Table of Contents
Preface...................................................................................................................................................................8
I. Solid Foundation of IT Infrastructure & Sound Fiscal Planning...................................................8
Lifecycle Funding, Modernization, & Local Support ................................................................................8
II. Access to Network Resources ............................................................................................................... 10
Reliable Access...............................................................................................................................................10
Off-campus Access ..................................................................................................................................10
On-campus Access...................................................................................................................................11
III. Institutional Commitment: Faculty & Staff Engagement .......................................................... 12
Compensation for IT Professionals ...........................................................................................................12
Promotion and Tenure .................................................................................................................................12
Fellowships and Development Grants ......................................................................................................12
IU/SBC Fellows Program.......................................................................................................................13
IU/SBC Summer Leadership Forum....................................................................................................13
Technology Assessment Grant Program..............................................................................................13
Teaching & Learning Technology Grants............................................................................................13
Faculty & Staff Support................................................................................................................................13
Local Support Provider (LSP) Services.................................................................................................14
Unix and Unix EdCerts...........................................................................................................................14
UITS IT Training & Education .............................................................................................................15
Self-paced Learning..................................................................................................................................15
Software Support......................................................................................................................................15
SBC/TAG Summer Leadership Forum ...............................................................................................17
Teaching and Learning Centers .............................................................................................................17
Space for UITS Staff.....................................................................................................................................17
IUPUI.........................................................................................................................................................17
IUB .............................................................................................................................................................19
IV. Teaching & Learning: Content, Access, Distributed Education .............................................. 19
Faculty Support for Teaching & Learning with Technology .................................................................19
IUPUI – Center for Teaching & Learning...........................................................................................20
IUB – Teaching & Learning Technologies Center .............................................................................21
IUE – Teaching & Learning Center......................................................................................................22
IUSB – Center for Excellence in Teaching..........................................................................................22
IUS - Institute for Learning & Teaching Excellence..........................................................................23
IUK – Center for Teaching, Learning, & Assessment .......................................................................23
IUN – Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning ......................................................................23
Web-based Course Services & Infrastructure...........................................................................................24
Distributed Education ..................................................................................................................................25
Digital Media Services ..................................................................................................................................26
Instructional Simulation & Visualization...................................................................................................27
Classroom Technology .................................................................................................................................28
IUB .............................................................................................................................................................29
IUPUI.........................................................................................................................................................29
IUE .............................................................................................................................................................30
IUSB ...........................................................................................................................................................30
IUN.............................................................................................................................................................30
IUK.............................................................................................................................................................30
IUS..............................................................................................................................................................31
Evaluation & Assessment ............................................................................................................................31
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V. Research: Computation, Communication, Collaboration .............................................................32
Collaborative Technologies .........................................................................................................................32
Videoconferencing Services....................................................................................................................32
Streaming Media .......................................................................................................................................33
Web Collaboration ...................................................................................................................................34
Access Grid ...............................................................................................................................................34
Collaborative Visualization .....................................................................................................................34
High Performance Computing & the National Grid ..............................................................................34
Delivery & Support of Advanced Hardware .......................................................................................36
Distributed Shared Memory (the Research SP and the Libra Cluster) .......................................36
Shared Memory (the Research Database Complex) ......................................................................36
Special-purpose Systems (GRAPEs)................................................................................................37
Data Capacitor .....................................................................................................................................37
Creating an Advanced Cyberinfrastructure ..........................................................................................37
Open Science Grid – Grid Operations Center...............................................................................38
MidWest Atlas Tier 2 Computational and Storage Facility ..........................................................38
TeraGrid ...............................................................................................................................................38
Indiana University at SC|05 ...................................................................................................................39
Computation & Information-intensive Applications ..............................................................................40
Support & Delivery of Research Software ...........................................................................................40
Statistical and Mathematical Software..............................................................................................40
Unix and Open-source Productivity Tools .....................................................................................41
Bioinformatics Support ......................................................................................................................42
Scientific Data Management Group.................................................................................................42
Library and Information Science Research .....................................................................................42
Advanced Visualization & Virtual Reality ............................................................................................43
High-resolution Display Wall ............................................................................................................43
Virtual-reality Theater.........................................................................................................................43
John-e-Boxes........................................................................................................................................43
High Performance Computing Applications & Support ...................................................................44
Massive Data Storage....................................................................................................................................45
CFS .............................................................................................................................................................46
Research File System (RFS) ....................................................................................................................47
Research Initiatives in Information Technology......................................................................................47
Research Led by UITS.............................................................................................................................47
AVIDD .................................................................................................................................................47
TeraGrid ...............................................................................................................................................48
IBM Institutes of Innovation ............................................................................................................48
Creation of New Software .................................................................................................................48
Center for Computational Cytomics ................................................................................................48
Research Projects Involving UITS ........................................................................................................48
Data Capacitor .....................................................................................................................................48
Collaboration for the Interdisciplinary Study of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder ................49
Pervasive Technology Labs ...............................................................................................................49
VI. Information Systems: Managing IU’s Information Assets..........................................................49
Oversight of Information Systems .............................................................................................................49
Advisory Committees ..............................................................................................................................50
School of Medicine ..................................................................................................................................50
Information Systems.....................................................................................................................................50
Student Information System...................................................................................................................50
Human Resources Management System ..............................................................................................51
Library Information Systems..................................................................................................................52
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Fiscal and Procurement Systems............................................................................................................53
Kuali Financial Systems......................................................................................................................53
EPIC......................................................................................................................................................54
PDP .......................................................................................................................................................54
Travel.....................................................................................................................................................54
FIS..........................................................................................................................................................54
E-commerce .........................................................................................................................................55
Facilities Management (MMS)...........................................................................................................55
Document Imaging (OnBase) ...........................................................................................................55
Research Administration (ERA/KRA)............................................................................................55
Human Subjects...................................................................................................................................56
Executive Reporting Environment ..................................................................................................57
Kuali Research Administration (KRA) – Budget...........................................................................57
Departmental Information Systems ......................................................................................................57
Consolidated Hosting Environment ................................................................................................57
Common Interface & Usability...................................................................................................................58
OneStart.....................................................................................................................................................58
OneStart Workflow – Enterprise Service Bus................................................................................59
OneStart Calendar ...............................................................................................................................59
OneStart Classifieds ............................................................................................................................60
Shared Services Development and Support....................................................................................60
User Experience Group ..........................................................................................................................60
Systems Integration Team.......................................................................................................................61
Web Search Service .............................................................................................................................61
The J2EE environment architecture planning and support .........................................................61
SUDS – Shared University Data Service .........................................................................................62
Kuali Infrastructure and Architecture..............................................................................................62
Enterprise Environment ..............................................................................................................................62
Thin Client.................................................................................................................................................62
Enterprise Unix Environment ...............................................................................................................62
Strategic Database Management ............................................................................................................63
The IU Information Environment .............................................................................................................64
Data Administration .....................................................................................................................................64
Year 2000 ........................................................................................................................................................64
Disaster Recovery..........................................................................................................................................65
VII. Telecommunications: Applications, Infrastructure, Convergence .........................................65
Converged Technologies..............................................................................................................................66
Lifecycle Replacement ..................................................................................................................................66
Connectivity & Standards ............................................................................................................................66
Advanced Applications & Networking......................................................................................................67
I-Light ........................................................................................................................................................67
National LambdaRail ...............................................................................................................................68
IP-grid ........................................................................................................................................................68
Abilene .......................................................................................................................................................68
HOPI..........................................................................................................................................................69
MANLAN .................................................................................................................................................69
TransPAC2 ................................................................................................................................................69
Global NOC..............................................................................................................................................70
Wireless Networks ........................................................................................................................................72
Multimedia & Streaming Media ..................................................................................................................72
Videoconferencing Services....................................................................................................................73
Streaming Media .......................................................................................................................................73
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Web Collaboration ...................................................................................................................................74
VIII. Support for Student Computing .......................................................................................................74
Student Technology Support.......................................................................................................................74
Information Commons ...........................................................................................................................74
Support Center Enhancements ..............................................................................................................76
Online Support Environment ................................................................................................................76
Adaptive Technology Center..................................................................................................................77
Access in the Student Residence Halls ......................................................................................................78
Student Ownership of Computers .............................................................................................................79
IX. Digital Libraries & the Scholarly Record..........................................................................................79
Digital Library Research...............................................................................................................................80
Digital Library Brown Bag Series...........................................................................................................80
Variations2: Digital Music Library.........................................................................................................80
Variations3.................................................................................................................................................80
Building a Digital Library Education Program ....................................................................................80
Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium........................................................................................81
Chymistry of Isaac Newton ....................................................................................................................81
Open Archives Initiative .........................................................................................................................81
DLF Aquifer..............................................................................................................................................81
Sound Directions......................................................................................................................................82
Sakai-Libraries Integration ......................................................................................................................82
Digital Library Infrastructure ......................................................................................................................82
Electronic Information Resources .............................................................................................................83
OneSearch @ IU ......................................................................................................................................83
The Unicorn System and IUCAT..........................................................................................................83
Growth of Libraries Web Site ................................................................................................................83
Electronic Reserves..................................................................................................................................84
Support for Digital Library Initiatives........................................................................................................84
Digital Library Projects & Collections ..................................................................................................84
VARIATIONS ....................................................................................................................................84
LETRS ..................................................................................................................................................84
DMIC ....................................................................................................................................................84
DIDO Image Bank .............................................................................................................................85
Indiana Digital Audio Archives Project...........................................................................................85
Central American and Mexican Video Archive ..............................................................................85
Film Literature Index Online (1976-2001) ......................................................................................85
Ethnomusicological Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive..................................85
IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana ........................................................................................86
Digital Library of the Commons.......................................................................................................86
Swinburne Archive..............................................................................................................................86
Victorian Bibliography........................................................................................................................86
David Bradley Film Collection Digitization....................................................................................86
IUScholarWorks (Institutional Repository) ....................................................................................86
IUPUI University Library: Digital Libraries Team Projects..............................................................87
The Central Indiana Online Historical Collection .........................................................................87
Preservation of Digital Records & Materials ............................................................................................87
X. Security, Privacy, Intellectual Property ...............................................................................................88
IT Policy..........................................................................................................................................................88
Technology Policy Activity .....................................................................................................................88
Educational Materials ..............................................................................................................................89
Incident Response ....................................................................................................................................89
Accounts Administration ........................................................................................................................89
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IT Security ......................................................................................................................................................90
Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.........................................................................................91
REN-ISAC ................................................................................................................................................91
Intellectual Property......................................................................................................................................92
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Table of Figures
Figure 1: Lifecycle Savings ..................................................................................................................................9
Figure 2: Savings from License Agreements..................................................................................................16
Figure 3: CTL Consultations by School .........................................................................................................21
Figure 4: JumpStart Courses by School ..........................................................................................................21
Figure 5: IU Classrooms....................................................................................................................................29
Figure 6: TeraFLOPS Usage.............................................................................................................................35
Figure 7: Summary of Stat/Math Consulting ................................................................................................41
Figure 8: MDSS Storage ....................................................................................................................................45
Figure 9: MDSS Users .......................................................................................................................................46
Figure 10: CFS Utilization.................................................................................................................................47
Figure 11: Support Center Contacts............................................................................................................... 76
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Preface
The Indiana University Information Technology Strategic Plan was approved by President Myles
Brand and the Trustees in December 1998, and the Office of the Vice President for Information
Technology and CIO (OVPIT) was given responsibility for its implementation. Thus, 2005 was the
seventh full calendar year, and FY 2005-2006 the seventh full financial year of the implementation of
the Plan.
This document is a summary for this period principally of University Information Technology
Services (UITS) accomplishments, but also of those of other parts of the University, in implementing
the Plan and activities related to it. Though this document is, strictly speaking, prepared for FY 20052006 as part of the University’s annual budgetary process, realistically it reports accomplishments
mainly for the calendar year 2005, given that it is prepared in early 2006. While the plan was designed
as a five-year plan, its recommendations and principles guided IU’s activities and initiatives in IT
through 2005. OVPIT has produced a document similar to this on an annual basis for each year of
the Plan.
The Plan consists of 10 major Recommendations and 68 Actions. The accomplishments for 2005 are
described under these.
I. Solid Foundation of IT Infrastructure & Sound Fiscal Planning
Recommendation 1: The University should build a solid foundation of IT infrastructure that will help and enable IU
to achieve a position of leadership, and to assure that sound fiscal planning permits the maintenance of this
infrastructure at state-of-the-art levels.
Lifecycle Funding, Modernization, & Local Support
Action 1. The University should build lifecycle replacement funding into its planning at every level of investment in
information technology (including personal, departmental, and central systems, and network hardware and software);
and UITS should develop a lifecycle replacement model to use where needed in conjunction with its investments in
information technology. Implementation should begin immediately, with full funding of lifecycle replacement phased in
over a fixed number of years.
Action 2. The University should budget a standard amount per year, per FTE to support lifecycle replacement of
faculty and staff desktop computers, and to cover the cost of providing local support to that desktop.
Action 3. The University’s stock of computers should be systematically modernized so that they are all capable of
supporting current releases of widely used software, Web access and other basic tasks of computation and
communication.
In August 2000, after little more than two years of progress on these Actions, IU completed the
implementation of lifecycle funding for desktop computers, operating systems, and common
applications for all the campuses of the University and for all 110 IU Schools and service units.
During the initial phase of this project, more than 10,000 obsolete computers in 110 Schools and
service units were replaced at a cost of $11M. The replacement value of the inventory was calculated
at $20M. Faculty and staff desktop computers were upgraded so that 15,000 computers are now less
than three years old. A $6M annual lifecycle fund has been established to keep more than 15,000
faculty and administrative desktop computers up to date with the units and UITS sharing
management and supervisory responsibility.
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The impact of systematic renewal of desktop computers throughout the University goes far beyond
personal productivity and satisfaction. A population of computers with common powers, offering
software largely recommended by the University, makes the IT environment throughout Indiana
University easier to support.
Agreements with major software vendors—including Microsoft, Macromedia, Symantec, Oracle,
Corel, SPSS, and others—mean that all IU computer users have access to the most recent releases of
popular desktop software. The most extensive of these agreements, the Microsoft Agreement,
distributed in its first seven years 683,913 copies of the Microsoft operating systems and personal
productivity suites such as Microsoft Office. These agreements have resulted in savings for faculty,
staff, and especially students of more than $111M thus far. In addition, a more easily supported
common base of software and a common hardware platform allow for improved service to users.
University Information Technology Services (UITS) and IU Purchasing have negotiated to leverage
the mass purchase power of the University to realize the lowest workstation and notebook prices in
meeting lifecycle funding objectives. Similar negotiations have resulted in the purchase of more than
37,000 machines by IU Schools and departments, realizing savings of more than $15M.
Cost Savings (in Millions)
$120
$111
$100
$80
$60
$40
$20
$15
$0
Computers
Agreements
Figure 1: Lifecycle Savings
In May 2003, IU entered a three-year Preferred Partnership with Dell Marketing — IU’s first such
agreement — that offers students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to purchase specially configured
workstations, laptops, and multimedia computers at up to $600 below standard educational pricing,
and discounts of up to 13% below educational rates on the full catalog of Dell computers, printers,
and handheld devices.
The successful implementation of lifecycle funding and basic equipment modernization is an
impressive achievement in a short time, and has brought IU national attention. (The Chronicle of Higher
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Education, October 4, 2002, featured a story including IU’s workstation bid process and software
contract in an article on lifecycle funding.) This accomplishment greatly enhances faculty members’
and students’ opportunities to make full instructional, administrative, and research use of information
technology. The success of this implementation is illustrated by the fact that students and faculty
know they can count on access to basic hardware, software, and networks, and generally express high
levels of satisfaction in the UITS annual User Survey. See http://uits.iu.edu/scripts/ose.cgi?anwq.ose.help.
UITS has been recognized for many years as a leader in the effective management of the cost and
quality of its services. UITS was one of the first university IT organizations in the nation to develop a
comprehensive services list, define all of the processes that comprise those services, and implement
Activity Based Costing (ABC). As a result of the ABC effort, UITS is able to identify the total cost,
utilization levels, and per-unit cost of everything it produces. Use of ABC metrics is a key tool in
analyzing and modifying expenditures that ensure that budget monies are used most effectively.
UITS is also a national leader in assessing customer-based satisfaction. For more than a decade UITS
has contracted with an independent survey organization to administer a survey of its customers
(users within the University community) to assess satisfaction with UITS services; many service
changes have been implemented in recent years as a result of the UITS User Survey. UITS is
expanding its quality management efforts to include cost, user-perceived quality, innovation, and
technology transfer/economic development factors.
The 2005 survey results indicate that of those in the IUB and IUPUI community that use UITS
services, more than 95% are satisfied with the quality of those services. UITS has been experimenting
with other quality methodologies, including the balanced scorecard (which measures innovation and
staff satisfaction as well as cost and quality) and Six Sigma (a total quality management methodology
designed to essentially eradicate errors from processes). UITS leadership in the management of cost
and quality is indicated by the fact that for five years in a row representatives of UITS have spoken
on this topic at national conferences.
II. Access to Network Resources
Recommendation 2: The University should provide students, faculty and staff with reliable access to computing and
network services, on the campuses and off. (In the language of today’s technology, “No busy signals!”)
Reliable Access
Action 5. The University should provide students, faculty and staff with reliable access to computing, data storage,
information and network services, on the campuses and off.
Off-campus Access
With the long-standing problem of inadequate capacity on the two core campuses solved in 1999,
modem service was monitored for quality and usage during 2005. Modem access remains, as a
normal operating condition, rapid and straightforward. Continued increase in the use of local, highspeed, off-campus Internet Service Providers has resulted in decreased use of the IUB and IUPUI
modem pools as members of the IU community increasingly made use of these service providers.
In 2005, UITS reduced the number of IUB modem lines by 460 and the number of IUPUI modem
lines by 437. Since elimination of the service is not likely, the core network was upgraded at the IUB
and IUPUI campuses to ensure efficient and reliable service. However, the move to high-speed
providers by the user community is yielding significant cost savings as UITS downsizes the modem
pool into line with lower demand. These high-speed connections to IU resources from vendorprovided services have been secured by Virtual Private Network (VPN) services. VPN provides a
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solid and secure link from these service providers, requiring authentication with an IU Network ID
before use of the IU network is enabled. This VPN infrastructure also serves to secure the wireless
network services being implemented on the campuses, and thus has provided a well-leveraged
technology solution for security.
On-campus Access
I-Light continues to provide vast benefits to the University over previous connectivity, both for
inter-campus connectivity and connectivity to the commodity Internet. I-Light’s capacity, which is in
addition to existing Internet2 connectivity, is allocated among campus housing at IUB, the IUB
campus, and the IUPUI campus and its connections to the six regional campuses.
In early 2001, a new architecture was developed and implemented for the IUB campus that featured
a separate commodity Internet connection for the campus and one for Bloomington campus
housing. Since then, UITS has continued its successful partnership with the Residence Halls
Association in helping to determine proper policy and practice for the residential commodity Internet
connection. Filters of certain types of data traffic have been successful in managing the bandwidth in
campus housing.
On the Bloomington campus during 2005, new data jacks were installed and 2,544 were upgraded,
bringing the total number of active Ethernet jacks to 37,846. Of these, 20,763 are capable of
supporting up to 100Mbps. The number of buildings at IUB connected to the backbone at 1Gbps
remained at 61. The total number of buildings networked stands at 261; however, all buildings
requiring 1Gbps connections were completed as planned in 2003.
Efforts continued in 2005 to replace aging Ethernet equipment with 10/100Mbps-capable switches.
GreekNet, a partnership involving SBC, IU, and the Greek Houses, facilitates access to the IU
network from Greek housing.
The total number of IUPUI buildings on the network now stands at 71. In 2005, several small
buildings were added to the network along with the Herron School of Art. In various buildings,
removal of the HP4000 switches continued. These were replaced with HP4104s and HP4108s, which
have a higher backplane bandwidth. At IUPUI some 930 new data jacks were installed during 2005,
bringing the total number of active Ethernet jacks to 29,732. Of these, 21,000 are capable of
supporting up to 100Mbps.
The Wireless Project implementation stage is complete, with wireless coverage available in all
academic facilities at IUB and IUPUI. More than 1000 VPN-secured access points are installed on
the Bloomington campus, and more than 400 are installed at IUPUI. Coverage includes many
outdoor areas surrounding buildings.
Installations will continue in perimeter faculty and staff facilities in Bloomington, and in medical
facilities and remote locations at IUPUI. Bloomington campus residences will have wireless coverage
as well, with a focus on communal and lounge areas. At IUPUI new campus apartments will have
total wireless coverage in addition to coverage in lounges.
UITS has installed a new wireless technology—a Vivato phased-array antenna—on the IUB
Memorial Stadium and on Ballantine, Eigenmann, Foster, and Tulip Tree. Vivato uses 13 highly
focused antennas to cover large areas over great distances, allowing users to connect to the IU
Network via the Virtual Private Network from more than one mile away. In 2005, Vivato antennas
were installed at IUPUI on University College and on Inlow Hall. For a list of UITS-supported
secure wireless sites at IUB and IUPUI, see http://www.indiana.edu/~uits/telecom/data/waps.html.
