform to enable students to do things that we might not have identified in this meeting.
Better searching - How can we search all of the information in the repository system; raises the point that information will need metadata information. There are debates on which strategy to pursue.
IS&T Question: What are the resources that IS&T devotes to this?
Today the resources are spread pretty thinly. Where should we put our focus? Some limited experiments, but most resources are devoted to maintaining the operation.
Student Response:
Comments on computational spaces versus spaces where teaching and learning can happen:

1. Grad students have a different perspective than undergrads – fewer projects are required. Win.mit.edu machines take care of themselves. Use computers provided by department. Grad Students generally have their own space on campus and use desktop or laptop. Therefore, tend not to use clusters.
2. Sloan – 90 -110% is in small teams of 5 – 10 people. Need wireless and laptops, alternative input methods into the laptops (electronic whiteboards, peripherals, flat panel, projection). Use of computing comes after the team meetings….access resources then. Share files using Sloan Space for classes; Windows file sharing; Groove etc., email. Need to move away from use of email as filesharing - inefficient, creates issues with versioning of content, and can rapidly eat up quota space.
3. Other graduate students work mostly on their own computers (IP issues). If you need cycles, the laptop is as powerful as the desktop. Don’t touch the desktops in the course of doing coursework.IS&T Question: Would it be useful if we provided packaged peer to peer that was not tied to Windows?
   Student Response:
   Yes, it would be helpful especially working with other non-MIT students. At Sloan, people want to use the software that the rest of the world is using, so that when they leave and go to industry with the assurance that they are knowledgeable in those standard applications.
   Student Comments on Cluster Use:
   Clusters are used for one of three reasons:

• proximity 9 close to campus)
• something like course software that is easier to do on Athena
• to meet with other people with a computer nearby.There is a learning aspect to the clusters - peer-to-peer learning and exchange happens. The social aspects of learning and community life happen a lot in the clusters - that face-to-face dynamic is diminishing as more work is done on personal machines and virtual interactions become more the norm.
  Among SIPB and others it used to be that students would come into the labs together and now they tend to stay in their rooms more rather than go to a cluster or lab.
  Some do not use a laptop at all, but know that there are a lot of students who do.
  IS&T Question: Is the understanding of multiple operating systems still important and necessarily part of a student's education?
  Or are students of the opinion that the computing environment is a utility and tool to accomplish other tasks and should 'just work'.
  
  Feel that IS&T provides tools, but not necessarily the proper tools (secure file system etc.).
  Follow on question: Should IS&T take on the role as educator? Yes.
  Other:
  It would be useful to have a version control environment for class use. There are a number of classes that still “try to teach students to program”. Version control is a massive problem for Sloan also (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) – need something like Documentum.
  If IS&T provides this kind of system, does the shared file system like Athena become less important? There is a requirement to educate the users for it to be effective.
  Now need to think of sustainability. New Provost has restarted the MITCET (Hal Abelson and Bob Redwine chair). Help the Provost and IS&T generate priorities.
  What’s the role of IS&T in terms of education around computing? Is that something that is important for student life at MIT?
  IS&T would like to see more conversations of this kind. When we talk about the collaboration space changes, these are some manifestations. Future spaces could be different; visualization lab, specialized space to meet needs of a changing environment. Conversations, like this one with ISTAB, will inform MITCET.
  MITCET: Came up with a lot of educational strategies/projects in the past (OCW, Stellar etc.) as well as infrastructure commitments (Wireless campus).
  One of the key topics will be the evolution of the student computing environment.
  Council will put out task forces: infrastructure, student computing environment (spaces, student-owned computing), what new investments must be made. Includes spaces used for distance learning, classrooms. These conversations will feed into the MITCET conversations. As they look at subgroups we would hope that they will meet with ISTAB.
  There are also experimental computing spaces in the residence halls. How do we close the gap between living and learning? Consider what are the kinds of spaces we should create there.
  

Housekeeping: Add to the future ISTAB agenda: What kind of computing help do you see across your communities? Are we providing the breadth of computing support that you need? Park that as a question for future.
Please use the list to ask questions and raise concerns.