ANNUAL REPORT OF THE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER COMMITTEE DATE: May 5, 1981 TO: Faculty Senate FROM: G. Richard Athey, Chair II. Membership of the Committee Ex Officio: Chancellor Brewer : Vice Chancellor Maier (Keats Sparrow, appointed rep- resentative) Vice Chancellor Lemish Tom Johnson, Chair of the Faculty (Walter Pories, Vice Chair of the Faculty, representative) Glenn Crowe, Director of Computing and Information Services Richard Kerns, Business 1981 Charles O'Rear, Biology 1981 Ralph Scott, Library Services 1981 Richard Athey, Medicine 1982 Byron Coulter, Physics 1982 James Hix, Chemistry 1982 Ed Griffith, Political Science 1983 Grant Somes, Allied Health 1983 Jim Wirth, Mathematics 1983 Committee Meetings (Dates and Members Absent) September 12, 1980 (Brewer, Lemish, Maier, Crowe) October 3, 1980 (Scott, Brewer, Lemish ,Sparrow) November 7, 1980 (Scott, Kerns, Wirth and Brewer, Lemish,Sparrow, Pories) December 5, 1980 (Brewer, Lemish, and Pories) February 4, 1981 (Hix, O'Rear, Brewer, Lemish and Pories) March 18, 1981 (Brewer, Lemish and Pories) April 15, 1981 (Brewer, Lemish and Pories) Date of Reports to the Faculty Senate during the year. February 17, 1981 - Richard Athey, Chair, gave a status report concerning academic computing. Specific Instructions Given to the Committee by the Faculty Senate: None Committee Organization - The University Computer Committee represents the various academic computer users across campus and functicns as a body to make recommendations concerning academic computing to (1) the Faculty Senate, (2) Office of Computing and Information Services (Computing Center), and (3) Information Systems Advisory Committee (the overall campus computer policy-making committee). Annual Report of the University Computer Committee May 5, 1981 Page 2 Various subcommittees have been appointed by the UCC during the year to handle specific assignments. These include: October 3, 1980 - subcommittee to work on development of academic needs in the R.F.P. for a new mainframe computer for the campus. December 5, 1980 - subcommittee to work on a Cost Accounting/ Computer Access Policy. April 15, 1981 - subcommittee to develop plans for staffing an Office of Academic Computing using faculty release time. VII. Committee Accomplishments - during 1980-81 the management of the computer center has been totally replaced beginning with a new director of Computing and Information Systems, Glenn Crowe. The Burroughs Computer was determined to be inadequate to meet the present and future needs of ECU, thus a Request for Proposals for a new computer was developed and sent to the various vendors. During this time an agreement was also worked out with the Medical School and Pitt County Hospital whereby they would pool resources for acquisition of a large administrative computer to be shared by all Es three parties. Request for Bids were developed and sent to the vendors and a final contract was awarded to Sperry-Univac for a large, multiprocessor computer to service the administrative needs of ECU, the ECU Medical School, and Pitt County Hospital. The contract with Burroughs for the B-6803 was extended until July 1, 1982, at a reduced price with the machine upgraded with newer memory and more disk drives. A new academic user area is being constructed at the end of the spring semester, 1981, which will allow 24-hour access to terminals and card punches. Increased number of computer center personnel necessitated the conversion of several rooms in Austin to office space for programming staff. Work has begun on the concept of an Office of Academic Computing. Plans are being developed for use of faculty release time for initial projects. Several policy changes have been instituted concerning computing: All funded grants using computing resources must gain initial approval from Computing and Information Services. All funded research using computer resources will be charged real dollars for such services. All computer equipment requisitions greater than $1,000 must be submitted to Computing and Information Services and approved by the appropriate committee. Annual Repért of the University Computer Committee May 5,.1981 Page 3 Computer cards will no longer by supplied without charge to Students and faculty. A Resource Management Policy was instituted allocating computer time and disk space to each student and faculty member. All faculty must apply for computer resources for each class each semester. All academic users will be given a limited resource and must make special application for additional time and space on the computer. Citation of Resolution Numbers Originating with the Committee: None Proposals and/or Business to be Carried Over to Next Year; Work will continue on development of an idea of an Office of Academic Computing. Phase II planning of the Academic Model for a Campus Data Communications Network will continue. As the Burroughs computer becomes solely an academic computer over the next year work will continue concerning ev@ntual plans for academic computing needs. Evaluation of the Committee: The structure of the committee is adequate. The duties of the committee are reasonable. The functions of the committee are expanding and being met through the use of subcommittees. The personnel of the committee is fairly respresentative of the user community. XI. The effectiveness of the committee could be improved if there were some means of disseminating information from the committee to the users, aS well as receiving more input from the users concerning policies, needs, and problems. G. Richard Athey, Chair Grant Somes, Secretary