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III. Institutional Commitment: Faculty & Staff Engagement
Recommendation 3: Appropriate incentives and support should be established so that faculty and staff are encouraged
in the creative use and application of information technology for teaching, research, and service.
The Actions associated with this Recommendation cover a broad and diverse range of issues:
fellowships and development grants for faculty (Action 7), IT support for faculty and staff (Actions
8, 10), space for IT staff to be accessible to users (Action 9), and issues involving promotion and
tenure (Action 6).
Compensation for IT Professionals
Action 4. The University should review the market compensation levels for qualified IT professionals at each campus
and in their surrounding communities, and seek to make compensation competitive with employment alternatives, within
the context of overall University salary goals.
A primary goal of the University’s system-wide Compensation System Initiative (CSI) currently
underway is to gather market data and benchmark position salaries accordingly. These data, in
tandem with the CIC IT salary survey results, will provide particularly valuable information in the
area of compensation for IT professionals. Another outcome of the CSI will be new job evaluation
methods. Placing IT positions into broad grades will yield cost efficiency as well as provide an
effective mechanism for recognizing in-creased competencies and levels of responsibility.
The Vice President’s bonus program continues to provide an effective and appreciated mechanism
for rewarding staff members for outstanding performance and extraordinary effort on critical
initiatives.
Promotion and Tenure
Action 6. The Deans in each School should ask their faculty policy committees to review tenure and promotion
guidelines to see whether they discourage creative activity involving the application of information technology, and refine
these guidelines as necessary in a manner consistent with the mission and standards of excellence of the School.
When developing the IT Strategic Plan, the UITC recognized that there could be various incentives
for faculty involvement in the use of technology for teaching and learning. Some, like promotion and
tenure, are outside the scope of UITS or any IT organization, and should properly be addressed by
faculty policy committees in each School. Ongoing dialog on the issues of faculty rewards and
incentives, related to the use of IT in teaching and learning, is needed among academic affairs offices,
faculty leaders, and leaders in information technology. As part of their responsibilities, two campus
deans for information technology work closely on these issues with academic leadership and faculty
council leadership at IUB, IUPUI, and across the campuses.
Fellowships and Development Grants
Action 7. The University should review its current systems of faculty fellowships and staff development grants, with the
aim of expanding these to offer financial support for the design, development, or innovative application of information
technology to teaching, research, and service, including the use of information technology in creative activity and the
design of instructional materials to advance learning.
Throughout the year effort continued to support faculty in their use of IT in teaching, research, and
service through the provision of grants and fellowships offered in specific areas.
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IU/SBC Fellows Program
The IU/SBC Fellows Program funds innovative faculty projects that integrate information
technology into campus and distance teaching and learning. The program calls upon innovators to
serve as mentors to other faculty in their disciplines through workshops or departmental
consultations, in coordination with the teaching and learning centers on IU campuses. The program
also collects the fellows’ findings and draws upon their expertise for the benefit of colleagues
throughout IU and beyond. Final project reports and examples of good practices in teaching and
learning with technology are available on the program web site at http://sbcf.iu.edu.
IU/SBC Summer Leadership Forum
In 2005, the IU/SBC Fellows Program granted nine awards to University faculty for a total of
$30,400. More than a dozen faculty from various campuses showcased projects at the fifth annual
IU/SBC Summer Leadership Program in May 2005. During the program, Fellows discussed lessons
learned during project development and implementation. Projects included a virtual microscope to
teach histology to dentistry students; a game tool for teaching energy efficiency strategies to
commercial construction students; an interactive hospital game that allows medical students to
complete tasks and interact with one another while their skills are being assessed; a music theory
placement test; a Spanish course for health care personnel; robot assembly programming; web-based
resources for African languages; and an interactive web- and CD-based project.
Since 1999, 69 Indiana University faculty members have been named IU SBC Fellows.
Technology Assessment Grant Program
In 2001 the Office of Distributed Education, with the support of OVPIT, launched a small, one-time
grant program to support projects that focused on the use of instructional technology in teaching and
learning. The Technology Assessment Grant Program (TAG) provided funding to faculty studying
the impact of educational technology on their practices and on student, course, or program
outcomes. The TAG program awarded more than $68,000 to 14 winners from IU campuses.
Winners submitted final project reports in June 2003 and presented a poster session along with the
SBC Fellows at a Summer Leadership Forum.
Teaching & Learning Technology Grants
Teaching & Learning Technology Grants, funded through Instructional Support Services and the
IUB Dean of the Faculties, provide assistance for projects that need specialized knowledge or talents
or that require concentrated or intensive efforts, or for materials or training that will make project
development or implementation proceed more efficiently. A committee of IUB faculty reviewed the
2005 proposals. Awards of up to $1,500 each will support five instructional technology projects
designed to increase student engagement in the areas of: English literature and American media, the
mechanics of human movement, cultural history, counseling and educational psychology, and a
history of American landscapes. Spring 2006 awards will again focus on increasing student
engagement.
Faculty & Staff Support
Action 8. Schools across the University should be encouraged to provide more resources for maintenance and training for
department and School computing environments. They should work creatively and in collaboration with UITS to train,
retain, and distribute knowledgeable individuals to maintain distributed server and desktop systems (UNIX, NT,
MacOS, etc.).
Action 10. The University should continue to support the efforts to educate and certify IT professionals in needed
functional areas of the profession. These programs should be expanded to reach a wider University audience, especially
on the IUPUI and regional campuses.
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Action 16. To support existing and emerging faculty initiatives in basic skills education, the University should explore
the use of IT to aid in the teaching of these basic skills.
Action 23. UITS should work with Human Resources and other IU departments to explore ways of using teaching
and learning technologies for the training and development needs of IU staff and faculty. Also, Human Resources
should develop actions, in cooperation with UITS and other units, to improve staff access to (and use of) technology
training.
Local Support Provider (LSP) Services
LSP Services, with staff at IUB and IUPUI, provides technical support and consulting services to
more than 700 technical staff (LSPs) in schools and departments at Bloomington and Indianapolis,
and the regional campus computing centers. Services offered by LSP Services include advanced
consulting and support on Windows and Macintosh workstation and server; IT security consulting;
advanced email and mobile computing support; access to reserved software; access to restricted
network and user management tools; technical training, and technical certification opportunities. Forfee services are available for departments that require personalized, on-site server assistance. LSP
Services also works closely with LSPs and other UITS service providers to ensure the successful
implementation and communication of new IT services across the University.
Securing the local IT infrastructure and the ever-expanding use of mobile computing devices are
some of the many challenges faced by LSPs. In 2005, LSP Services added staff to further enhance
second-tier security and mobile computing support services offered to LSPs. Special classes on IT
security were offered during the year and are now part of the standard class offerings to LSPs. LSP
Services continued to offer and expand technical education classes and certification testing services
to LSPs. LSP Services taught or hosted 23 Education Certification Program (EdCert) classes which
were attended by 167 LSPs and technical staff. Classes offered included Microsoft Server
Administration, Apple OS X Server administration and Symantec Anti-virus Server Administration.
UITS encourages IT staff to obtain technical certification by providing Microsoft exam vouchers at
no charge for those who pass Transcender pre-certification tests, also made available through LSP
Services.
In 2005, LSP Services and University Human Resource Services again partnered to present a series of
non-technical, professional development courses designed specifically for LSPs. The Local Support
Provider Professional Development Series held at IUB offered sessions on time management,
building partnerships, people side of change, and creating self-reliant users. Discussions are in the
works to expand the series to IUPUI.
Unix and Unix EdCerts
The Unix Systems Support Group (USSG) continues to refine and expand its EdCert program in
Unix system administration. Since the inception of IU’s IT Strategic Plan, over 200 students from
IUB, IUPUI, and several of the regional campuses have passed the certification test. Twenty four
students passed the test in 2005. The changes made to the EdCert program will also simplify future
updates and maintenance. Spring, summer, and fall classes were held in 2005. The USSG also started
a one-day Introduction to Unix (ItU) course in 2005. Over the course of the year, 70 students took
the course with a pass rate of over 80%. The ItU course was also held at Kokomo and IUPUI, with
other visits to the regional campus slated for 2006.
In addition to EdCerts, USSG offers online education through its Unix Systems Administration
Independent Learning (USAIL) program. This resource is well known and used within the IU and
the Unix communities, and along with other Unix resources, generates an average of 200,000 hits a
14
day. In 2005, USAIL began being incorporated into the Sakai Project with release scheduled for mid
2006. See http://ussg.indiana.edu/usail/.
Unix users and administrators were also kept current through monthly Unix Users Group meetings.
These meetings provided opportunities to more than 200 attendees in 2005 to share experience and
learn about new programs and trends, including open source software. The user group meetings are
held on the IUB and IUPUI campuses with live streaming available via the Web for those unable to
attend. The USSG also offers personalized Unix support in person and by telephone and email. In
2005, the USSG assisted in building several computing clusters for clients in the IU School of
Medicine.
An important part of UITS educational activities includes efforts to inform students about
alternatives to traditional commercial operating systems, including the open source movement.
USSG hosts an annual event called LinuxFest, which draws hundreds of students, faculty, and staff
to a series of talks and demonstrations that introduce the open source concept and open source
software. In 2005, the event featured a keynote speech by Scott Collins, core developer for
mozilla.org and chief engineer for Trolltech. Collins spoke about the values of open source.
UITS IT Training & Education
UITS IT Training & Education offers instructor-led computing workshops and provides self-study
training resources to the Indiana University community and beyond. It reaches more than 50,000
participants each year across all campuses through hundreds of instructor-led workshops and selfstudy training programs.
In September 2004, IT Training also began offering STEPS Certificate Series, enabling participants
to earn certificates on select topics by taking a series of related STEPS workshops. IT Training has
awarded 448 STEPS Series Certificates to date.
IT Training also continued offering Microsoft Office Specialist exams on the IUB and IUPUI
campuses to test beginning through advanced skills in all Office applications. These exams are the
only available Microsoft-approved exams through which members of the IU community can certify
their Office skills. Twenty six exams were taken in 2005.
Information on STEPS workshops, STEPS Certificate Series, and Microsoft Office Specialist exams
is available on IT Training's web site. See http://ittraining.iu.edu.
Self-paced Learning
In 2005, UITS IT Training & Education continued to provide access to more than 1,200 self-paced
NETg courses to the statewide IU community through its IT Training Online service. NETg courses
cover topics ranging from basic IT skills for beginners to advanced training and specialized courses
that prepare technical staff for certification. Skill assessment exams are also available. In addition, IT
Training Online also continued to make available free Microsoft self-study courses on Office
applications and basic Windows computing skills as part of IU’s site license agreement with
Microsoft. All members of the statewide IU community can access NETg and Microsoft courses in
self-study mode, and IU faculty can incorporate selected courses into their curricula as well. In 2005,
10,276 users downloaded or launched more than 43,000 NETg or Microsoft courses. All courses
may be accessed through IT Training Online. See http://ittraining.iu.edu/online.
Software Support
UITS continues to leverage the buying power of the University to forge major software licensing
agreements with leading software vendors for the desktop productivity tools and infrastructure server
and messaging products that are fundamental in IU’s teaching, learning, research, and administrative
15
activities. The difference between the costs paid by the University and academic list price amounts to
more than an annual $19M. More important, ease of access to the best software tools for researchers
and students greatly enhances the University’s activities in research and teaching. IU continued the
Macromedia Software Contract for the Studio MX suite of products and for Contribute. This
contract operates on a cost-recovery basis but provides excellent pricing for IU departments and for
personal purchase by students, faculty, and staff. Since its inception in 2002, the contract has saved
IU and personal purchasers approximately $717,323 over the standard educational price for Studio
MX.
The value of the Microsoft agreement remains stellar. In 2004-2005, an investment of $1.5M resulted
in the distribution of almost $15M in Microsoft products. IU faculty, staff, and students acquired
92,447 Microsoft software packages in 2005. Since the beginning of the initial Microsoft agreement
in March 1998, 683,913 copies of Microsoft software, valued at more than $111M in educational
pricing have been distributed. The benefits of this agreement to the University are tremendous,
allowing faculty, staff, and students access to the most current software, and leveraging the buying
power of all campuses.
The Apple Technology Assurance Program (Apple Tap) continues to provide departments with
significant savings on Mac OS X. More than 70 departments on all IU campuses took part in the
program, saving the participants more than $403,761 on upgrade costs during the first three years.
The OS X upgrade during the first quarter of 2005 resulted in an additional savings of more than
$150,000 for those departments.
Symantec security software continues to be distributed University-wide on the IUware CD, the free
IUware Orientation CD, the “Get Connected” CD for the residence hall community, and on IUware
Online. Negotiated discounts have resulted in a savings of over $4.5M in the past 7 years.
$16,000,000
$13,500,000
$14,000,000
$12,000,000
$10,000,000
$8,000,000
$6,000,000
$4,500,000
$4,000,000
$2,000,000
$717,323
$403,761
$0
Macromedia (savings over
3 years)
Microsoft (savings over 2
years)
Apple (savings over 3
years)
Symantec (savings over 7
years)
Figure 2: Savings from License Agreements
IU’s agreement with Shavlik for its HFNetChkPro software runs through June 2006. This software
improves the security of IU’s computer systems and network by allowing system administrators and
local support providers (LSPs) to apply critical security patches to widely dispersed Windows
16
computers from a central location. The software enables LSPs to react quickly to address
vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.
The Center for Statistical and Mathematical Computing (Stat/Math Center) manages a large suite of
software in support of quantitative research. Central to this is the Enterprise License Agreement for
SPSS, the most widely used commercial statistical package at IU. Dozens of other software packages,
including the mathematical software MATLAB, are licensed and redistributed within the University
at a very modest cost.
The Unix Systems Support Group (USSG) negotiates site licenses for commercial Unix software,
providing the University with access to such software under very favorable site licensing terms.
USSG also supports the use of Linux, an open source version of Unix that is popular among
researchers and students. In December 2004, the University reached an agreement with Red Hat
Linux for it's Enterprise Licensing Program for RHEL AS, RHEL ES, RHEL DS and RHEL WS.
This software is available to students, faculty, staff, and departments on all campuses.
The Red Hat Satellite Server, which controls the RH software access, has maintained 1,350 active
machines and 41 groups (six or more systems) and has transferred more than 450GB of information
through over 500,000 visits. Total numbers for data access via the server are:
•
•
•
•
•
KBytes – 472,037,282
Visits – 577,068
Pages served – 3,377,519
Files – 3,469,389
Hits – 3,507,217
UITS Digital Libraries groups and the IU Libraries collaborated to negotiate a University-wide site
license for the popular bibliographic software ProCite, ReferenceManager, and EndNote. Since 2001,
IU has realized a savings of over $2.9M via negotiated agreements. Widely used by scholars in many
fields, most notably in the humanities, this software greatly enhances the scholarly output of the
University.
SBC/TAG Summer Leadership Forum
The fifth annual SBC/TAG Summer Leadership Forum, held in May 2005, provided an opportunity
for IU SBC Fellows and Technology Assessment Grant (TAG) awardees to present their projects
and discuss lessons learned during project development and implementation. See the preceding
discussion under Action 7.
Teaching and Learning Centers
Teaching and Learning Centers on University campuses continued to grow and extend their services
across their campuses in 2005. See the discussion under Action 11.
Space for UITS Staff
Action 9. Specific action should be taken to locate improved workspaces for UITS staff at IUPUI, and to bring
UITS staff at IUB onto campus, thus making them more accessible.
IUPUI
In an effort to leverage more effectively Indiana University’s information technology (IT) resources
and investments, and make IT services more accessible, the University has added a technology-rich
building at IUPUI. The building, which was completed in August 2004, will provide a major boost to
IT in the state of Indiana — as IT becomes ever more critical to advances in research, teaching, and
17
learning and a more prominent tool in daily life. The 213,815-square-foot, $43.6-million Informatics
and Communications Technology Complex (ICTC) was dedicated during a public ceremony October
13, 2004, in the ICTC auditorium, IT 152, 535 W. Michigan St.
Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, LLP, the ICTC houses the Indiana University Schools of
Informatics, Journalism and Music; the Pervasive Technology Labs of Indiana University, and
University Information Technology Services (UITS) — just steps away from IUPUI’s science and
engineering buildings and within minutes from downtown.
The building houses essential tools for scientific research, technical support, and teaching that will
help build a stronger high-tech Hoosier economy by supporting statewide IT initiatives. It also
provides a setting to educate the current and future workforce on emerging technologies.
Given the central location of Indianapolis, the ICTC serves as a hub for telecommunications and ILight, the optical fiber infrastructure that links IUPUI, IU Bloomington, and Purdue University to
each other and to the Internet. Within the ICTC, IU manages nationwide networks such as the
Abilene Internet2 network — an advanced research and education network used by more than 300
US university, industry, organization and government members. IU also manages global research and
education network connections from the United States to the Asia Pacific and other countries.
The ICTC is equipped with new technology for every classroom, houses one of the nation’s most
powerful supercomputers, and can accommodate massive computing data storage for the
University’s students, staff, and faculty. The building also provides much-needed classroom space,
including 33 classrooms and two auditoriums, which can accommodate 1,500 students at any given
time. This additional space will help facilitate growth of academic programs and civic engagement. It
also brings together 300 highly trained IT professionals responsible for the support, operation, and
management of IU’s nation-leading IT infrastructure. Furthermore, the building features a Student
Technology Center that is accessible to the IUPUI community 24 hours a day, 360 days a year. Also
located in the ICTC is the Indianapolis-campus branch of the UITS Adaptive Technology Center
(ATC), serving IUPUI students, faculty, and staff with mobility impairments, learning disabilities, low
vision, and blindness. ATC facilities, open 24/7, expand access to the tools of learning for the IUPUI
community. (For more on the ATC see the narrative under Action 54.)
The ICTC also brings researchers and IT professionals together to collaborate on projects as diverse
as digital music composition, computer-based character animation, and analysis of human organs
captured in an MRI, using 3-D visualization. To that end, the facility will offer Indiana one of the
most advanced sites for pioneering work in a broad range of information technology fields, while
enabling students to learn and participate in the latest theoretical developments.
The new building facilitates communication among UITS staff, and between UITS and its academic
partners, and encourages congress between UITS staff at IUB and IUPUI. Similarly, the future
construction of the Cyber Infrastructure Building (previously called the Computation and
Information Building) on the Bloomington campus will help IUB advance its efforts in building the
information technology economy in Indiana.
Since the Informatics and Communications Complex has been built, UITS has welcomed thousands
of visitors and hosted several constituencies from Indiana, including leading business leaders,
technology professionals, state legislators, and the media. Every month, UITS hosts Tech Tuesdays, a
meeting of members of Techpoint, a statewide technology trade group representing 400 members,
including publicly-traded companies, private businesses, colleges, research universities, and local
economic development organizations, of which the University is a member.
18
In late November 2005, the Data Center was renamed the Indiana University Advanced
Cyberinfrastructure Facility, to reflect the University’s mission in advancing research through
increasing data-intensive research capability. According to the Final Report of the Indiana University
Cyberinfrastructure Research Task Force, a renewed investment in IU’s High Performance
Computing (HPC) systems and visualization facilities, which are supported by the facility, are a
competitive necessity. This infrastructure will help support and cultivate data-intensive scholarship
and research, and will help attract the brightest faculty, researchers and students to Indiana
University.
Furthermore, with the consolidation of the facility’s resources, the UITS User Survey for IUPUI
reveals high levels of satisfaction with research and academic computing services, including 100%
satisfaction with bioinformatics support, 100% satisfaction for massive data storage, and 95.8%
satisfaction with services for high performance computing.
IUB
The Trustees of Indiana University approved the design for the Computation and Information
Building (CIB), now known as the Cyber Infrastructure Building, on the Bloomington campus at the
December 2003 Board Meeting. The CIB will be home to supercomputing, massive data storage, and
enterprise information systems, and will bring IT resources, staff, and expertise to a central campus
location to deliver IT support to IUB’s students, faculty, and staff. This state-of-the-art facility will
house a very large cyberinfrastructure facility (data center), and unify UITS staff into a central
campus location. Fundraising is moving forward and it is expected that bids for construction of this
building will be solicited within the next year or two.
IV. Teaching & Learning: Content, Access, Distributed Education
Recommendation 4: Indiana University should assume a position of worldwide leadership in the use of information
technology to facilitate and enhance teaching and learning.
The Actions associated with this Recommendation cover a number of interrelated issues, among
them: digital media and web development (Actions 12, 13, 14), web-based course services and
infrastructure (Actions 18, 19), classroom technology (Actions 21, 22), and assessment (Action 25).
Progress toward other goals outlined in this Recommendation (e.g.: faculty support and development
services, Action 11), will also help address issues of faculty engagement detailed above, in the
discussion of Recommendation 3.
Faculty Support for Teaching & Learning with Technology
Action 11. The Teaching & Learning Technologies Lab and the Center for Teaching & Learning should be
expanded, and new services developed where needed, to offer a standard level of teaching support services for all faculty at
IUB, IUPUI, and the regional campuses.
Action 11 calls for a standard level of baseline support for teaching and learning technology for all
IU faculty, increasing the opportunities to explore new applications of information technology. The
promotion or introduction of technology in courses and disciplines, previously without access to
relevant applications or support, is also an important component of the IT Strategic Plan. The
objective of supporting faculty in their use of technology is further enhanced by second-tier,
professional course development services provided through Actions 7, 13, and 20.
Enhancement of the University’s teaching and learning centers continued during 2005 with
improvements to facilities and technology to provide a higher level of support to faculty.
19
IUPUI – Center for Teaching & Learning
The Center for Teaching and Learning on the IUPUI campus continues to improve services for
faculty and academic units on teaching and learning issues, multimedia, web applications, and
instructional design. Of the 12 CTL staff members, eight are UITS employees. Outside IUPUI, CTL
staff conducted 201 presentations including activities such as national conferences, outreach visits,
and hosting external visitors. Total attendance at these events surpassed 4,900 people.
In 2005, UITS staff within the CTL conducted 1210 consultations—each lasting one half hour or
more—and 68 workshops with a total enrollment of 481 faculty. The CTL received requests for
service from 28 schools and 67 departments.
The 2005 National Institute for New Faculty Developers (NINFD) was hosted by the Center for
Teaching and Learning June 25-29. The institute took place at University Place Hotel and
Conference Center. The five day intensive institute attracted 71 participants from 25 states, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Japan and Pakistan. In all, 51 institutions were represented
including large research extensive universities, small liberal arts colleges, community colleges, and a
historically black university.
Two academic transformation grants were recently awarded. Through this grant program, Center for
Teaching and Learning consultants work intensively with faculty throughout an 18-month grant
period to create a course that adheres to best practices in online teaching and learning. Faculty who
have been awarded the grant are encouraged to restructure traditional instruction through the highly
innovative use of technology and are challenged to think differently about how to structure the
content to provide maximum flexibility for students, while also enhancing student learning.
Currently, CTL consultants are working with faculty from the Departments of Physics and
Geography who were awarded grants in previous years.
IUPUI’s JumpStart program, now in its third year, offers instructional design and production support
to faculty as they use technology to enhance gateway courses, general studies degree completion
courses, and professional degrees and/or certificates. JumpStart begins with an intensive four-day
workshop that focuses on best practices in online course design and starts faculty working with a
support team consisting of an instructional design consultant, an instructional technology consultant,
an information resources consultant, and a representative from UITS Digital Media Services who
provides production support. By the end the workshop, the faculty member, in conjunction with the
support team, has created the design document for a prototype course module and has developed a
work plan for the creation of the course. After JumpStart week is completed, the faculty member
continues to work with the team to produce course content on a schedule specified in the work plan
developed. Courses in the summer JumpStart program are developed over a 67-day time period.
20
Percentage of Consultation Broken Down by School *
Continuing
Studies
Dentistry
Physical
Education
SLIS
Nursing
SPEA
Allied
Health
Kelley
Medicine
Eng & Tech
Liberal
Arts
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
Figure 3: CTL Consultations by School
Number of JumpStart Courses By School
Social
Work
Science
Nursing
Medicine
Liberal
Arts
Law
IUPC
Informatics
SPEA
Herron
Health
and
Rehabilitation
Sciences
General
Studies
Engineering
and
Technology
Business
0
2
4
6
8
Figure 4: JumpStart Courses by School
As part of a grant from the Lumina Foundation, CTL staff developed the Diversity and Learning
web site. The web site was designed to be a one-stop, user-friendly comprehensive online resource
for faculty interested in issues of multicultural education. The web site consists of five resource areas:
(1) a revised multicultural classroom resource guide; (2) multicultural teaching techniques; (3) the
Multicultural Teaching and Learning module; (4) a collection of faculty essays; and (5) a dynamic
listing of campus resources. See http://www.opd.iupui.edu/meiupui.
IUB – Teaching & Learning Technologies Center
Sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of the Vice President for Information
Technology, the TLTC is a partnership between Instructional Support Services (ISS), University
Information Technology Services (UITS) and the IUB Libraries. Together these organizations aim to
provide coordinated support for effective, quality teaching and learning through the appropriate use
21
of instructional technology. Two TLTC locations serve faculty of the IUB campus at the Herman B
Wells Library 305 and at Ballantine Hall 307.
Primary goals for the TLTC for 2005-2006 include supporting the transition of 90,000 users of
original Oncourse to Oncourse CL through classroom and online training, visits to regional
campuses, online materials and documentation, and supporting Oncourse CL, ePortfolio, and new
research and collaboration tools. TLTC staff members serve on the Oncourse CL Support and
Implementation Team, Suggestions Analysis Team, and Functional Requirements Committee. In
2005, the TLTC hosted 27 training sessions and 25 department sessions, conducted more than 300
consultations and over 1,200 contacts related to Oncourse CL. The TLTC played a primary role in
the requirements and design of the new Oncourse CL Message Center tool, Roster tool, Post’Em
tool, and related usability testing. TLTC staff also created Simple Steps materials on Oncourse CL
Announcements, Assignments, Gradebook, Resources, Schedule, and Syllabus. These were available
on the IT Training and Education web site. The TLTC director has taken the lead on the strategic
communication strategy for Oncourse CL such as writing Oncourse CL updates, Oncourse
comparison charts, and Oncourse CL Messages of the Day. TLTC staff also worked to develop and
sustain a meaningful relationship with Sakai Educational Partners Program (SEPP) to leverage
Indiana University’s ability to support and maintain Oncourse CL by participating in national SEPP
conference presentations.
In additional to Oncourse-related activities, the TLTC has also supported: the Turnitin.com pilot and
implementation; Macromedia Breeze pilot and implementation; Good Practices online database
design, pilot and implementation; the Faculty Incentive Notebook Program; SBC Grants committee
and faculty projects; Student Response Systems (‘clickers’) RFP; and ongoing maintenance of the
College of Arts and Sciences online course, “Traditions and Cultures of IU.” The TLTC conducts
over 10,000 contacts and over 120 workshops and presentations with over 2,000 faculty and related
support personnel clients across all 68 departments, programs, and schools on the Bloomington
campus. For the second year in a row, the TLTC had a 100% on the UITS User Survey, with an
average score of 4.54 on a 5 point scale.
IUE – Teaching & Learning Center
The IUE Teaching and Learning Center is making strides to create a community that inspires
freshness of thought, creativity, and innovation. The Center will begin a reading book forum in
January 2006 on how people learn, and will continue to promote effective teaching strategies through
the use of SMART classroom technology and participating in efforts for providing high-quality
distance learning. The Center also supports technology award participants in documentary writing
and microbiology with the training and use of digital cameras. To explore and develop pedagogical
strategies, the IUETLC is monitoring three sponsored learning communities investigating diversity in
the curriculum, distributed education, and student-centered learning.
IUSB – Center for Excellence in Teaching
In 2005, The University Center for Excellence in Teaching (UCET) continued to expand services
and programs to faculty, based on the 2004-07 Strategic Plan. Along with the other IU Teaching
Centers, much of our faculty interaction involved training and support for changes from original
Oncourse to Oncourse CL. Monthly teleconferences and consultation between the Centers have
been most helpful. A new Instructional Technology Specialist position was created and staffed in
April. An additional position for Instructional Strategies Consultant was funded, and the search was
in progress as 2005 came to a close. UCET has worked closely with computer science faculty on the
development of an open-source online teacher/course evaluation project known as IU-EVAL.
Several departments have successfully used the system in 2005. A survey of UCET using IU-EVAL
is now available to familiarize faculty with features that students will see when they evaluate their
courses. New liaisons with Extended Learning Services and Instructional Media Services have been
22
established, to better serve faculty, especially regarding the development of online courses. UCET
also hosted workshops in 2005 on blogs, e-Instruction, and online library references.
When the new staff position is filled, UCET will move ahead in 2006 with workshops and
consultations that focus on best practices in how to most effectively incorporate technology into
teaching. Some examples are: the background knowledge required for most effective use of
Turnitin.com, online course evaluations, Student Response Systems (eInstruction) and future online
course development.
IUS - Institute for Learning & Teaching Excellence
Sponsored by the Office of Academic Affairs, the Institute for Learning and Teaching Excellence
(ILTE) provides consulting and development for integrating technologies into teaching and learning
with a focus on using technology to individualize student learning. The ILTE provides a contact area
for faculty in the design, implementation, and assessment of teaching and learning materials;
sponsors workshops, presentations, and symposia; and provides one-on-one consulting. The ILTE
coordinates new faculty orientation, Welcome (Back) Week activities, and the annual Teaching
Symposium, making special efforts to ensure new full-time and adjunct faculty are prepared for the
new academic year. The ILTE continues to work with faculty members to implement technology
into their instruction by supporting innovative projects such as the use of “clickers” to improve
student learning and by managing the IU Southeast transition to Oncourse CL. The ILTE consists of
a half-time director, a technology coordinator, an instructional technologist, and a part-time
administrative assistant/resource specialist.
IUK – Center for Teaching, Learning, & Assessment
The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CTLA) at IU Kokomo supports effective
teaching and promotes student learning through development of the faculty. The Center provides
technology training and assistance to faculty and staff, instructional design consultation, and supports
campus efforts in the assessment of student learning. The campus moved its web server to IU
Bloomington in the summer of 2005 and CTLA staff gave extensive training and support to faculty
and staff in this effort. In conjunction with this move, the CTLA updated and expanded its web site,
which now includes extensive resources for assessment of student learning. The CTLA participates in
the UITS faculty notebook computer program, which it is using to support faculty teaching hybrid
(50% online) courses in the ACCELerated Evening College. The Center developed training for the eInstruction Classroom Response System ("clickers"), which four faculty will implement in Spring
Semester 2006. CTLA supported a successful ePortfolio pilot for the Division of Education. It offers
a Tech Camp annually to help faculty new to Oncourse learn to use the program. CTLA sponsors a
year-long New Faculty Orientation program. Other CTLA-developed resources include The
Advocate (a bimonthly newsletter for adjunct faculty), Spotlight on Teaching and Technology (a
once-per-semester newsletter for resident faculty), a laptop computer lending program, and brown
bag discussions for faculty on teaching issues. The CTLA staff participate in Oncourse CL
development through membership in the Functional Requirements Committee and the Oncourse
Priorities Committee.
IUN – Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning
The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) is charged by the office of Academic
Affairs to provide pedagogical and technological support to faculty to improve teaching and
learning. CETL provides ongoing support to faculty using original Oncourse and Oncourse
CL through workshops and individual consultations. In addition, CETL promotes IT workshops and
participates in relevant campus IT initiatives, sub-committees, the Technology Council, and the
Making IT Happen event. CETL conducted an electronic survey about teachers who have made an
impact on student learning at IUN and shared the results with the identified teachers and
administration.
23
In 2005, a new full-time instructional technology specialist was hired to support faculty, staff, and
students in the use of Oncourse CL and to be the lead person for CETL technological
initiatives. This position is fully supported with IT funds. CETL will also be collaborating with the
newly appointed campus faculty mentor for Oncourse CL to better serve the needs of the campus.
The most rewarding initiative in technology that CETL undertook in 2005 was participation in the
UITS Faculty Notebook Computer Program. IUN awarded nine faculty members with laptop
computers so far with plans to award 15 more before the program concludes in spring 2006.
Web-based Course Services & Infrastructure
Action 12. To support course tools development and initiatives in distributed education, UITS (through its Advanced
Information Technology Laboratory) should evaluate web-based and other network-based learning environments and
offer faculty a comprehensive set of options to easily create, edit, revise and maintain online course material.
Action 18. UITS should ensure an available and reliable infrastructure of networks, servers, storage, and applications
for the support of online courses and other new learning experiences.
Action 19. UITS should initiate changes to University information systems that improve the quality of instruction,
service to students, or manageability of the distributed education program itself.
Actions 12, 18, and 19 focus primarily on the Oncourse production environment and associated
support services. Oncourse was introduced as IU’s online teaching and learning environment in
1999. It has grown to become one of the University’s most-used information systems.
In December 2003, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, MIT, and Stanford University
were awarded a $2.4M grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation to build a community-source
course management and collaborative environment. Initially called the Sakai Project, the two-year
project has now formed the Sakai Foundation to ensure that the application and the community
succeed beyond the grant-funded period.
Given the open source model, Sakai and Oncourse CL have leveraged the substantial innovation
around tools development and set the infrastructure in place to ensure that IU benefits from the
various institutions and organizations involved in the project. This will ensure that IU continues to
benefit from new tools development and provide ever increasing and comprehensive features.
The Sakai Project produced three software releases in 2005—1.0, 1.5 and 2.0. Version 2.0 was
introduced at IU as Oncourse CL (Collaboration and Learning) in June 2005. In fall 2005, roughly
20% of users were regularly utilizing Oncourse CL for courses, project collaboration, and/or gaining
familiarity with the new system during this transition year.
Oncourse CL released the 2.1 version of the application at the end of 2005 and began the spring
2006 semester with a variety of new tools including the IU Post'Em tool, and a new forum and
private discussion tool including support for one-to-one communication, whole-class and group
discussion forums, tracking of read and unread messages, posting discussion grades and showing user
statistics of posts and read messages.
Adjusting and improving upon a model used for the original Oncourse development, the Office of
the Vice President for Information Technology created an Oncourse Priorities Committee to set
current and future directions for Oncourse CL development. This faculty committee was charged in
May 2005 to provide guidance for developing new Oncourse CL features and enhancements. A
24
related committee of faculty and staff from teaching and learning centers on all campuses assists in
interpreting user needs and translating them into specific development requirements.
Several UITS support units worked to create resources to train and support faculty and students in
the transition to Oncourse CL. In 2005, nearly 300 Knowledge Base documents and more than 45
Feature Demo animations were developed and made available online. UITS is also delivering
Knowledge Base services for the Sakai Project. IT Training & Education and the teaching and
learning centers provided over 130 workshop presentations and training sessions, 1,000 or more oneon-one consultations, and over 3,300 Oncourse CL related contacts at the centers.
Oncourse CL also provided a new online user file storage system in the form of a tool called
Resources. This tool is tied ubiquitously to Open Source Portfolios (OSP), Sakai, and all sites within
Oncourse CL. Supporting this feature are two Net Appliances running NFS on a NAS configuration.
Unique to this infrastructure is the catastrophic fail-over provided by hosting these identical
machines on each of the core campuses. This aids in the backup process for those files and also
ensures high availability in the event of a catastrophic situation for one of the Advanced
Cyberinfrastructure Facilities. Oncourse CL Resources replaced the Common File System (CFS) and
original Oncourse Filemanager. CFS and Filemanager will be retired in May 2006, reducing the
amount of machines and resources the University will spend on online user file storage as well as
improving the user experience by providing a single hosting environment. A migration tool was
released in November 2005 to make it possible for users to automate moving their files from CFS
and Filemanager to Oncourse CL Resources. By default, Oncourse CL Resources provides 250MB
of storage space per user—more than both CFS and Filemanager combined.
In January 2003, the Open Source Portfolio Initiative was formed with the University of Minnesota,
University of Delaware, and the rSmart Group to escalate the development of Minnesota’s
ePortfolio. A year later, the Mellon Foundation matched contributions from Indiana University and
the rSmart Group to fund the development of the next generation electronic portfolio. Based on the
resulting software, IU’s ePortfolio is an assessment-based design that provides users a mechanism for
cataloging and assessing authentic or artifact-based evidence of their learning. The ePortfolio utilizes
the Sakai framework as a means to implement a rich portfolio toolset in the Oncourse CL
environment. An initial pilot group of faculty on the IUPUI campus spent 2005 evaluating the tool
and its applications. OSP 2.1 and Sakai 2.1 were released in tandem in December 2005 and were
available to IU for the spring 2006 semester. For more about ePortfolio, see Actions 24, 25, and 26.
Distributed Education
Action 17. UITS, with the new Associate Vice President for Distributed Education, should help coordinate initiatives
in distributed education, by helping departments and schools implement new programs, without duplicating existing
services. UITS should continue to assist programs of distributed education, helping to identify supported and
supportable technologies that can satisfy the complex requirements of those programs.
In keeping with nationwide trends, the decision was made in 2002 to take a decentralized approach
to distributed education efforts at Indiana University. As a result, the Office of Distributed
Education (ODE) was closed on June 30, 2002. The IT Strategic Plan Actions related to faculty,
including promotion and tenure, commercialization of faculty products, fellowships and grants,
development of DE courses and promotion of DE activities, is the responsibility of campuses and
Schools, with leadership from the Offices of Academic Affairs and support through the campus
centers for teaching and learning. The underlying infrastructure and networks that support
distributed learning, as well as IT systems such as Oncourse, digital media services, and faculty and
student user support, are provided by UITS.
25
Digital Media Services
Action 7. The University should review its current systems of faculty fellowships and staff development grants, with the
aim of expanding these to offer financial support for the design, development, or innovative application of information
technology to teaching, research and service, including the use of information technology in creative activity and the design
of instructional materials to advance learning.
Action 13. The University should offer, on a selective basis, intensive help in developing instructional material for
delivery to IU students, for eventual offering as a marketable IU product, or both.
Action 14. The University should provide overall guidelines and direct support to help facilitate relationships with
publishers for the commercial development and marketing of technology-based instructional materials.
Action 20. UITS and other units, including classroom and technology support providers, should develop plans to adapt
the Leveraged Support Model to the support of instructional technology, student technology, and Web development in
general.
Actions 7, 13, 14, and 20 focus on expanding support for the design, development, and management
of interactive web-based content and digital multimedia in teaching and learning. These initiatives are
blended to encourage faculty innovation, provide intensive professional support in developing
instructional materials (Actions 7 and 13) and develop the Leveraged Support Model for instructional
technology (Action 20).
Now in its third and final phase of implementation, Digital Media Services (DMS) provides
commercial-quality multimedia production services to Indiana University.
To enable this work, a state-of-the-art multimedia production studio was created on the IUPUI
campus. The studio is equipped with a nonlinear, high-definition video and audio editing system;
high resolution flat-bed scanners; 35mm slide scanners; web servers; interactive CD and DVD
duplication systems; 3-D modeling and animation software; 2-D interactive animation software; and
digital still cameras.
In addition, DMS is fully-equipped for high-definition video acquisition using the Sony CineAlta
F900 camcorder, a full complement of lighting and grip gear and the best in camera support.
In December 2005, production began on two high-definition video projects to describe the mission
of IU’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Facility, formerly called the Data Center, and the Global
Research Network Operations Center—both located in the Informatics and Communications
Technology Complex (ICTC). These segments will provide further insight into these areas for
visitors to the ICTC.
In fall 2005, DMS produced a high-definition video which details the operation of the Oncourse
system at IU. The video includes interviews with Oncourse technical personnel as well as a behindthe-scenes look at the Oncourse technology.
In conjunction with the UITS Communications and Planning Office, DMS produced a technology
orientation video which is shown to students at all IU campuses. The video, which introduces new
students to the technology available to them at IU, won two awards in 2005 for excellence.
Also in 2005, DMS worked with the School of Informatics to develop artwork for Eli Lilly and
Company. The collaboration with the school is to be the first of several such joint efforts.
26
DMS works closely with University staff, including Local Support Providers (LSPs), as they assist
faculty and staff in creating digital media work and in developing content. DMS also complements
the instructional design and assessment services offered in the campus centers for teaching and
learning.
In summer 2005, DMS partnered with the IUPUI Center for Teaching and Learning to produce ten
online University courses for the ongoing IUPUI Online Project. DMS also provided CD and DVD
duplicating services in support of courses for Community Learning Network and the IU Kelley
School of Business.
DMS installed an interactive webcam for the Student Center construction project on the IUPUI
campus. With an easy-to-use web interface, viewers can remotely operate a weather-proofed camera
atop University Place and view the construction progress across the street.
In spring 2005, DMS produced the television coverage for the Indiana Geographic Bee. The bee,
which features geographic knowledge competition among Indiana high school students from across
the state, was carried by several Indiana Public Broadcasting Service television stations.
In 2005, DMS produced a wide variety of web and multimedia projects for IU faculty, staff, and
departments, including University courses delivered over the Web; specialized, interactive online
Flash applications; video-based projects and web-enabled applications.
To mark National Cybersecurity Awareness Month during October, DMS artists worked with the
UITS Communications and Planning Office to produce a series of posters stressing the need for
vigilance in cybersecurity by depicting light-hearted parodies of 1950s horror films.
Work continued throughout 2005 on an IU system-wide web repository for Teaching and Learning
Good Practices. The site, which will promote the submissions of good practices for peer review and
subsequent publishing, will utilize dynamic web pages and the IU Knowledge Base.
Digital Media Services continued to provide system administration services for the Math WeBWorK
system. The service, owned by the IUB Department of Mathematics, provides a web-based
mathematics homework application for students.
Throughout 2005, DMS continued work on the first IUPUI Course Transformation Project courses,
Introduction to Physics. DMS captured physics lectures, custom studio footage for the project, as
well as original interface design for the course series.
Now housed in the ICTC, DMS maintains an advanced tape room that houses the workstations,
video-tape recorders, and a routing switcher capable of routing standard-definition signals as well as
high-definition video. The room allows editors and 3D animators to control various pieces of
equipment through remote-control Crestron interfaces located in each edit bay, several feet away.
The tape room also allows for the efficient conversion of pre-existing video content to a variety of
digital formats including streaming media and DVDs.
Instructional Simulation & Visualization
Action 15. UITS should evaluate the opportunities to partner with faculty in the sciences to experiment with
simulation-based laboratory courses, and should be alert to other possible partnerships for the enhancement of
instruction through simulation and visualization.
27
The UITS Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) partners with a variety of educators across the
University to apply visual simulation and visualization technologies to a broad range of subjects and
teaching scenarios. AVL staff collaborated with IUPUI School of Engineering faculty to integrate the
Advanced Virtual Manufacturing Lab (AVML) into the new UITS virtual reality theater and John-eBox technologies. Students participating in a fall 2005 course offered at IUPUI through the
Department of Computer Graphics Technology worked with AVL staff to enhance their 3D designs
using virtual reality. Additionally, the AVL supports Informatics and Fine Arts faculty and staff with
their development of stereo movies and immersive experiences for health education and digital art.
The AVL participated in a consortium targeted at educating museum staff across the country on the
installation and delivery of large format, immersive displays.
Classroom Technology
Action 21. Beginning immediately, all planning and renovation of classrooms and other teaching spaces should evaluate
and incorporate information technology needs. The costs of information technology identified in prior planning efforts as
well as future efforts, should be fully base funded to provide for acquiring and installing equipment, as well as for
maintenance, repair, lifecycle replacement, and support.
Action 22. UITS, in partnership with the appropriate campus offices and committees, should continue to provide
leadership in campus planning for classroom technology, leadership in classroom technology design, and coordination of
classroom technology use.
Actions 21 and 22 represent IU’s first comprehensive, multi-classroom technology plan for generalpurpose classrooms. This five-year plan, finalized in May 2000, calls for installation and support of
technology in classrooms, and coordination of the design and renovation of classrooms to enable the
use of that technology. The plan calls for more installed technology and less reliance on mobile
equipment. Implementation is coordinated among UITS, Instructional Support Services, the
University Architect’s Office, and campus physical plant offices. Individual campus plans are
reviewed and updated annually.
The Indiana University Classroom Type definitions were revised in 2005 from Type I, II, III, IV, V,
and VI to Basic, Enhanced, Advanced, Computer, and VIC, as follows:
Basic: Analog display capability. Overhead transparency projector and generally a TV/VCR or
TV/VCR/DVD, wired/wireless network access.
Enhanced: Analog/digital display capability. Overhead transparency projector, video/data projector
or flat panel, laptop connection, external A/V interface, computer (optional), VCR/DVD (optional),
wired/wireless network access.
Advanced: Analog/digital display capability. Overhead transparency projector, video/data
projector(s) or flat panel(s), computer(s), VCR/DVD, laptop connection, external A/V interface,
document camera or other special equipment, such as video cameras and recording capability,
interactive pen tablets, and wired/wireless network access.
Computer: Classrooms with an installed computer at each student station. The teacher station may
have an Enhanced or Advanced technology package installed.
VIC: Standard Virtual Indiana Classroom (VIC) package for distance learning.
Indiana University has significantly increased the number of Enhanced and Advanced technology
classrooms on all campuses since the implementation of the IT Strategic Plan.
28
Indiana University Classrooms
Campus
Basic
Before Action 21
Enhanced Advanced
IUB
IUPUI
IUE
IUK
IUN
IUSB
IUS
214
142
42
22
39
54
46
24
5
TOTAL
%
559
88%
35
6%
Basic
263
149
43
28
41
59
49
138
35
25
8
15
0
32
69
59
17
1
632
253
37%
25
2
1
6
1
1
5
As of January 2006
Enhanced Advanced
Total
3
38
6%
12%
Total
47
34
57
55
8
26
26
18
17
264
149
50
35
41
65
83
227
33%
207
30%
687
63%
Figure 5: IU Classrooms
IUB
Recent advances in wireless technologies have made student response systems (SRS), aka “clickers”, a
more viable teaching and learning tool than in the past. Faculty eager to adopt this technology
introduced competing systems to the IUB campus. As more faculty expressed interest in adopting
SRS, IUB reached a critical point where standardizing and supporting a single system was prudent.
Selecting a campus standard SRS would reduce student costs, and simplify training and support for
faculty, as well as reduce installation and maintenance requirements. In addition, a standard system
would allow IU to more fully integrate the SRS into its teaching and learning environment via
Oncourse CL/Sakai in the future. At the request of the Bloomington Faculty Council Technology
Policy Committee and working through IU Purchasing, five student response system vendors were
invited to campus to demonstrate their product and four vendors participated. Mandatory criteria
included radio frequency (RF) receivers and student units, USB connection to computer, student
units should allow numeric input and clearly indicate that input has been received, and software must
be multiplatform (minimally Windows and Mac) and compatible with IU’s classroom computing
environment. As a result of this process, Indiana University reached an agreement with eInstruction
Corporation to facilitate the use of the eInstruction Classroom Performance System RF on any IU
campus.
New classroom technology installations, upgrades, and life cycle replacements continue. Six
enhanced technology classrooms were installed, for a total of 126, or 45% of general purpose
classrooms. Six classrooms received major equipment/systems upgrades; and 22 projectors, 16 AV
switchers, and 7 projectors were replaced according to the life cycle calendar. In 2006, in addition to
the annual computer and projector life cycle replacements, an additional 14 enhanced technology
classrooms will be installed and 10-12 existing technology classrooms will receive upgrades.
Requests for portable projectors and laptops continue to reinforce the need for more enhanced
technology classrooms at IUB. Use of laptop and computer display equipment increased 46% in
2005. This is double the annual increase in requests experienced in the last two years; the increase in
requests for 2004 and 2003 were 21% and 24% respectively.
IUPUI
Thirty Enhanced Technology Classrooms were added in 2005 for a total of 114 installed technology
classrooms at IUPUI. This total reflects the upgrade of 30 existing General Inventory classrooms.
Classroom Services continues to engage the support and input of Schools, faculty, and the IUPUI
29
Learning Environments Committee in planning and installing instructional technology upgrades in
classrooms. A notable success was the implementation of the Specialty Classroom project,
coordinated by the Learning Environments Committee, in which selected academic units created
classroom environments with specialized instructional technology. Fixed technology supported 2,783
class sessions at IUPUI during 2005, and mobile technology supported 4,288 sections. Results from
the annual UITS User Survey suggest that 86% of the users of all classroom technology are satisfied
with the quality of service.
The new classroom services model is underway and seeks to strengthen partnerships with several
academic units to provide support for classrooms.
IUE
Following the strategy developed in 2004, IU East rewired all existing technology classrooms in 2005
to a standard configuration. Eleven more advanced technology classrooms were installed, bringing
the number to 25, 71% of the total classroom inventory. In addition, ceiling projectors were installed
in all student computer labs.
IUSB
In 2005, Classroom Technology Support (CTS) began upgrading 13 existing technology classrooms.
These upgrades which are expected to be completed early in 2006 will equip the rooms with
stationary desks, identical to the standard configuration, thus reducing problems of cable disconnects
from frequent movement. The standard technology classroom configuration consists of a 2400lumen XGA DLP video/data projector, a technology desk featuring an illuminated rack housing a
PC, DVD/VCR combo player, an Extron System 5 IP switcher, and interface cables for a guest
laptop and AV device. The user interface is a keypad-style control panel, and the desk has a heightadjustable keyboard tray so the user has the option of standing or sitting. The IP Link software
allows for remote monitoring and control of the switchers.
Plans for 2006 include equipping four general use seminar/classrooms, and replacing mobile
equipment with permanently installed equipment in three additional classrooms. Some of these will
receive our standard tech desk. Others, because of size or room configuration, will receive podium or
wall-mounted racks. Two larger auditorium-style classrooms will also be upgraded to meet the
specific demands of their size relating to instruction. Work will continue to fully integrate the IP Link
support system.
IUN
At IU Northwest, projection equipment and an instructor’s lectern with a Dell PC and wireless
controls were installed in Savannah Auditorium to allow for student video screenings with 7.1
surround sound capabilities and occasional presentations. Multimedia presentation equipment
including SP controls with CatLink was installed in three classrooms in the new Medical Education
Building. Thirty five classroom computers are scheduled to be replaced this next year. A new
strategic technology plan will be drafted in 2006 to guide further classroom expansion. The Polycom
equipment was updated in one conference room and DVD duplication was added to video services.
IUK
At IU Kokomo, three classrooms were upgraded to advanced technology status during 2005. A
second technology classroom was provided in the Library, and connectivity was provided to the
Observatory Building to support the new telescope installation. Planning for 2006 includes upgrading
the existing technology in the first four advanced technology classrooms installed in the Main
Building, consistent with the life cycle replacement schedule developed in the strategic planning
document. Testing of student response systems (aka “clickers”) in four classrooms is being
undertaken to determine their usefulness in enhancing the teaching/learning experience.
30
Development of the Information Commons in the Library continues. Assessment activities are also
underway to measure support of student learning and offer direction for improvement, specifically in
the areas of user training and classroom technology availability.
IUS
Last year’s renovation of Crestview Hall at IU Southeast included installation of new AV equipment
and an instructor station in 15 classrooms. These permanent installations have already reduced
mobile AV deliveries by more than 950.
IT-Media Services at IU Southeast focused on classroom renovation of Hillside Hall in 2005. Early in
the year, the wiring infrastructure was upgraded to accommodate IP-based room control. The
installations will include the same equipment and instructor desk used in the 2004 renovation of
Crestview Hall. Eight Hillside Hall classrooms are being newly equipped, and the remaining six will
receive equipment upgrades. A new SMART Board has been installed in the School of Education’s
computer lab. The successful completion of Crestview Hall and Hillside Hall renovations will nearly
eliminate mobile equipment deliveries. The goal is for all campus classrooms to have a permanently
installed computer, LCD projector, and VHS/DVD.
In addition to the major renovation projects, IT-Media Services installed a new advanced technology
classroom specifically equipped for public speaking classes in Knobview Hall. LCD projection for a
computer classroom is now installed in the new IU Southeast Library. Currently, we are preparing
two pilot projects using Sympodium and tablet technologies to aid art and music instruction.
Evaluation & Assessment
Action 24. The core campuses should collaborate to create an interdepartmental advisory group that will provide advice
and guidance on assessment and planning for assessment.
Action 25. Faculty who participate in University-funded programs that support innovative applications of technology in
teaching and learning should have access to the expertise and support resources needed to carry out an assessment of their
project.
Action 26. A program of applied research in teaching and learning with technology should be considered as a means of
identifying faculty and student needs and identifying opportunities for improving teaching and learning.
In 2002, the University adopted a strategy that supports assessment through the development and
implementation of an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) application. IUs ePortfolio is an assessmentbased design that provides users a mechanism for cataloging and assessing authentic or artifact-based
evidence of their learning. It enables individual and large-scale institution assessment, and provides a
means for users to build web-shareable portfolios (web pages) of their work. As part of the IU
learning environment strategy, IU joined the Open Source Portfolio Initiative (OSPI) to develop the
ePortfolio in open source code. The ePortfolio toolset utilizes the Sakai framework as a means to
implement the project allowing the application to be used independently or implemented as a rich
toolset in the Oncourse Collaboration and Learning environment. IU introduced ePortfolio early in
2005 to a focused set of faculty at IUPUI and to a limited number of faculty at other campuses. The
ePortfolio tool set appeared in the Oncourse CL system software, version 2.1, released in December
2005.
31
V. Research: Computation, Communication, Collaboration
Recommendation 5: In support of research, UITS should provide broad support for basic collaboration technologies and
begin implementing more advanced technologies. UITS should provide advanced data storage and management services
to researchers. The University should continue its commitment to high performance computing and computation, so as to
contribute to and benefit from initiatives to develop a national computational grid.
The Actions associated with this Recommendation address several services and initiatives for IT
support of research, including high performance computing and grid computing (Actions 29, 31);
computation- and information-intensive applications (Actions 30, 33); massive data storage (Action
32, also Action 43 under Recommendation 6); and collaboration and communications (Actions 27,
28).
Collaborative Technologies
Action 27. UITS should launch an aggressive program to systematically evaluate and deploy across the University
state-of-the-art tools and infrastructure that can support collaboration within the University, nationally and globally.
Action 28. UITS should explore and deploy advanced and experimental collaborative technologies within the
University’s production information technology environment, first as prototypes and then if successful, more broadly.
In August 2005, Indiana University received a $4.4M grant from the National Science Foundation to
participate as one of eight resource partners in the TeraGrid, the world’s largest grid computing
infrastructure for open scientific research. The TeraGrid makes shared resources of supercomputing,
storage, network, data and visualization available to researchers nationwide, providing an
unprecedented level of computing power to enable new possibilities in investigation and
collaboration.
IU’s contributions to the TeraGrid include the AVIDD distributed Linux cluster, which has an
aggregate peak computing capacity of 2.2 TeraFLOPS, and the HPSS-based Massive Data Storage
System, where TeraGrid users can store large amounts of data. IU’s Hydra portal is also now
available to TeraGrid users, supporting bioinformatics applications by harvesting unused cycles from
more than 2,000 Windows desktop machines.
The IP-Grid, which connects IU’s and Purdue’s supercomputing resources to the TeraGrid, also will
play an integral role in this national research initiative. Indiana University will continue to provide
unique resources to the TeraGrid community, with a particular emphasis on support of the Life
Sciences.
Videoconferencing Services
Videoconferencing systems can be categorized into two models: group systems, comprising
classroom and conference room systems; and desktop systems. During 2004, steady growth
continued in the deployment and use of videoconferencing. By November 2004, 187 group systems
were deployed in the University system, with approximately 225 desktops. By November 2005, 256
group systems were deployed, with approximately 250 desktops. Digital Media Network Services
(DMNS) encourages owners of legacy videoconferencing hardware to upgrade their systems by
January 2006 to take fullest advantage of the improved video and audio quality inherent in the new
lineup.
In 2004, DMNS completed its initiative to make all Indiana University endpoints compatible with the
ViDeNet Global Dialing Scheme hierarchy, which allows for direct in and outward dialing to H.323
32
compliant systems at college campuses worldwide by a numerical “telephone” alias called E.164,
which eliminates the reliance on IP addresses to connect. Currently, IU is working toward meshing
with H.323 global directory services based on LDAP, and is seeking partnerships with industry
professionals to investigate how Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) can advance integrated directory
services at IU and multimedia communication among SIP and legacy H.323 devices.
As IU’s web-collaboration service goes into production, DMNS has kept pace by outfitting publicly
available videoconference rooms at all IU campuses with the necessary hardware (networked PCs
and data projectors) to conduct a tandem H.323 videoconference and web-collaboration session.
DMNS has also taken steps to integrate H.239 (the ability to present XGA resolution graphics within
the H.323 stream) in these rooms as an application-specific alternative to the parallel H.323–webcollaboration method.
Great strides have been made to streamline the scheduling process for videoconferencing rooms
across all IU campuses as well as video bridge space (for multipoint conferences) using familiar
Microsoft Outlook scheduling mechanisms. By December 2005, any IU user can create a single
Outlook meeting request to schedule meeting participants, rooms, video bridge space, and associated
telephone bridge space. DMNS introduced a new videoconferencing bridge with enhanced features,
including individual control of multipoint conference layout; far-end camera control within
multipoint meetings; and vastly improved audio latency (allowing more natural dialog within
meetings).
Connecting to a point-to-point conference or to a multi-point conference has been simplified by
using the Polycom global address book, which eliminates user confusion.
Streaming Media
The iStream service provides web-based streaming of classes, lectures, meetings and other events.
Live streaming and recording for on-demand access are offered, with a choice of video and audio, or
audio-only. Real Player is utilized to view or listen to streams. On-demand audio-only files can also
be downloaded as MP3 and played on personal audio appliances.
The iStream service can support approximately 12 simultaneous H.323-streaming events at any time.
The streaming archive server (which stores the RealPlayer recordings of H.323 videoconference
events) currently has approximately 2TB of storage capacity, and efforts are underway to make a true
database backend for better organization and retrieval of valuable archived files.
The iStream system grew to support more than 50 academic courses by spring 2005. In addition, a
pilot program to extend the recording capabilities was launched. Apple iPods were used with
microphones to record lectures and upload them to the iStream system for later student downloads.
Podcasting support was added in summer 2005 to better integrate iStream with Apple's iTunes
software. Also in 2005, the first experimentation with high-resolution VGA streaming and archiving
that leverages IU's large videoconferencing infrastructure was realized. This allows classes, meetings
and presentations to be delivered both synchronously and asynchronously in an efficient and
effective manner.
DMNS continues its involvement in the EVIA-DA project, funded by the Mellon Foundation in
collaboration with the University of Michigan. This project strives to preserve and share
ethnomusicological videos for future study. The EVIA-DA project has been in full swing for more
than a year. The project utilizes DMNS transcoding, streaming, and storage resources.
DMNS performed the first full-scale load tests of IU’s streaming media infrastructure. A great deal of
experience was gained in performance tuning the storage/server/network combination. Performance
33
problems and limits were identified prior to any negative impact on students, faculty, and staff using
the systems. As a result of this testing, the file storage system utilized by all IU institutional streaming
servers was completely reconfigured and its performance improved by 300 percent.
The IU Transcoding Service was configured to convert DVD files directly to streaming media
formats and automatically deliver the output files to the streaming media storage system. This
workflow results in significant labor savings. In addition, DMNS specified four new streaming media
servers and added them to the ICTC Advanced Cyberinfrastucture Facility.
Web Collaboration
In spring and fall 2005, DMNS pilot tested Macromedia’s web-collaboration solution, Breeze, with
more than 100 faculty and staff. Breeze, which allows meeting hosts to share presentations or
desktop applications with remote participants using only a Web browser, has been widely regarded by
pilot testers as an outstanding service and a tremendous benefit to academic and administrative work.
A spring 2006 rollout of the production Breeze service is planned.
Access Grid
The Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL), in conjunction with the School of Informatics and
Digital Media Network Services (DMNS), installed several Access Grid nodes on the Bloomington
and Indianapolis campuses. Access Grid nodes complement the standard videoconferencing services
supported through DMNS by using multicast protocols and by supporting multiple participating sites
and multiple video and data streams per site. Access Grid technologies are a useful and growing
standard for distributed research collaborations. IUB installations include rooms in the School of
Informatics and the Wrubel Computing Center. IUPUI installations include facilities in Medical
Sciences and the ICTC.
Collaborative Visualization
The AVL has integrated a range of visual collaboration capabilities into its new facilities in the ICTC
and planned upgrades for its IUB facilities. The high-resolution display wall and the reconfigurable
virtual reality theater in the ICTC are ideal for supporting collaborations with groups of local and
remote colleagues. (See the narrative under Actions 30 and 33 for more details on these facilities.)
The graphics supercomputers driving these systems can employ several different “visualization
serving” technologies that operate over local- and wide-area networks to allow collaborators to view
and control the same graphical application at multiple sites. Full-scale tele-immersion applications
continue to be supported and have proven to be especially beneficial for educational and artistic
endeavors. The broader deployment of the AVL-developed John-e-Box visualization systems (see
Action 30) has placed advanced 3D capabilities in laboratories and classrooms across the University
and is a key component of plans for an advanced visualization and visual collaboration infrastructure.
In 2005, AVL hosted routine meetings and seminars over geographical distributed spaces to support
advanced tele-collaboration opportunities over a visual collaboration infrastructure. The AVL plans
to continue supporting tele-collaboration through this advanced infrastructure.
High Performance Computing & the National Grid
Action 29. In order to maintain its position of leadership in the constantly changing field of high performance
computing the University should plan to continuously upgrade and replace its high performance computing facilities to
keep them at a level that satisfies the increasing demand for computational power.
Action 31. The University should plan to evolve its high performance computing and communications infrastructure so
it has the features to be compatible with and can participate in the emerging national grid.
34
IU has set a goal of enabling IU researchers to perform massive new analyses and simulations at the
same time as, or before, their peers at other leading research institutions. Indiana University’s high
performance computing and communication environment makes this possible, enabling researchers,
artists, engineers, and clinicians to explore new areas and approaches in science, the arts, and
education. Computing resources, and the software and support needed to make use of these
advanced facilities, are freely available to the IU community; this has enabled IU to take a leadership
position nationally and internationally in terms of the number of people and the diversity of
disciplines that take advantage of IU’s high performance computing environment.
The intellectual impact of IU’s high performance computing environment is broad and far-reaching,
as indicated in the extensive list of publications, presentations, and artistic works that rely on UITS
high performance computing systems, massive data storage facilities, and advanced visualization
environments. See http://racinfo.uits.iu.edu/publications/.
In 2005, 1,020 accounts for IU researchers—predominantly faculty and graduate students—existed
on IU’s central high performance computing systems. Approximately 28,750 undergraduate,
graduate, staff and faculty accounts resided on IU’s central general-purpose instructional and
research systems. IU’s high performance computing systems for TeraGrid users hosted 1,340
accounts. A description of IU’s TeraGrid efforts follows. Demand for and utilization of IU’s high
performance compute resources continues to climb steeply (see graph “TFLOPS Hours Usage”).
TFLOPS Hours is the number of CPU hours used prorated against the peak compute capacity of the
system in TeraFLOPS.
TFLOPS Hours Usage
on HPC Systems
16000
TFLOPS hours
14000
12000
10000
8000
AVIDD
IBM SP
6000
4000
2000
0
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Year
Figure 6: TeraFLOPS Usage
During 2005, the Research and Academic Computing Division of UITS focused on serving the needs
IU researchers for data-intensive computing and visualization, and increasing its involvement in and
contributions to such national and international computing grid efforts as TeraGrid and Open
Science Grid.
UITS high performance computing services fall into four key areas: delivery and support of advanced
hardware; participation in national and international efforts to create a cyberinfrastructure that
supports advanced research; the use of high performance computing in undergraduate and graduate
education; and creation of new, high performance computing technologies. The term
“cyberinfrastructure,” coined by the National Science Foundation, refers to an array of high
performance computing systems, massive storage systems, advanced visualization systems, and
35
advanced instruments, all linked by high-speed networks. The concept evolved from that of grid
computing, but is more far-reaching, focusing on creating a system of advanced IT facilities that
enable path-breaking research.
The following section covers UITS activities in three of these areas. The creation of new high
performance computing technologies and their economic development impact are discussed under
Action 34.
Delivery & Support of Advanced Hardware
IU continues its strategy of providing high performance computing systems, large-memory systems
for data-intensive applications and data-mining, massive disk storage for manipulation and storage of
large datasets, and special-purpose systems for research. These include:
•
•
•
•
Linux clusters (the AVIDD facility)
Distributed shared memory (the Libra Cluster)
Shared memory (the Research Database Complex)
Special-purpose systems (GRAPEs)
Linux clusters (the AVIDD facility). AVIDD (Analysis and Visualization of Instrument-Driven Data)
is an innovative facility for processing and analyzing data generated by large scientific instruments
and is a significant tool for research and teaching at IU. The system has an aggregate capacity of
2.5TeraFLOPS, 0.5TB RAM, and 15TB of disk. The computational component includes a set of two
large Pentium IV clusters located at IUB and IUPUI tied together as a single computational resource.
A third Pentium III Linux cluster at IUN is used for instruction in parallel programming as well as
research. A fourth AVIDD component, an Itanium 2 Linux cluster at IUPUI, was the first IU
computing resource dedicated to the NSF-funded grid project called the TeraGrid, and continued to
provide compute cycles to the TeraGrid throughout 2005. A fifth AVIDD Linux cluster was installed
in 2005 at IUPUI, consisting of 36 Opteron compute nodes, a high speed interconnect, and 5TB
disk. In addition, eight I/O servers were added to implement rapid, parallel data transfer to and from
the AVIDD clusters from and to compute and data storage resources at other TeraGrid sites.
Utilization of the AVIDD clusters increased again in 2005.
Distributed Shared Memory (the Research SP and the Libra Cluster)
The Research SP system, originally installed in 1996 was retired in September 2005. Through
frequent upgrades over its lifetime, it reached a peak of 646 processors and 1.0TeraFLOPS of
aggregate compute capacity in 2004. Its replacement system, the Libra Cluster, offers IU researchers
a familiar AIX environment within leading-edge JS20 blade cluster technology, a ten-fold increase in
home directory disk space, and a five-fold increase in processor speed. For database and other dataintensive applications requiring more than the 4GB memory within the blades, the cluster includes a
32cpu/192GB Power4 server; 4TB of external disk is provided for temporary data
storage/workspace. The Libra Cluster consists of 116 CPUs with a peak compute capacity of
0.74TeraFLOPS, with over 600 user accounts for faculty and their sponsored graduate students and
staff.
Shared Memory (the Research Database Complex)
The Research Database Complex (RDC) provides a large-memory SMP environment, Oracle
software and significant disk storage to IU’s research community. The RDC comprises two Sun
V1280 systems and a Sun V880, with 28 CPUs, 200GB memory and multiple TB of high-speed disk
dedicated for high performance database and information management research. The complex is
used by IU’s leading database researchers; especially those in the School of Library and Information
Sciences and the School of Informatics who study knowledge management and database
performance. The RDC also hosts several important biomedical data suites and geographic
36
information system (GIS) datasets for IU and the State. GIS datasets about the State have served in
practical applications from urban planning to real-time use fighting forest fires. In 2005, $50,000 in
funding from the Department of Homeland Security plus an additional $40,000 grant from the
Indiana Geographic Information Council allowed the purchase of ten terabytes of high-speed disk,
which will house aerial digital photographs of all Indiana counties in both six-inch-per-pixel color
and 1-foot-per-pixel color formats within an Oracle database on the RDC.
Special-purpose Systems (GRAPEs)
UITS provides six special-purpose GRAPE (GRAvity PipE) systems. GRAPEs are accelerator
boards designed to significantly speed up calculations of certain types of problems, such as the
calculation of gravitational or other forces, on up to millions of particles. At IU, GRAPEs have been
used in astronomy and physics research since 1998. In 2005, with the retirement of the Research SP,
the four Molecular Dyamic GRAPE-2 systems used in physics research were transferred to Linux
Pentium III hosts installed at IUPUI. In addition, two new custom-built Opteron Linux host systems
were acquired for the two GRAPE-6 systems used by IU astronomers.
Data Capacitor
In October 2005, the National Science Foundation awarded Indiana University a $1.72M grant to
develop and build a system that would provide IU researchers with hundreds of terabytes of fast
temporary storage. The Data Capacitor, once constructed, will sit at the center of IU's local
cyberinfrastructure, providing a large pool of fast storage that will simultaneously serve compute
resources, visualization resources, archive storage, and scientific instruments.
Having this panoply of resources connected to the same high-speed storage system will permit a
tighter coupling of local workflows. As part of IU’s local cyberinfrastructure, the Data Capacitor will
enable researchers to simultaneously visualize, archive, and compute using the same data set.
The grant also provides for the purchase of data transfer servers that will utilize the speed of parallel
GridFTP to push and pull data across distance. Because of IU's central location and fast connections
to the national research networks (TeraGrid, Abilene, National LambdaRail), the Data Capacitor will
be able to make a significant contribution to the national cyberinfrastructure. In this larger context,
the Data Capacitor could function as a buffer for data waiting to be processed at a remote site,
possibly as part of a large-scale workflow.
Perhaps the most important part of the grant provides for the purchase of systems to run web
services that will assist with the organization and cataloging of the enormous amounts of data that
the Data Capacitor will handle.
The Data Capacitor is the next step in Indiana University's ongoing effort to be a leader in the arena
of data-intensive computing.
Creating an Advanced Cyberinfrastructure
The term “cyberinfrastructure” has succeeded “grid computing” as a central concept in the
development of high performance computing for two reasons. First, cyberinfrastructure focuses on
the role of advanced instruments that produce digital data at unprecedented rates. Such
instruments—ranging from unique, internationally shared super-colliders to new proteomics
spectrometers being developed by IU researchers—produce data at rates that are so great that the
output cannot be analyzed by any single computer. Analysis and understanding of the most
complicated physical and biological systems can be greatly accelerated by connecting such
instruments to massive, geographically distributed suites of storage, computation, and visualization
systems. This goes far beyond grid computing. Second, cyberinfrastructure implies that the nation’s
37
most advanced research IT systems are sufficiently easy to use that they are viewed as infrastructure
in much the same way as are electrical and plumbing systems.
Indiana University is involved in two major cyberinfrastructure activities. The International Virtual
Data Grid Laboratory, also known as iVDGL, focuses on the massive data challenges of new particle
physics research. The TeraGrid is the National Science Foundation’s flagship effort to build a
flexible, general-purpose national science cyberinfrastructure.
Open Science Grid – Grid Operations Center
The Indiana University Open Science Grid (OSG) Grid Operations Center (GOC), currently funded
by the NSF, IVDGL, and IU research initiatives, has been a leading contributor to the integration
and day-to-day operation of both the OSG test environment and the production environment. The
OSG Operations Activity and Support Centers Group has been tasked with the role of preparing,
provisioning, and running the infrastructure used for the OSG production environment. Duties
include ensuring that the production environment is usable for the current application base and that
the OSG continues to evolve as a common service environment able to support multiple sciences
with an application-friendly grid infrastructure. Areas of development and focus include:
•
•
•
•
a registration database to collect information for the GOC catalog from OSG resources,
participating virtual organizations, and OSG support centers
release of common service software packages which are used to create the common grid
infrastructure
grid-wide services to the community by way of monitoring tools, coordination of support,
and development and execution of Standard Operating Procedures
ongoing verification and evaluation of OSG resources, virtual organizations, and support
centers
MidWest Atlas Tier 2 Computational and Storage Facility
The Midwest Tier 2 grid computing center—jointly submitted by IU and the University of
Chicago—was selected by the US Atlas collaboration. The Tier 2 center will be part of the grid of
computers used by Atlas Physicists to analyze data generated by the Atlas project at CERN. The
Atlas project is one of two general-purpose detectors that will study subatomic particle interactions
from the Large Hadronic Collider (LHC).
The LHC and Atlas are being constructed at CERN—the European Center for Particle Physics
located near Geneva, Switzerland. Once operational in 2008, the LHC will be the largest and highest
energy particle accelerator in the world. The Atlas experiment will search for new particles and
phenomena with an emphasis on finding the first direct evidence of the Higgs boson—a particle
posited by the standard model of particle physics. The Atlas experiment will generate one Petabyte
(one million gigabytes) of data daily per year of operation; the Tier 2 center at IU and the University
of Chicago will be part of the infrastructure to analyze that data.
IU's part of the Tier 2 grant will be used to fund commodity hardware and two system administrators
to look after the hardware at UC and IU. The IU hardware will be installed in the ICTC in
Indianapolis. The enthusiastic participation of the Research and Academic Computing (RAC) group
of the University Information and Technology Service (UITS) was critical in making the proposal
successful and will be crucial in running the Tier 2 center. RAC will operate the center in cooperation
with the High Energy Physics group at IU’s Physics Department.
TeraGrid
In August 2005, Indiana University received a $4.4M grant from the National Science Foundation to
participate as one of eight resource partners in the TeraGrid—a comprehensive distributed
38
infrastructure for open scientific research. The TeraGrid makes computing, storage, network, data
and visualization resources available to researchers nationwide, providing an unprecedented level of
computing power to enable new possibilities in investigation and collaboration.
IU’s contributions to the TeraGrid include the AVIDD distributed Linux cluster, which has an
aggregate peak computing capacity of 2.2 TeraFLOPS, and the HPSS-based Massive Data Storage
System, where TeraGrid users can store large amounts of data. IU’s Hydra portal is also now
available to TeraGrid users, supporting bioinformatics applications by harvesting unused cycles from
over 2,000 Windows desktop machines. Indiana University will continue to provide unique resources
to the TeraGrid community, with a particular emphasis on support of the Life Sciences.
Indiana University at SC|05
Through its continued participation in the annual SC (Supercomputing) conference—along with its
partnerships and collaborations with the other major research universities within the State—Indiana
University has successfully positioned itself and the State of Indiana as a major player, thought leader,
and research center for high performance computing. IU has used the SC conference to
communicate the progress of its cyberinfrastructure and as a showcase for the achievements of the
IU faculty and researchers that infrastructure supports.
The SC conference also provides invaluable opportunities to establish contacts with funding
agencies, program managers, and potential grant and paper reviewers. These contacts increase IU’s
competitiveness for awards and are directly responsible for successes including AVIDD, ETF,
TeraGrid, the Data Capacitor, Variations, and several other major grants.
IU’s booth—visited by approximately 6,900 (80% of registered attendees) from across the globe—
hosted presentations from over 20 IU researchers and faculty from IU Bloomington and IUPUI.
Presentations told the story of Indiana University’s research computing accomplishment focusing on
six major areas:
•
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•
•
•
•
Life Sciences
Physical Sciences & Engineering
Middleware
Data-centric Computing
Collaborative Communities
Systems & Services
In preparation for the $30M NSF Office of Cyberinfrastructure Path to Petaflops solicitation, IU
sought to strengthen its profile on the national level. To be competitive for this program, the HPC
community must recognize that Indiana University has developed a mature, dependable, and
significant research computing and academic cyberinfrastructure and that it makes a major impact on
the depth and quality of research activities at Indiana University. With this goal in mind, RAC
leadership developed the ResearchWorks theme, designed to showcase and contextualize IU’s broad
efforts to create a comprehensive cyberinfrastructure framework. With this context, Indiana
University realized several major outcomes from its participation in SC|05:
•
•
•
Strengthened IU’s national profile
Communicated faculty research successes enabled by IU’s cyberinfrastructure
Re-established the statewide “Research in Indiana” theme
In addition to the rotating ResearchWorks slides atop each kiosk, desktop systems provided access to a
web site serving all of IU’s electronic content for the exhibit, as well as presentation schedules. A
39
dynamic navigation hypergraph optimized for the Firefox Web browser allowed visitors to explore
ResearchWorks content per their interest. See http://supercomputing.iu.edu/preview/hypergraph/.
The concept of continuous content was introduced to the booth at SC|05. From beginning to end,
the presentation area and several of the kiosks were staffed and alive with the accomplishments of IU
research. Researchers were on hand to discuss their work or provide a demonstration. Traffic around
the booth was drawn by its busy appearance. During many of the higher profile presentations, IU’s
booth was crowded to capacity.
Computation & Information-intensive Applications
Action 30. The University needs to provide facilities and support for computationally and data-intensive research for
non-traditional areas such as the arts and humanities, as well as for the more traditional areas of scientific computation.
Action 33. The University through UITS should provide support for a wider range of research software including
database systems, text-based and text-markup tools, scientific text processing systems, and software for statistical
analysis. UITS should investigate the possibilities for enterprise-wide agreements for software acquisitions similar to the
Microsoft Enterprise License Agreement.
The UITS focus on computationally and data-intensive research spans many areas and Information
Technology Strategic Plan Actions. Especially important is delivering software tools that enable
computationally intensive research and creating and providing advanced visualization facilities
scientists can use to analyze massive data sets that would otherwise be beyond comprehension.
Support & Delivery of Research Software
The Research and Academic Computing (RAC) division of UITS provides access to software, along
with consulting support services, to IU faculty, staff, and students across the University. RAC
manages site licenses and software accessibility in many areas of scholarly endeavor. The primary
areas of focus are statistical computing, mathematical computing, and bibliographic tools. Consulting
is available for short- and long-term projects in many areas of research, including statistics and
mathematics, high performance computing, Unix systems, bioinformatics, and visualization, as
detailed in the preceding narrative. Help is available through online resources, user groups, in person,
and via telephone. The satisfaction rate for RAC services remains high, with an overall satisfaction
rate of 98% recorded in the 2004 UITS User Survey.
Statistical and Mathematical Software
The Center for Statistical and Mathematical Computing (Stat/Math Center) manages a large suite of
software in support of qualitative and quantitative research. The centerpiece of this effort is the
Enterprise License Agreement for SPSS, the most widely used commercial statistical package at IU.
More than 2,300 copies of SPSS were distributed across IU in 2005, facilitating research and
education at all IU campuses.
Dozens of other software packages, such as SAS MATLAB, are licensed and redistributed across IU
at a very modest cost. See http://www.indiana.edu/~statmath/sales/prices/.
Through an agreement reached with Maplesoft Inc. in 2005, Maplesoft software is now available for
students for $20 per year. This is in addition to the availability of Mathematica and Minitab software
for students at $20 per year. This significant savings over academic list price enables more students to
take advantage of these tools. The difference between the costs paid by the University and academic
list price amounts to an annual savings of over $10.19M. More importantly, the ease of access to the
best software tools for researchers and students greatly enhances the University’s activities in
research and teaching.
40
The Stat/Math Center provides instructional and research support for statistical and mathematical
computing across all of the IU campuses (see graph “Summary of Stat/Math Consulting”).
Stat/Math also maintains a web site (http://www.indiana.edu/~statmath/)—an online resource that
includes locally developed documentation and hundreds of IU Knowledge Base documents.
Summary of Stat/Math Consulting
7000
Number of Consults
6000
5000
4000
Short/Long Term Consults
Software Sales Consults
3000
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0
FY 9899
FY 9900
FY 0001
FY 0102
FY 0203
FY 0304
FY 0405
Figure 7: Summary of Stat/Math Consulting
The Stat/Math Center (in cooperation with the IT Education & Training Program) also delivers
short, non-credit classes and special classes geared to the instructional needs of statistical and
mathematical computing.
Working with the Indiana University Center for Survey Research, the Stat/Math Center coordinates
the annual UITS User Survey across IU campuses, and makes the findings available to the public. See
http://www.indiana.edu/~uitssur and http://www.indiana.edu/~regitsur.
Unix and Open-source Productivity Tools
The Unix System Support Group (USSG) negotiates site licenses for commercial Unix software,
providing the University with access to such software under very aggressive site licensing terms. The
USSG supports the use of multiple variants of Unix, focusing on Linux and Solaris, and provides
access to those operating systems.
In December 2004, the USSG and the University reached an agreement with Red Hat, Inc., for a
University-wide site license of the most widely used variant of Linux—Red Hat Linux. This site
license provides access to all current Red Hat operating system versions—RHEL WS, DS, ES and
RHEL AS—and the Red Hat Up2Date network. The USSG administers a local server that enables
the IU community to easily access this software. Management facilities provided by this license make
it simple for departmental staff that manage large numbers of Linux systems to easily manage groups
of computers.
Over the course of 2005, the IU Red Hat Up2Date server (Red Hat Satellite server which lives at
IUB) had 3,507,217 hits and served 472,037,282KB of data. Currently, 1,350 IU computers are on
41
the Red Hat Satellite network with over 41 managed groups. The USSG maintains a strong
relationship with Red Hat to assure ongoing services and support to the IU community.
Linux is one part of a broad open source software movement that makes high-quality software
available to communities underserved by commercial software developers—specialized research and
educational communities, for example. A key service of USSG is the operation of a system—an open
source mirror—that provides a wide range of open source software. The USSG open source mirror
contains a local repository of hundreds of open source software tools including the very popular
Open Office productivity suite, and many security-related applications and updates. Downloads from
USSG servers amount to almost 20TB per month. The cost avoidance achieved by USSG
negotiations for commercial Unix variants, and through enabling use of open source productivity
tools for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations, exceeds $1M per year. It is impossible to
put a financial value on the open source tools that have no commercial counterpart, but their value in
expanding the research capabilities of the IU community is significant.
To increase awareness of such tools, the USSG hosts an annual event called LinuxFest. The theme of
the 2005 LinuxFest was “Open Source: Everybody wants some,” with keynote speaker Scott Collins,
core developer for mozilla.org and chief engineer for Trolltech. Presentations and discussion groups
focused on security issues and how Linux fits into the academic community. An open question and
answer forum followed. More than 500 people attended the 2005 LinuxFest.
The USSG released its own open source software package—PubsOnline—in 2005. PubsOnline is a
web-based application that manages publications, papers, speeches and journal articles. PubsOnline
utilizes an open source database, with custom code for indexing and searching publications. Results
are returned in the open BIBTEX format. PubsOnline was introduced at the 2005 SIGUCCS
conference in Monterey, California.
Bioinformatics Support
Bioinformatics and computational biology are important new disciplines and UITS support is helping
IU carve out a leadership position in these areas. Three full-time consultants—one funded by the
Indiana Genomics Initiative and one by the METACyt initiative—support bioinformatics and
bioinformatics databases so that IU researchers have access to the high-performance software
applications they need. As part of IU's life sciences research relationship with IBM, Inc., two IU
researchers have been supported in their efforts to build simulation models of cell metabolism and
tissue development. Research at IU is enjoying an advantage relative to its peers in advanced
information technology in the life sciences because UITS is making it easier for biomedical
researchers of long standing to learn about and adopt new technologies, while also providing massive
and sophisticated resources for researchers already steeped in this technology.
Scientific Data Management Group
In 2006 RAC will create a new unit to consolidate and expand the activities already in progress
related to managing scientific data. The Scientific Data Management Group (SDM) will explore new
technologies and methods aimed at helping researchers collect, store, retrieve, and analyze
exponentially increasing amounts of scientific data. SDM will focus on database and markup
language technologies designed to help researchers simplify the process of managing their data and
focus on using that data to find results.
Library and Information Science Research
In January 2005, UITS purchased $100,000 large-memory Sun servers with 10TB of disk for the SLIS
department in support of NetWorkBench: A Large-Scale Network Analysis, Modeling and
Visualization Toolkit for Biomedical, Social Science and Physics Research. This research project, led
by SLIS faculty member Katy Börner, was also awarded a $1.1M grant from the National Science
42
Foundation in 2005. To further support this effort, UITS acquired another 4TB high-speed disk for
the Research Database Complex, that Börner’s group used to develop a prototype for their
NetWorkBench implementation.
Advanced Visualization & Virtual Reality
Many types of data-intensive computing involve the analysis of data sets which, when printed as
numbers on paper, are beyond the cognitive capabilities of the human brain. The only way to
understand such data sets is through visualization. In addition, many types of scientific data involve
data that consist solely or largely of images. The UITS Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) provides
software, consulting, and facilities that enable IU scientists, clinicians, engineers, and artists to use
advanced visualization and virtual reality technology.
During 2005, the AVL focused its activities on the continued installation and refinement of new
visualization facilities in the ICTC building at IUPUI, including a high-resolution display wall and
virtual reality theater.
High-resolution Display Wall
The centerpiece of the new UITS Research and Academic Computing Lab in the ICTC building is a
high-resolution display wall integrated by Fakespace Systems. Consisting of over 15 million pixels,
each addressable using a video scaling system, the wall is being used for simultaneous viewing of
multiple video- and computer-input sources, teleconferencing sessions, and/or high resolution
advanced visualizations. With its easy-to-use interface and robust operation, the display wall has
proven useful for many geographically distributed seminars and meetings. The wall enabled
University faculty and staff to conduct large-scale data analysis otherwise not possible using
conventional displays and desktop monitors.
Virtual-reality Theater
ITCT IT 403 at IUPUI is home to the reconfigurable virtual reality theater—the MOVE Lite system
from BARCO Simulation, installed in late 2004. This highly flexible system, consisting of some of
the highest resolution and brightest projectors available, allows researchers, educators, and artists to
customize their experience for their particular application and audience. AVL staff spent most of
2005 fine tuning the theater’s capabilities while supporting several new endeavors including: assisting
School of Engineering faculty with the execution of the Advanced Virtual Manufacturing Lab
(AVML) which involves using virtual reality for training and simulation instead of the real machines;
creating interactive, immersive digital experiences for museum displays (such as that shown at the
new Indianapolis Museum of Art exhibit); and, supporting routine University courses. In
collaboration with the Department of Computer Graphics Technology, AVL staff demonstrated how
IUPUI students can use the theater as a development environment for creating 3D spaces and then
as a showcase for their final projects.
John-e-Boxes
The AVL continued to support its portable, large-format, 3D stereo display John-e-Boxes, developed
with the IUB Chemistry Department and licensed in 2003. Eight John-e-Boxes have been deployed
under the AVIDD (Analysis and Visualization of Instrument Driven Data) NSF grant, including one
at IU Northwest (new in 2005) one at IU East.
The AVL has also helped apply new and continuing applications of visualization technologies to
traditional scientific and data-intensive areas. Projects include integrating advanced stereo and highresolution displays with standard GIS packages, such as ERDAS IMAGINE and ESRI ArcGIS, to
visualize aerial photography and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) elevation models of
Indianapolis and Marion County; extending CNC (computer numerically-controlled) milling
simulation software to virtual reality displays; developing new visualization software tools for a finite
43
element simulation of an aircraft wing and a cellular automata simulation of material corrosion;
visualizing 3D plots resulting from high-energy physics experiments; visualizing, filtering, and
segmenting volumetric data sets resulting from medical microscopy and radiology scans; visualizing
molecular simulations involving hundreds of thousands of atoms; and modeling and rendering
astronomical datasets, including interstellar gas clouds and accurate Earth models and satellite
animations.
High Performance Computing Applications & Support
The High Performance Computing (HPC) support team provides programming support including
short consultations, education, extended consultations and projects, and TeraGrid and library
support. Several hundred short consultations were conducted in 2005. A short consultation might
entail answering questions about how to gain the advantages that high performance systems can
offer. Dozens of extended consultation involved the migration of code from one computing system
to another, optimization for performance and space, and/or extending programs to run on multiple
computing systems simultaneously and synergistically. Graduate students and professors in a variety
of fields, from hard sciences to medicine to library science, benefited from HPC consultations this
year. Classes in parallel programming and workshops on supercomputing resources were offered in
Bloomington and Indianapolis. HPC staff continued to write and update IU Knowledge Base
documents for use by the TeraGrid community. IU is delivering Knowledge Base services for the
TeraGrid.
HPC support personnel are highly qualified professional computational scientists. 2005 saw
successful collaborations with many IU research programs, including:
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FortDNAml
The decades-long tradition of support for IU’s life sciences continued in 2005 with a major
revision of the leading program for deriving historical relationships from DNA sequences—
fastDNAml.
Nucleonics on GRAPES
The GRAPE (GRAvityPipelinE) systems are special-purpose computers for calculating
forces and dynamics in systems of thousands or millions of charged particles—gravitational
interactions for simulations of galaxy or star cluster collisions. The MDGRAPE-2 is a
special-purpose computer for the fast calculation of potential energies and forces in systems
of thousands to millions of atoms. The MDGRAPE-2 can be used by chemists to study the
structure and thermodynamics of atomic and molecular fluids. It can also be used in protein
folding and other biomolecular simulations. In a novel application by HPC staff and
physicists in the IU Nuclear Theory Center, the MDGRAPE-2s have been used to study a
novel state of nuclear matter known as "nuclear pasta", which is believed to form during
supernovas, and in the crusts of neutron stars.
Xcor
The USArray collects seismic time series from a multitude of instruments. The software, cocreated by HPC staff and the researcher, focuses on enabling coherent signal processing of
the collected data by providing an analyst-friendly interface to static corrections computed
(based on cross-correlation method) on the back end.
Science Portal/ Virtual Supercomputer
The Hydra Cluster is a virtual supercomputer assembled from idle computers in the Student
Technology Centers (STC) at Indiana University Bloomington. Over a typical week, the
Hydra Cluster provides computing cycles equal to a 500-processor Linux cluster running
24/7. A gateway portal mediates access to Hydra and security is ensured by the fact that the
only code running is that which is put there by the Hydra system administrators. The Hydra
Cluster currently supports three well-known bioinformatics applications: BLAST (sequence
alignments); MEME (motif discovery); and fastDNAml (phylogenetic inference).
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Sapient
HPC staff created a software system that will receive a stream of data from spectrometers
and send it from a Windows desktop system to a Linux supercomputer for analysis on
multiple processors.
•
Massive Data Storage
Action 32. The University should evaluate and acquire high-capacity storage systems, capable of managing very large
data volumes from research instruments, remote sensors, and other data gathering facilities.
Action 43. UITS should implement massive storage technology for storage of the University’s institutional data,
migrate tapes over time to the new environment, and integrate this technology with database management systems to
support image, sound, and video data types.
IU’s Massive Data Storage System (MDSS), based on the High Performance Storage System (or
HPSS) software, gives researchers (faculty, staff, and students) at all IU campuses instant access up to
an 880TB capacity. The number of IU users totals 1,382. Of these, 1,080 are at IUB, 260 are at
IUPUI, and 42 are on the regional campuses. Some 176TB of data are stored in HPSS. Of this,
133TB are used by IUB, 43TB by IUPUI, and 140GB by the regional campuses.
MDSS Unique TBs stored
TBs
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Figure 8: MDSS Storage
IU supercomputing resources are connected to MDSS using a high-performance switching
infrastructure based on non-blocking switches from Force-10 Networks, and connected to San
Diego Supercomputer Center, Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, NCSA, and other TeraGrid
partner sites via a 10Gbps TeraGrid network connection to Chicago. The architecture of the MDSS
system is unique in many respects. Data are automatically mirrored across the IUPUI and IUB
campuses over the I-Light network. With this architecture, IU’s MDSS is the first disaster-tolerant
high performance mass store system anywhere. Automatic duplication of data between Indianapolis
and Bloomington (resulting in 318TB of data stored on tapes) assures that biomedical and other data,
often irreplaceable, will not be lost were a disaster to strike one of the University’s two Advanced
Cyberinfrastructure Facilities. The unique architecture of the MDSS provides a considerable
competitive advantage for those seeking research grants that require substantial amounts of storage.
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During 2005, the amount of spinning disk used to speed up the performance of MDSS was greatly
expanded at IUB and IUPUI to reflect the needs of ever-increasing file transfers. IUB was expanded
from 0.5 to 2.5TB and IUPUI was expanded from 1 to 2.5TB.
The IU Massive Data Storage System was connected to the TeraGrid in 2004. In 2005 RAC worked
to create a community software presence on the TeraGrid to enable transfers from all TeraGrid sites
to MDSS. IU’s MDSS was the first system of its type to be accessible from every TeraGrid site.
MDSS Users
Users
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Figure 9: MDSS Users
CFS
The Common File System grew out of the need to provide a unified general file storage system to all
IU campuses, replacing multiple retiring systems at IUB and IUPUI. CFS was a great success, used
by a large percentage of the IU community. During 2005, faced with changes in technology and user
needs, UITS collectively decided to merge the retiring CFS and Oncourse Filemanager services with
Oncourse CL and to migrate research users of CFS to a new service (see Research File System
below). This merger and migration will be complete by January 15, 2006, and was made possible by
the combined efforts of a cross-divisional team from RAC, TLIT, and UIS.
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CFS Utilization
70.00%
60.00%
Usage
50.00%
40.00%
IUB
IUPUI
30.00%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
2002
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2004
2005
Year
Figure 10: CFS Utilization
Research File System (RFS)
During 2005, RAC created a new storage service prototype, the Research File System (RFS). RFS
enables researchers from all disciplines to access their data from easy-to-use desktop and web-based
interfaces anywhere in the world, and to collaborate via file sharing with both IU and non-IU
researchers. RFS is rare if not unique among peer institutions in providing a dedicated, widelyaccessible storage service designed to support researchers. The prototype system includes 7TB of
spinning disk.
Research Initiatives in Information Technology
Action 34. UITS should participate with faculty on major research initiatives involving information technology, where
it is appropriate and of institutional advantage. Further, UITS should provide proactive encouragement and supportive
services that create opportunities where faculty from diverse disciplines might come together on collaborative projects
involving information technology.
UITS is involved in research initiatives for many reasons: to create new discoveries and technologies
by taking advantage of the skills of its own staff; to enable new intellectual discoveries and practical
research and development by IU researchers, clinicians, and engineers; and to help IU enable the
State of Indiana to achieve the technology transfer and economic benefits of IU’s research and
creative activities. UITS is active in ensuring that the results of its research efforts are understood
internationally and statewide. These efforts are detailed below.
Research Led by UITS
AVIDD
The AVIDD facility, discussed in the narrative on Actions 29 and 31, is the result of a grant awarded
to IU from the National Science Foundation. This grant included representatives of OVPIT and
UITS, as well as faculty from several Schools and the IU core campuses. UITS staff members are
working with the faculty participating in the AVIDD grant to create new advances in computer
science and in sciences that depend upon advanced information technology.
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TeraGrid
In August 2005, Indiana University received a $4.4M grant from the National Science Foundation to
participate as one of eight resource partners in the TeraGrid, a comprehensive distributed
infrastructure for open scientific research. The TeraGrid makes computing, storage, network, data
and visualization resources available to researchers nationwide, providing an unprecedented level of
computing power to enable new possibilities in investigation and collaboration.
IBM Institutes of Innovation
In June 2003, IU was named one of IBM’s charter Institutes of Innovation. As part of this
recognition, researchers at IU collaborate with IBM on life sciences research projects of mutual
interest. Two projects were successfully completed in 2005; RAC developed, through the institutes,
project interfaces to facilitate communication with other software using community-based data
standards. Two faculty members that have been supported through the institutes program are Dr.
James Glazier for developing simulation models of tissue development and Dr. Peter Ortoleva for
developing simulation models of cellular metabolism.
Creation of New Software
A critical part of UITS research activities involves the creation of new software. Many of these
efforts result in open source software tools of tremendous use to IU researchers, and that aid the
broader US and international research community. New software created and released to date
includes the following:
•
•
XLiveCD
In November 2004, RAC released XLiveCD as a tool that allows Microsoft Windows user to
connect to remote Unix computers, run graphical applications, and have the graphics
displayed on their desktops. The software is a set of open source packages that was tied
together using scripts written at IU to give it the appearance of an application. It runs
directly from CD. XLiveCD has been very successful since its release. More than 500 copies
have been downloaded by people at IU, and more than 40,000 copies have been downloaded
World wide.
EmbryoGrid
Embryologists record still images and movies of developing embryos and collect data from
the recordings. Images are bulky, and embryologists need a means to store and share them.
To meet this need, RAC (in its role as a resource provider on the TeraGrid) began work to
provide storage on the High Performance Storage System (HPSS) and a graphical interface
for storing, retrieving and sharing images, to a community of embryologists centered at the
University of Kansas.
Center for Computational Cytomics
The center was formed in 2005 as part of the METACyt initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment.
Its purpose is to support computational aspects of research that are funded by METACyt. The center
is a joint project of the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics (CGB) and UITS that combines the
biological expertise of the CGB with the computing expertise of UITS. The center has hired staff,
and it is beginning its first projects with faculty.
Research Projects Involving UITS
Data Capacitor
The Data Capacitor project is a collaboration among RAC and IU researchers to attach massive
amounts of spinning disk—at a very high rate—to IU supercomputers. Dr. Craig Stewart leads the
Data Capacitor project as Principal Investigator (PI). Co-PIs on the project are Dr. Randall Bramley,
Dr. Catherine Pilachowski, Dr. Beth Plale, and Dr. Thomas Hacker.
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Randall Bramley's work with Yu Ma has resulted in the creation of the Obsidian data architecture
that is currently in use in the fields of X-Ray crystallography, computational biology, radiation
therapy, and automated photometry. The obsidian architecture will be a key in the implementation of
the Data Capacitor's web services for data provenance and discovery.
Caty Pilachowski has a long association with the WIYN telescope atop Kitt Peak in Tucson, Arizona.
The next big project for WIYN is the one-degree imager (ODI). ODI will generate images of 1
billion pixels when it comes online in 2009. The Data Capacitor will help Dr. Pilachowski manage
and process these enormous images.
Beth Plale's work with the LEAD (Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery) project will
utilize the Data Capacitor for the processing and archiving of NEXRAD Doppler radar data. Web
services will help with the pre-processing of the data and the acquisition of descriptive metadata.
Through her work, Dr. Plale hopes to make this meteorological data accessible and available to more
people, something she calls the "democratization" of data.
Collaboration for the Interdisciplinary Study of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder covers a range of maladies that affect those exposed to alcohol in
the womb. This disorder, affecting thousands of people mainly in economically deprived
populations, is difficult to diagnose early, yet early diagnosis is essential to mitigating its impact. The
Collaboration for the Interdisciplinary Study of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (CIFASD) aims to
develop new means for diagnosis, improve understanding of the role of alcohol in the disorder, and
develop and evaluate treatments. The RAC Division leads the CIFASD Informatics Core, which is
responsible for managing data. The UITS Advanced Visualization Lab (functioning as a part of the
IT Core) is participating in the CIFASD facial dysmorphology core. AVL led the development of
techniques for using 3D laser scanners to map children’s facial features and is leading the
development of software image analysis tools that will help develop better methods for diagnosing
the disorder. During 2005, data was collected for subjects from Buffalo, San Diego, Finland, and
South Africa.
Pervasive Technology Labs
The Pervasive Technology Labs at Indiana University continued to make progress in 2005 on the
Lilly Endowment-funded research agenda. Lab accomplishments for the year are detailed in separate
documents. The Research and Academic Computing Division of UITS collaborates with and
provides services used by the Pervasive Technology Labs.
VI. Information Systems: Managing IU’s Information Assets
Recommendation 6: University-wide prioritization, coordination, oversight and planning are required in the
implementation and development of institutional information systems. In order for these systems to work together in a
seamless manner and accommodate an ever-increasing number of users, UIS should implement common interfaces and a
common information delivery environment that facilitate their integrated use. A new Student Information System should
be a top University priority.
Oversight of Information Systems
Action 35. The Office of the Vice President for Information Technology should establish an effective mechanism for
overall prioritization, coordination and oversight of planning for the development and lifecycle replacement of University
information systems.
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Advisory Committees
Advisory committees remained active during 2005. The Student Information System Steering
Committee and the Human Resource Management System Steering Committee met regularly to
review progress in their respective areas. The Fiscal & Procurement Steering Committee has been
revised in order to advise on the new information systems in these areas.
School of Medicine
The partnerships between IU School of Medicine and UITS remain strong. The School of Medicine
CIO, Vince Sheehan, remains an active participant in OVPIT Cabinet and UITS Senior Management
to facilitate coordination and communication among the School, its hospital and clinical partners,
and UITS. The ICTC Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Facility houses many of the School’s servers
with plans to continue the use of this quality center for other critical needs.
During 2005 an additional administrative application, the House Staff Affairs system, was completed.
The system tracks the duty hours of residents in each of 72 programs to ensure compliance with
federal regulations. It also tracks progress through each individual’s various rotations in compliance
with their chosen discipline.
An application called Study Manager was deployed which assists researchers in the IUSM with
subject recruitment, financial management for sponsored studies, and provides a database
management module that complies with HIPAA and FDA data management regulations.
A new Patch Management security process was developed with Clarian Health Partners that ensures
all IU computers housed in Clarian space are kept up-to-date with the appropriate security patches.
Clarian and ISTM are in the process of jointly developing other security policies to keep physicians’
computers in sync across both organizations.
A Storage Area Network environment was deployed to better manage server-based resources
throughout the IUSM.
Information Systems
Action 36. IU should implement as soon as possible a new Student Information System in a way that integrates
identified best practices in providing services to students and is adaptable to future changes.
Action 36 is subdivided in the UIS Implementation Plan as follows:
36a. Student Information System
36b. Human Resources Management System
36c. Library Information Systems
36d. Fiscal and Procurement Systems
36e. Departmental Information Systems
Student Information System
The Student Information System (SIS) enables IU’s students to move easily through the admissions,
advising, enrollment, financial aid, and student financials processes — all in a web-based
environment. The SIS implementation enabled IU to streamline operations and re-engineer processes
to take advantage of best practices. It provides an information environment (the IUIE) for academic
and administrative decision making with consistent, integrated data, along with tools for analysis,
reporting, and extraction.
November 2004 marked the official completion of the four-year implementation of the Student
Information System. All major Student Administration business processes ran in a standard
operational mode for the first time in 2005. As expected, the project team continued to wrap up
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projects necessary to remove all dependencies on the legacy environment, refined business processes,
close functional gaps. In addition, the team applied five vendor releases to keep the software current
and to support the regulatory changes for Financial Aid.
The Student Financials (Bursar) area added a new write-off process to complete its list of core
business functions. In the Student Records area, over 800,000 inactive student records were
successfully converted from the legacy environment into the new SIS system. To support those
records, a new process was developed to move student records between active and inactive states
according to defined business rules. A new transcript management application provides an image of
official transcripts for all active and inactive students. Students now have access to their unofficial
transcripts via the Self-Service environment in OneStart.
There are approximately 5,200 administrative SIS users. The SIS processes roughly 277,500 average
logins per month with over 71,000 logins processed on a single peak day in January. Over 475,000
SIS-related queries run in the IUIE on a monthly basis.
Human Resources Management System
Indiana University’s Human Resource Management System (HRMS) provides the University
community with improved services for most aspects of human resource information including
personnel records, benefits, and payroll for all of IU’s more than 35,000 employees, student workers,
and retirees. The HRMS system is comprises of the following four components:
•
•
•
•
Core PeopleSoft HR/Payroll/Benefits related components and related processes.
o Human Resource Records for all 35,000 individual: Academic, Student Academic,
Staff, Hourly, Intern & Residents, and Fellowship recipients
o Benefit Administration
o Payroll
o Position Management
Human Resources Electronic Documents Electronic documents (E-Docs) embedded in the
OneStart portal and OneStart Workflow infrastructure. The electronic documents facilitate
HRMS-related transactions, with appropriate workflow. Currently, personnel transactions,
such as hiring employees or processing pay adjustments, initiated by Schools or departments
in the HRMS environment, are automatically routed for approval based on predetermined
routing specifications. Both “initiators” and “approvers” access these transactions through
the OneStart portal. E-Docs eliminate the use of paper forms and facilitate quicker routing
and approval of all personnel transactions. The University saw improvements in the time to
complete transactions by as much as two weeks.
Decision Support components embedded in the Information Environment (IUIE) provides
departments, schools, campus and central administrative offices a tool for enhanced
decision-making.
(TIME) Time Keeping Automated time and attendance - involves the collection of
employees' hours via electronic media, replacing paper timesheets and/or manual punch
time
The HRMS system continues to evolve as a means for the re-engineering of the University’s human
resource functions. This success continues to be achieved through ongoing collaboration among
University staff from human resources, academic affairs, and the payroll offices on IU’s campuses,
and technical staff from UITS.
One example of a re-engineering success is the recent deployment of employee self service for
electronic pay advices and direct deposit enrollment. This new process, called ePay, replaces the
tedious distribution of paper pay advices that occurred after every pay run. For an institution the size
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of IU, the resources required for pay advice distribution is notable. A 2005 monthly pay cycle
generated about 17,700 advices while the biweekly created almost 14,700 advices across the
University system. The new ePay process, rolled out in May 2005, eliminates the generation of paper
advices. It provides employees the ability to access their pay information on-line from their
computer, including historical pay information representing past payrolls. As of November 2005,
20,000 employees have access to their pay information via ePay. Additionally, employees can also
sign up for payroll direct deposit, or modify existing direct deposit via the same online process.
Another improvement is the electronic W-2. In January 2005 the University implemented a process
to distribute 2004 W-2s to employees electronically. University faculty, staff, and student employees
can choose to receive their Form W-2 Wage and Tax Statement online instead of by mail. Online
delivery provides access to the W-2 earlier than the traditional mail process. Online delivery
eliminates the chance that the W-2 will be lost, misdirected or delayed during delivery, or misplaced
once the employee receives it. The electronic format allows employees to import the W-2
information into Quicken TurboTax or H&R Block's TaxCut software rather than re-keying the
information. This new process eliminated the printing of 47,000 W-2s.
General enhancements and required system maintenance. In addition to the above system
enhancements, several miscellaneous yet significant enhancements and required system maintenance
were made to HRMS during 2005:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Improvements to the payroll adjustment process
Improvements to the employee benefit module related to retroactive processing.
Improvements to system audits
Application of required tax updates and general updates from Oracle (formally PeopleSoft)
Improvements related to reporting cycle, resulting in the elimination of processing time and
making data more readily available
Required enhancements related to new department of labor overtime laws
The statistics below reveal an efficient and highly used system:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
555,000 pay checks / advices were generated through HRMS with a total gross pay of over
$1.06 billion.
116,669 new employee job records were entered for 2005, including 29,836 hires, 27,015
terminations and 25,524 data changes.
Average number of employees processed
o Monthly payroll – 15,000
o Bi-weekly payroll – 19,000
12,000 E-Docs processed per month, i.e., personal actions – hire, transfers, etc.
1,400 E-Docs users across eight campuses
500 payroll processors
Average number of days to for E-Doc completion, i.e., initiation to final approval – 1.5 days
58 Departments with 4,300 employees use the TIME (HRMS timekeeping system)
Over the last six pay periods we've processed an average of 2,700 employee timesheets per
pay period. Monday through Friday we average about 1,100 - 1,200 employee clock-ins per
day.
Library Information Systems
The Sirsi Unicorn software, the basis of IUCAT (the Library’s web-based, public interface) and
WorkFlows (the client used internally by librarians and circulation desks) continues to mature with
regular software upgrades and enhancements. Library patron self-service features through IUCAT
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now allow faculty, students, and staff to check their accounts, renew their materials, place requests
for delivery of items, and now includes request of delivery from the ALF (library offsite remote
storage facility) directly to a patron’s library of choice (www.iucat.iu.edu). Continuing work with Sirsi
Unicorn throughout the past year has consisted of fixes, patches and adaptations of its programs to
changes in the IU environment as other systems with which Unicorn interacts change and
mature. IU-Link, the extension to IUCAT that uses NISO standards to link the catalog directly to
electronic full texts, moved into maintenance mode with regular monthly data updates after
completion of implementation for other campuses. Federated Search functionality — the ability to
place a single broadcast search across groups of electronic databases and consolidate the results —
has been placed in production with a phased roll-out to campuses. The UIS team has worked in close
collaboration with IU Libraries to integrate the services into the library web sites.
The IUIE includes financial data for the Library Acquisitions Department, new bibliographic data
elements, and circulation. Efforts have been made to streamline the process of refreshing its data
from production Unicorn. The catalog database continues to grow, keeping pace with acquisitions of
the IU Libraries statewide. A constant activity is loading of bibliographic records from vendors. A
new interface for transfer of payments to the new University purchasing system was implemented.
The Library Information Systems team has collaborated throughout the year with Library
Information Technology with the IUB Library Web contributing programming and administration of
several of its servers. It supports IU Libraries’ current strategic goals of more tightly integrating webbased delivery of services to faculty, staff, and students.
Fiscal and Procurement Systems
Kuali Financial Systems
In March 2005, a $2.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation gave a boost to the
Kuali Project’s (www.kuali.org) development of a new open source financial system for colleges and
universities. The founding partners, Indiana University, the University of Hawaii, the National
Association of College and University Business Officers (www.nacubo.org), and the r-smart group
(www.rsmart.com) have been joined by four additional partners: Cornell University (NY); San
Joaquin Delta College (CA); Michigan State University; and the University of Arizona.
The Kuali Project creates software that provides a comprehensive suite of functionality to serve the
financial systems needs of all Carnegie Class institutions. It includes such functional elements as
Flexible Chart of Accounts, General Ledger, General Accounting, Accounts Receivable, Capital
Asset Management, Pre and Post-Award Administration, Purchasing, Accounts Payable, Cash
Receipting and Disbursement, Travel Requisition and Reimbursement, Auxiliary Accounting, webbased e-Commerce, Budget Construction and Administration. The design is an enhancement of the
proven functionality of Indiana University’s Financial Information System. A critical element of the
system is the XML-based OneStart Workflow for routing and approval of financial transactions.
Extensive data warehousing and decision support tools will be an integral part of the system.
An important element of the Kuali Project software is its modular architecture. Institutions can
implement only those functional elements that meet their needs. This modularity and a highly flexible
Chart of Accounts will enable the software to be scaled to meet the needs of complex multi-campus
research-intensive institutions as well as small private, liberal arts or community colleges.
The community source nature of the project gives information technology professionals across the
nation the ability to engage collaboratively in continuous improvement and innovation for
application software, such as that witnessed for open source initiatives like Linux and Apache. This
enables them to give fiscal officers and all members of their university communities web-based tools
to conveniently execute their college and university responsibilities. It also provides program
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managers and administrators with ready access to current information for analysis and decisionmaking.
EPIC
The Enterprise Purchasing and Invoice Processing Center (EPIC) is the replacement system for the
mainframe purchasing system, TOPS, as well as the business-to-business (B2B) shopping application,
TOPS Web. EPIC provides functionality for purchasing goods and services through either B2B
catalog shopping (via our partner application SciQuest) or traditional requisition/purchase order
processing. It also provides functionality for payment processing for items procured through the
system. EPIC is written in Java, uses the same toolset as Kuali, and uses an Oracle database backend.
It is available through OneStart and integrates with Workflow, PDP, FIS, OnBase, MMS, and the
EDS.
There was a significant implementation of EPIC in June 2005 to provide B2B shopping and payment
processing. Between June and November 2005, vendors were activated in EPIC and disabled in
TOPS Web and organizations throughout IU began using the new EPIC system. During this time,
approximately 1,600 orders were processed through the system.
On November 19, 2005, full functionality for standard requisition/order processing was
implemented. At that time, the ability to create new requisitions and orders in TOPS was disabled.
This was a major implementation that supports the initiative to retire the mainframe in June 2006.
During the first five work days after full implementation, approximately 1,700 orders were processed
through EPIC. At the end of the calendar year 2005, both TOPS and TOPS Web will be retired.
PDP
The Pre-Disbursement Processor (PDP) replaced the Peripheral Systems Interface (PSI) portion of
the mainframe purchasing system, TOPS. This system processes payment files from approximately
20 organizations throughout the University (examples include: bursar refunds to students, library and
bookstore vendor payments, travel reimbursements to employees, etc.). This system was written in
Java, uses the same toolset as Kuali, and uses an Oracle database backend. It is available through
OneStart and is integrated with the FIS and EPIC.
Significant use of the application began in January 2005 when the system processed the first full load
of bursar refunds. Over the course of the year, additional organizations and applications have
transferred their payment processing from TOPS/PSI to PDP. Since the beginning of the year, PDP
has processed approximately 200,000 University payments to students, vendors, and employees.
Much like EPIC, this application supports the initiative to retire the mainframe in June 2006.
Travel
Significant development work on a new Travel system was completed in 2005. This system is being
written in Java and uses an Oracle database backend. A release scheduled for December 2005 will
eliminate all dependencies that the current production Travel system has on the mainframe. A release
scheduled in January 2006 will provide full authorization and reimbursement functionality for the
Travel Office administrative staff. This implementation will allow the current Travel system to be
retired. Planned rollout of the application for departmental use (including integration with OneStart
Workflow) is scheduled for spring 2006.
FIS
Approximately 700,000 FIS documents were created and over $65 billion in general ledger credits
were posted from all systems. Capital Assets were integrated with the new Enterprise Purchasing and
Invoice Processing Center (EPIC).
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New additions to the FIS include:
•
•
•
Sales tax collection screen to financial documents
Non-resident alien tax screen to disbursement voucher
Online claim procedure for electronic payments
The remaining IUIS mainframe processes were migrated to the new Unix environments
E-commerce
Demand for E-commerce services continues to grow across all Indiana University campuses. In
2005, many new E-commerce services were added in attempt to meet these demands. QuikPAY was
implemented for student loan bill presentment and payment. QuikPAY is also being used by the
School of Education’s PBS project. Another significant milestone was reached when the
Bloomington campus implemented paperless billing for student bursar bills. Another new service
allows faculty, staff, and students to signup for direct deposit of payroll checks using the My
Finances channel in OneStart.
Payments on the Web continue to grow at IU. In 2005, the IUPay web application was developed
and deployed for the Office of the Treasurer. IUPay enables departments to accept credit card
payments on the Web for low volume sales activities. In FY 04-05, 157,590 online payment
transactions were conducted processing a total of $89,336,630 for 53 IU merchants, including 10 new
merchants in 2005.
Significant advancements were also made in the hosting environments for E-commerce services.
Purchasing vendors and vendor direct deposit services were migrated from the IUIS mainframe
environment into the new Unix server environments with an Oracle relational database. The IPAS
service was also migrated to new hardware.
Facilities Management (MMS)
In 2005, one version upgrade of MMS was completed. An FMAX development site and council were
established for review of the new FacilityMAX product. In 2006, plans call for moving to the new
version of MMS (FacilityMax). This is more user-friendly than the current FacilityFocus. It is also a
web application written in Java which is more consistent with the other UIS applications. This new
version provides more integration opportunities with other applications including using CAS central
authentication and OneStart delivery.
Document Imaging (OnBase)
Currently, there are 720 users in OnBase covering a variety of departments including Accounts
Payable (all campuses), Tax, Contracts & Grants, Treasury, Physical Plant, Indianapolis Admissions,
Bloomington Admissions, IUPUI HR, IUPUI Payroll, IUPUI Bookstore, Risk Management,
University Architect's Office, and the Office of the Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer,
among others. There are currently 4,896,986 documents stored in OnBase with 1,430,659 of those
documents being added since January 2005. By comparison, in 2004 for the year, 1,505,224
documents were added. Departments added in 2005 include the Bloomington Admissions office,
South Bend AP and more departments within Physical Plant.
Research Administration (ERA/KRA)
The Electronic Research Administration (ERA) program is a web-based system designed to
streamline and standardize University processing of sponsored projects. ERA has two modules
currently available in production: 1) a budget form to create new or template existing budgets to
submit electronically or to print out in an increasing number of formats; and 2) a routing form to
collect key information and then transmit research proposals through the University by means of
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electronic approvals. These modules deliver core functionality to support the University when
granting agencies require electronic submission of proposals and related documents.
There were two major releases and four minor releases put into production during 2005. An
additional major release was delivered on December 8. The minor releases took place as a result of
infrastructure changes or workflow upgrade changes. Some of the major enhancements included
Modular Adjustment functionality, Modular Budget Output, NSF Budget Output and an additional
Generic Budget Output.
The Budget and Routing forms rely upon source data from the FIS, such as Project Director,
Agency, Organization, and Subcontractor. A budget can’t be routed; however, a budget can be linked
to a Routing Form which is routed for approval. Users then access their documents via the OneStart
Action List. Once approved, a nightly batch job loads routing form data into the FIS to create
proposal documents. This makes it easier for the Research Offices to keep track of proposals.
The goal for 2006 is to mandate the use of ERA across the two main campus locations. Currently,
the ERA application is still being used by early adopter departments. Based upon activity from users
in these departments, here some statistics:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Number of Budget tables/views: 44 tables / 19 views
Number of Routing Form tables/views: 41 tables / 35 views
Distinct number of users who have accessed ERA: 1,145
Budgets Created: 658
Routing Forms Created: 2,957
Routing Forms Routed and Approved: 2,026
Routing Forms currently Routing or Approved: 2,107
$ Amounts for Routing Forms Created (All status codes):
o Agency Direct Costs: $ 333,491,823
o Agency Indirect Costs: $ 89,891,543
⇒ Total..................$ 423,383,366
$ Amounts for Routing Forms Created, Routed, and Approved:
o Agency Direct Costs: $ 294,276,146
o Agency Indirect Costs: $ 79,165,337
⇒ Total..................$ 373,441,483
Number of proposals created in the FIS from ERA (Note: There are only specific approved
action types loaded into the FIS as proposals. The types are as follows: New, Renewal–Not
Previously committed, Renewal–Previously committed, Supplemental Funds): 1,678
Human Subjects
The Human Subjects module is being developed as a replacement for the current process used to
submit and manage study information. This process is primarily paper based. However, the Research
Compliance Offices (RCA) use an Access database to keep track of the study information once the
Principal Investigator (PI) has submitted.
As with Budget and Routing, the application is web-based. It will be accessible to users across all
campuses as well as the related Hospitals. Human Subjects relies upon source data from the FIS,
such as Agency, Organization, Proposals, and Awards. A study can be routed for approval. Users can
access their documents via the OneStart Action List.
The Human Subjects process is highly complex and requires special routing. As a result of Human
Subjects requirements, the OneStart Workflow release in January 2006 will include some specialized
routing capabilities.
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The Human Subjects module consists of 143 tables and five views. This is three times the size of
Budget or Routing Form. Most of the tables represent the PI submission process. The PI process is
95% complete. Document versioning and routing and approvals still need to be added. The RCA
management process has just been started. It is estimated to be the size of Routing Form.
The Human Subjects module was presented to researchers and IRB members at a Research Meeting
held at the IMU in October 2005 and was well received. It will greatly reduce the time and effort
needed to submit studies for review and help reduce the complexity of the entire process.
Executive Reporting Environment
The new Executive Reporting Environment (ERE) application was launched in November 2005. It is
a graphical reporting tool for proposal and award data. A user may create an on-the-fly bar or line
graph depicting proposal or award data. The data is read from the Decision Support environment.
The application can be accessed via the OneStart ERA Group Page as well as the Research Gateway.
Kuali Research Administration (KRA) – Budget
The KRA version of the Budget module was started in August 2005. The re-factoring to Kuali tools,
standards, and architecture is being handled by a development team composed of OSU, MSU and IU
developers. The first initiative is the re-factoring of the current ERA Budget module.
Departmental Information Systems
UITS continues to support departments in need of specialized processing. Activities for 2005
include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Career Development Center. Assisted customer with shift to using barcode data from a new
source, the IUIE, and away from an FTP server operated by Campus Card Services.
Clinical Radiology. Developed a web application for student progress tracking.
Continuing Studies. Helped switch their application to obtain the data they needed from the
new SIS system.
IUSA. Facilitated the online election.
IU Northwest. Ten databases created on the Consolidated Hosting Environment in support
of various web applications for the IUN campus that previously ran on a server at IUN.
Kinesiology. Loaded static course section enrollment data into their SQL Server/web
application for the last time using legacy SIS sources.
University Division. Made changes to the ROMA application and facilitated advisor
assignment in StarNet as well as made further changes to StarNet.
School of Music. Worked on integrating data from the new SIS into their online application
using a SQL Server database. Made changes to Music online-application process and helped
resolve various reporting problems while Music was without their own programmer.
Consolidated Hosting Environment
The departmental Applications Server environment at IUPUI and the Web Database Service
environment at IUB were consolidated this year into a single service currently known as the
Consolidated Hosting Environment (CHE).
The CHE enables clients to use desired technologies not available in any other hosting environment
provided by University Information Technology Services, for as low a cost as possible, while
maintaining an acceptable level of performance, reliability, and security.
The unique features of this hosting environment are a Microsoft IIS web server with the ability to
serve dynamic web pages written using Macromedia ColdFusion, Microsoft ASP, and Microsoft .Net
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programming languages, and a Microsoft Windows Share with the ability to serve executables and
files. The web pages, shared files, and executables hosted in this environment may access data in a
Microsoft SQL Server that is part of this environment or may use other data stores as desired by the
client and acceptable to the provider.
The CHE is available to departments on all campuses of Indiana University. Programmers in
departments, Digital Media Services, or in some cases Data Management Support develop and
maintain the applications. With UITS providing the hardware, software, and system administration
departments are freed from engaging in these tasks themselves.
Consolidated Hosting Environment accomplishments include:
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Defining, designing, and implementing the new environment.
Developing a service agreement, drafting service guidelines, and developing a fee
structure.
Adapting self-administration pages for the new environment.
Publishing Knowledge Base articles for problem reporting process for users, clients,
support centers, and operations.
Migrating all Web Database Service clients to a new production web server with
Windows 2003, IIS 6, and ColdFusion 7.
Migrating the remaining DIS applications from Tiger to Cattail so Tiger could be retired.
Ordering and installing new hardware at IUPUI.
Common Interface & Usability
Action 37. UITS, working with the users of IU’s administrative systems, should develop a common interface
environment that will support the efficient and effective accomplishment of the day-to-day administrative tasks of the
University.
Action 44. UITS should incorporate user-centered design techniques and Usability Lab testing into all major systems
development projects.
Action 45. The UIS Division and the Advanced Information Technology Laboratory should continue evaluation and
experimentation that will keep IU on the leading edge of new information systems technologies to be employed in the
University’s business systems.
OneStart
The OneStart portal stabilized in 2004, which enabled a steady state environment to deploy several
UIS initiatives. OneStart is now the exclusive access point for several UIS functions:
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HRMS E-Docs—used for all transactions related to the appointment, promotion,
termination, funding, and positions for faculty and staff at IU.
HRMS Self Service—direct deposit signup and change and paycheck viewing.
EPIC E-Docs—the new system related to procurement and accounts payable
Student Self Service—registration, financial aid, direct deposit, financial aid, to name a few
OneStart Workflow
There were some minor enhancements made to OneStart during 2005.
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Added Distributed Help Support
Added the University Administration Role to enable content specifically for UA
Added additional options for publishing to persons associated with HR organizations
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Usages of OneStart:
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Unique users over a 24 hour period 19,000 – 21,000
Unique users over a 7 day period 50,000 – 60,000
Unique users over a 31 day period 90,000 – 110,000
These numbers show that nearly all University constituents now are using the OneStart portal to
access some of the necessary functions of their jobs or schooling.
OneStart Workflow – Enterprise Service Bus
OneStart Workflow is the Enterprise Service Bus infrastructure framework for routing and approval
of process requiring mediation. 2005 saw a very significant increase in the use of OneStart Workflow
and as part of this, it was overhauled to increase product quality, and to enable advanced
functionality to meet the workflow needs of several enterprise applications. Workflow in production
now supports the routing and approval needs of the following applications:
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HRMS E-Docs
ERA E-Docs
EPIC E-Docs
Further, work has been done already to enable the support for the following applications that will be
deployed in the coming months.
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Travel E-Docs
Timekeeping E-Docs
Kuali E-Docs
Additionally, OneStart Workflow has engaged the greater higher education community by
participating in the community source philosophy of developing applications. During 2005, the
OneStart Workflow team collaborated with both the University of Hawaii and with Cornell
University regarding the workflow project.
Finally, OneStart Workflow will be releasing the first version of E-Doc Lite in its next release. E-Doc
Lite will lower the bar of entry regarding creation of electronic documents that can be routed for
approval to a point where little or no coding investment needs to be made by the document sponsor.
This is going to be piloted over the next year in collaboration with the Office of Graduate Programs
on the Bloomington campus, with eventual rollout enabling workflow transactions for all interested
departments. In its role as a JA-SIG Board member, UITS is exploring the deployment of Workflow
into the open source higher education community as the engine to support community source
financial, student, research, and human resources services.
Onestart Calendar
Working with the Office of Communications and Marketing, the Systems Integration Team gathered
requirements to support the needs of the IU Events Calendar supported by that office. The goal is to
use the OneStart Calendar as a single master calendar for all of the institutional, public and private
events, meetings, and appointments that an individual will need.
Work has begun to implement the requirements that were gathered, and work will continue to be
done to close the gap between what the OneStart Calendar provides and the needs represented by
other calendar users in the IU community.
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OneStart Classifieds
The OneStart classifieds service was changed very little in 2005. The service continues to be very
popular among students to allow for posting of sublets, books, and other types of items, and
provides an electronic community-building marketplace for the IU community. Minor improvements
were made to this service to help to reduce misuse of the service by students.
Shared Services Development and Support
The Systems Integration Team (SIT) additionally provides several utility services and libraries to
assist with the development of applications within UIS in general. During 2005, SIT introduced a
new service and augmented the functionality of a few existing services:
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OneStart Groups Service
Active Directory Java Access Library
Enterprise Directory Java Access Library
The OneStart Groups Service was introduced to allow for Java applications within UIS to easily
manage groups within ADS. This was built on web services, and is available for use by all UIS
applications.
The Active Directory Java Access Library allows for queries to be performed on the Active Directory
Service. It was enhanced in terms of performance and a few minor issues were resolved with this
service in 2005.
The Enterprise Directory Java Access Library allows for queries to be performed on the Enterprise
Directory. This service was enhanced to support additional data that was added to the directory in
order for all UIS applications to be able to take advantage of improvements in user and organization
information.
User Experience Group
The User Experience Group, formerly the Usability Lab, provides several services that help many
projects at Indiana University including, but not limited to:
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Usability Testing, both user interface and process flow
Expert reviews
Mockup services
Card sorting
Prototype creation and evaluation
UIS style guide creation and maintenance for use by all applications created by UIS
This group was heavily utilized during 2005 and had engagements from many different areas within
the University and outside the University. The following are the projects to which services were
provided in 2005 and are broken down by three categories:
UITS provided applications or services:
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EPIC
TIME
Freshman Orientation
OneStart
ERA (Human Subjects)
IUIE
KB Search Page
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TLIT computer cluster reservation system
Kuali
ERE (Executive Reporting Environment)
Workflow
Travel
Oncourse CL general
Oncourse CL Readiness Tool
Oncourse CL Forums Tool
UITS News
IU schools or departments:
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Geology Department (IUPUI) web site
School of Business web site
STEPS Workshop
External entities:
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Indianapolis Convention Center web site
University of Indianapolis
Indianapolis Public Library web site
Bloomington Hospital and Health care system
In addition to work on all of these projects, a new lab was established at IUPUI to allow for
expansion of the lab services to include that campus.
Systems Integration Team
The Systems Integration Team (SIT) now provides strategic focus and technological evaluation,
replacing the AITL. SIT provides several services to the University that are best described as directed
advance technology evaluation, standards evaluation and definition, enterprise integration, and
service deployment.
Web Search Service
During 2005 the Systems Integration Team worked on replacing the University search service with
Google technology. Migrating from the old technology will enable IU to increase the relevance of
search results to all campuses for centrally and departmentally managed web content. Additionally,
the migration introduces some new and attractive options to the University regarding the search
service in general.
The J2EE environment architecture planning and support
The SIT team provides leadership regarding the planning and operations of the shared J2EE
environment. During 2005 all Java services were migrated to the open source Tomcat application
server, running on open source Linux which aligns with the overall strategy of being a consumer and
contributor in the open source arena.
The SIT team provided support to all Java application development teams to enable smooth
migrations, and has continued to endorse and make available a shared way of dealing with releases
and runtime environments for all of the UIS Java applications.
The SIT team also embraced web services during 2005, bringing those into the toolset for use within
enterprise applications, and provided information sharing opportunities among the UIS teams to
learn about the use of web services and how they could be incorporated into overall architecture.
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SUDS – Shared University Data Service
The goal of SUDS was to enable near real-time, cross-application data sharing opportunities. During
2005 it was exercised heavily to enable solutions to real business problems presented by old nightly
batch and copy data sharing architectures and grew dramatically. This service now holds over 100GB
of data from an array of enterprise systems. It also has increased in usage so much that it is now the
third largest database in UIS in terms of volumes of transactions that occur daily.
Kuali Infrastructure and Architecture
During 2005 the Systems Integration Team contributed very heavily to the early architecture, design,
and standards regarding the Kuali project. Through spearheading this effort the SIT team helped to
convince our collaborators of the value of the approaches taken in application development practices
in the UIS organization. This enabled IU to avoid retraining all of its Kuali Developers, and gave the
project a strong foundation upon which to build our next enterprise-class system. SIT continues to
provide lead architect services to this project, as well as integration services with the other
applications required to enable Kuali to be a success at Indiana University and elsewhere.
Enterprise Environment
Action 38. UITS should enhance its current information and IT architectures to include the use of “thin client”
technologies, and employ multi-tiered architectures in future software development.
Action 38 is subdivided in the UIS Implementation Plan as follows:
38a. Thin Client
38b. Enterprise Unix Environment
38c. Strategic Database Management
Thin Client
The goal of the thin client environment is to migrate appropriate systems to a browser-based
application environment. The early phase of this project used the Citrix Metaframe product to enable
a thin client delivery of traditional client/server applications. In this environment, software is loaded
onto servers rather than onto many distributed PCs. This environment allows for greater
manageability and a more efficient support. The Financial Information System (FIS) and Material
Management System (MMS) are client/server applications that benefit from the Citrix environment.
These systems will move into a true web-based model over the next few years making the transition
complete for major applications. A few other systems, including OnBase and Room Scheduling, also
use the Citrix environment.
The Java Enterprise computing environment (J2EE) forms the foundation services for true multitiered web-based computing architecture. IU deploys a growing number of major applications
including OneStart, OneStart Workflow, Oncourse CL, Electronic Research Administration (ERA),
Procurement and Payables (EPIC), E-Docs for HRMS, and the Central Authentication Service
(CAS) in this environment. Using combinations of technologies, UITS provides seamless access to
systems even when the underlying technologies are significantly different, such as PeopleSoft.
Enterprise Unix Environment
UIS continues to maintain and improve the computing environment that supports the University’s
enterprise wide information systems. The focus for this initiative is to provide an advanced, robust,
and cost-effective computing environment that leverages consolidation and centralization of services.
Virtual server technology plays critical roles in creating a flexible computing platform for large and
complex enterprise systems. Servers from IBM that run on the “Power-5” chip provide the basis for
the large database and transaction servers at IU. The IBM server technology allows extended
functionality for supporting Logical Partitions (IBM’s term for virtual machines). OneStart, Central
Authentication System, IUIE, Timekeeping, Data Warehouse, Enterprise Help Desk, Oncourse CL,
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EPIC and others are deployed using this technology and will be used in the future to deliver better
performance for test/development environments. The environment that supports the growing Java
Enterprise Servers (J2EE) is based on Linux, running in a virtual machine configuration using the
VMWare software product. This provides high-end virtual machine capability on commodity
hardware. The Library, OneStart, CAS, Timekeeping, Oncourse CL, and others now run in this new
environment.
In total, UIS supports over 50 AIX Unix physical servers, 65 Windows Servers, 30 Linux servers.
Indiana University's Research SP was a distributed-memory supercomputing system consisting of 144
nodes with a total of 646 processors. On September 30, 2005, UITS retired the Research SP. The
Libra Cluster provides a newer IBM AIX environment for research computing. The Libra Cluster at
Indiana University is a cluster of IBM systems running AIX. IU faculty and sponsored graduate and
undergraduate students and staff may use the Libra Cluster. Libra became available in August 2005,
and continues a tradition of providing central IBM AIX systems for IU research computing needs
since 1992.
Libra is installed in the ICTC machine room at IUPUI. It consists of 43 nodes: a 32-CPU (Power4,
1.3GHz) p690 node with 192GB memory, plus 42 dual-CPU (PowerPC 970, 2.2GHz) JS20 Blades,
each with 4GB memory. The Power chips in the p690 and the Blades can attain up to four floating
point operations per cycle, providing extremely high throughput for scientific workloads.
The UIS servers are connected to a fiber channel Storage Area Network environment to provide the
robustness and performance needed for Oracle database files that now approach 20TB.
Although the strategic environment is based on Unix and Linux, a large Windows server complex is
supported for niche applications such as Citrix, SafeWord Card, Room Scheduling, E-commerce and
Oncourse Original. The Windows environment also supports the delivery of the pilot Cognos
application, and hosts several departmental SQL Server databases and the Citrix meta-frame
environment.
Strategic Database Management
Oracle is the primary database management technology supporting data storage and delivery for IU’s
enterprise information systems, although Microsoft SQL Server is used for a few niche applications.
Sybase and DB2 were retired at the end of 2005.
UIS supports nearly 100 separate Oracle databases, or “instances.” UIS began the migration of these
instances to the newest Oracle release, release 10g, and conversion is approximately 40% complete.
Significant features such as data partitioning, when fully implemented, allows for stability and
response time even with increased database size and usage.
Physical database storage, along with other needed application files, is primarily stored on an IBM
Storage Area Network (SAN). In total, UIS has about 25TB of online disk storage to support UIS
applications.
Over 2TB a day of data is transferred, written to tape, and copies rotated off-site for critical
institutional data backup and to provide a recovery of data if needed.
Data storage volumes for SIS and HRMS grew tremendously in 2005, with multiple databases
supporting this environment. Two databases now require 1TB of disk. The SIS/HRMS PeopleSoft
database and the Decision Support environment each take about 1TB of disk, considering database
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and transaction logs. The Decision Support environment is the single largest and fastest-growing in
terms of data storage.
The most significant new use of Oracle for 2005 was in support of Oncourse CL, the new
collaborative learning environment powered by Sakai. Oncourse CL became the default system for
IU in August of 2005 and continues to see tremendous growth. This application is the fastest and
most significant growth area for web serving, application serving, and database serving. This system
activity will increase dramatically in 2006. Oncourse CL was also the first application to upgrade to
Oracle 10g.
The IU Information Environment
Action 39. UITS should develop a consolidated information delivery environment, leveraging technologies already in use
and expanding on these with newer tools. And UITS should complete implementation of an enterprise-wide data
warehouse environment, currently in progress, to support University data access and information about this data. The
participation of information users and all units affected is essential.
Decision Support Services (DSS) designs, develops, and supports a consolidated environment for
storage and facilitated retrieval of institutional data. Users and information systems developers work
with DSS in the development and maintenance of two main service tools: the Data Warehouse and
the IU Information Environment (the IUIE).
The Data Warehouse contains intelligent data collections modeled to support the operational
reporting needs of its users. It offers a central location where those who develop or maintain
institutional data systems can make their data available to staff and faculty for their reporting needs.
Major accomplishments in 2005 were the completion of reporting components supporting the SIS
PeopleSoft implementation and dimensionally modeled data for EPIC, the newly developed webbased purchasing system. As the Data Warehouse has grown to require a terabyte of disk, the
hardware on which it was built could no longer handle the processing necessary to support the batch
schedule and user activity. New hardware was acquired in April 2005, allowing the nightly refresh of
data to complete well before online hours.
The IU Information Environment (IUIE) is a comprehensive strategy for providing web-based data
reporting tools to facilitate access to and use of the University’s enterprise data stores. A personal
reporting environment, the IUIE keeps users informed about the 3,600 report objects that have been
published across the University. Nearly 500,000 queries have been executed from the IUIE in 2005
by 2,300 users. IUIE was enhanced during 2005 to greatly improve Data Manager functionality for
user and report security.
Data Administration
Action 40. OVPIT should reconvene the Committee on Institutional Data and conduct regular meetings with the goal
of defining data administration and access policies for institutional data.
The recent implementation of PeopleSoft HRMS and the new SIS capabilities provide a rich
information environment via the IUIE that is much improved over previous services.
Year 2000
Action 41. The UIS Division must continue the Year 2000 readiness initiative. This work must be completed
according to a demanding timeline or the business systems of the University will fail.
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No problems related to Year 2000 emerged in 2005. All systems continue to function correctly.
Disaster Recovery
Action 42. UITS should complete a disaster recovery plan with increasing levels of recovery based on systems priorities.
In 2005, work continued on assessing the requirements and recovery strategies needed for the top
priority technology services maintained in the IUB and IUPUI Advanced Cyberinfrastructure
Facilities.
The disaster recovery approach is based on 1) ensuring that basic infrastructures are geographically
redundant, 2) service managers are ensuring adequate data backups, and 3) service managers are
building redundancy into their operations and/or are ensuring that required replacement hardware
would be quickly available if needed. Significant planning progress was realized as service managers
better defined current time-to-recovery for specific services, as they analyzed and chose methods to
reduce that time to an acceptable level, and then assigned estimated costs of reaching that goal.
Funding is being discussed. Areas where planning and implementation of plans is moving well along
are enterprise systems, campus and statewide networking, and research and academic computing.
While the fundamental model being pursued calls for redundancy built into a service, a portion of the
Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Facility in the ICTC building at IUPUI has been reserved for services
where that isn’t possible or technically feasible. The purpose of this is to host hardware that would be
displaced in case the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Facility at IUB was inaccessible for whatever
reason. Conversely, the “cold” recovery site in the School of HPER at IUB is being maintained for
recovery of ICTC services, should that facility become inaccessible.
Recovery planners are working to populate a database of information that would be used as input
into recovery of services. The database contains details about service time-to-recovery, technologies
involved, staff expertise required, etc.
Training requirements for recovery team members have been identified and will be completed in
early 2006. In addition, a planned January 2, 2006, power outage in the IUB Advanced
Cyberinfrastructure Facility was used as a disaster simulation exercise. The goal of the exercise was to
determine timetables for recovery of critical infrastructure components as well as their respective
order of recovery.
VII. Telecommunications: Applications, Infrastructure,
Convergence
Recommendation 7: The University should accelerate planning for a converged telecommunications infrastructure. The
University and campuses must ensure that there is appropriate funding for telecommunications services and
infrastructure in the base. Specific attention must be given to improving the state of the inter-campus networks, planning
for and deployment of adequate commodity Internet connectivity, a University-wide base level of campus
telecommunications connectivity, advanced networking infrastructure and applications, wireless networks and support for
multimedia and streaming media.
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Converged Technologies
Action 46. UITS should accelerate planning for a converged telecommunications infrastructure that aims to maximize
the benefits to IU of this emerging technology direction. It should be accompanied by an aggressive program of testing
and trialing of new “converged” technologies.
The UITS Telecommunications division continued the evaluation and testing of Voice over IP
(VoIP) during 2005 on several fronts.
The existing deployments of Cisco and Nortel VoIP services have been updated to current releases,
to allow the staff to continue to evaluate the support issues in a production environment. Production
deployments continue to be limited to sites that are difficult to reach with legacy telephone service,
typically located away from the campus with an existing robust data network connection, over which
the IP voice can ride. The original analysis that a business case cannot be made to replace the existing
legacy desktop telephones with IP phones continues to be the case.
The VoIP gateways were upgraded to new hardware and software in 2005 to accommodate the
growth of voice over the data network and to fully support the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)
deployments. An open source version of SIP was established in the Telecom Lab to develop an
understanding of how to develop telephone services in the open-source environment and how to
support those services.
The ongoing partnership with Interactive Intelligence (IIN) came to fruition in 2005 with the move
to production of Communité, the unified messaging platform developed by IIN and tested by
Telecom staff.
Several members of the Telecom staff continue to participate in collaborative venues, all of which are
exploring the future of VoIP. These venues include EDUCAUSE, via the Net@Edu Integrated
Communications Strategies committee, the Internet2 VoIP Working Group, the Committee on
Institutional Cooperation (CIC) Telecommunications Working Group, CIC Wireless Working
Group, and Common Solutions Group (CSG). Staff members attended multiple meetings to
participate in discussions about voice on the data network. The focus has now moved to the
potential deployment of VoIP over the wireless networks, because of the expanded use of mobile
devices and the need to extend voice to those devices.
Lifecycle Replacement
Action 47. The University as a whole and the campuses individually should establish base funding for the lifecycle
replacement and ongoing development of telecommunications services and infrastructure.
IU’s two largest campuses, IUB and IUPUI, have established lifecycle funding for the
telecommunications infrastructure, which covers the wire and cable plants and voice, video, and data
switching and routing equipment. The smaller campuses have made major progress in implementing
a similar program.
Connectivity & Standards
Action 48. A five-year plan for the University’s intercampus networks and commodity Internet connectivity should be
immediately developed, funded and implemented.
Action 49. A uniform base level of telecommunications connectivity and standards should be defined, communicated,
and where necessary, implemented for all campuses.
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I-Light continues to provide vast benefits to the University over previous connectivity, both for
intra-campus connectivity and connectivity to the commodity Internet. I-Light’s capacity, which is in
addition to existing Internet2 connectivity, is allocated between the campus housing at IUB, the IUB
campus, and the IUPUI campus and its connections to the six regional campuses. By August 2005
more than 50GB of capacity was available between the IUB and IUPUI campuses, more than a
500% increase from pre-I-Light capacity. A second phase of expansion, called I-Light2, was
approved by the Indiana Legislature in May 2003. This project will extend the capacities and
capabilities of I-Light to the entirety of the state higher education community. IU will provide
management oversight of the planning, deployment and eventual operational support for the
network. The planned multiple 10GB capacity of I-Light2 will enable the universities and colleges in
Indiana to forge new alliances with peers in the state as well as nationally and internationally. This
network is expected to be operational by mid 2006.
In 2005, UITS continued its successful partnership with Residence Halls Association in helping to
determine proper policy and practice for the residential commodity Internet connection. Filters of
certain types of data traffic have been successful in managing the bandwidth in campus housing.
In 2004, a new core network merged the IUB and IUPUI campus networks into one homogeneous
network to provide consistent network services and increased reliability between the two core
campuses. The new network is highly resilient and provides fast fail-over between primary and
backup components. The new architecture allows cutting-edge services to be deployed without
compromising the stability of existing production services. Bandwidth has been increased more than
ten fold through extensive use of 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology. A resilient Dense Wave Division
Multiplexing (DWDM) ring capable of 320Gbps has also been installed between IUB and IUPUI to
further enhance the reliability and capabilities of the I-Light infrastructure.
Advanced Applications & Networking
Action 50. The University should consider implementing a network architecture that separately supports production
and advanced network applications.
Indiana University has increased its presence in the area of management and support for advanced
research and education networks even as the number of networks and research projects has grown.
National LambdaRail (NLR) has become an important resource for network researchers as well as
the high performance computing community, Internet2’s HOPI project will provide a platform to
test emerging control plane technologies and the Manhattan Landing (MANLAN) international
access point continues to grow as a very important optical peering point in the US. IU is the primary
support provider for these projects and will continue to participate in new national and international
network initiatives.
I-Light
I-Light enabled greater independence in telecommunications through decreased dependence on
telecommunication providers. With multiple strands of optical fiber, I-Light increased networking
capacity by many orders of magnitude, providing more than enough capacity to meet demand over
the next 10 to 20 years. By August 2005 more than 50GB of capacity was available between the IUB
and IUPUI campuses, more than a 500% increase from pre-I-Light capacity. This increased capacity
is in addition to existing Internet2 connectivity for IU as well as for Purdue and the State of Indiana,
via the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunication System.
Along with supporting research applications, I-Light supports voice communications, email, and
videoconferencing between the campuses and is the primary artery for communications between
IUB, IUPUI, and Purdue University West Lafayette. I-Light presents countless possibilities for
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collaborative research and is an unparalleled platform for distance education. I-Light has allowed its
partner universities to pool their high-end computational resources in new research initiatives.
A second phase of expansion, originally called I-Light2, was approved by the Indiana Legislature in
May 2003. This project will extend the capacities and capabilities of I-Light to the entirety of the state
higher education community. In November 2005, Gov. Mitch Daniels announced that I-Light2 will
proceed as planned. IU will provide management oversight of the planning, deployment and eventual
operational support for the network. The planned multiple 10GB capacity of the I-Light extension
will enable the universities and colleges in Indiana to forge new alliances with peers in the state as
well as nationally and internationally. This network is expected to be operational by mid-2006 with
efforts to provide the “last mile” connectivity continuing into 2007.
National LambdaRail
NLR is a consortium of US research universities and private-sector technology companies dedicated
to building a national-scale infrastructure for research and experimentation in networking
technologies and applications. NLR is the largest higher-education-owned and -managed optical
networking and research facility in the world, with approximately 10,000 route-miles of dark fiber,
with an initial four 10-gigabit light waves (or lambdas) provisioned for research. NLR is the first
national infrastructure that will allow researchers to dedicate lambda wavelengths to a set of different
problems, giving the community the freedom and flexibility to stress the network in order to identify
ground-breaking solutions and applications.
In 2004, Indiana University's Global NOC was chosen to provide network operations services and
Layer2/Layer3 Engineering services for NLR. The Layer2/Layer3 Service Center has been
responsible for helping to design and plan the NLR Layer 2 and Layer3 networks, and deployed 18
switches and nine core routers that make up these networks. The Global NOC also provided
management for the entire NLR Phase2 optical rollout. Indiana University is engaged in a multi-year
contract with NLR for Service Desk support providing traditional network operations center support
to NLR. In addition the Layer 2 and 3 segments of the network are being engineered, deployed and
supported by IU. Staff are also filling the roles of Deployment Manger and Layer 3 Engineering
Manager.
IP-grid
The IP-grid, an NSF-funded collaboration of Indiana University and Purdue University, connects
university resources to the TeraGrid connection point in Chicago. TeraGrid is an ambitious national
project undertaken by the US to build the world’s largest, most comprehensive grid computing
cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research. IU is one of nine TeraGrid partner sites. Through
IP-grid, IU has integrated its world-class computational, data storage, networking, visualization,
instrumentation, and data collections resources to the TeraGrid. The IP-grid network consists of two
10-gigabit-per-second links from Indianapolis to Chicago, over Level(3) fiber and Cisco optical
equipment.
Abilene
The Abilene Network, with its Network Operations Center at IUPUI, achieved nationwide
connectivity in February 1999. Abilene is a packet-over-SONET (POS) network, providing coast-tocoast IP transit (10,000 miles of fiber) for Internet2, with connectors attaching to one of 28 regional
network aggregation points, called Internet2 GigaPoPs, with either POS or IP-over-ATM access
circuits.
Abilene continues to provide high performance network services to enable advanced applications
such as high-definition television, tele-medicine, and remote access to scientific instruments. It also
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serves as a testbed for advanced network capabilities, such as Quality of Service standards,
multicasting, and more.
Abilene’s native IPv6 service complements existing IPv6 deployment in other research and education
networks around the world, such as ESnet in the United States, Renater in France, and SURFnet in
theNetherlands. Deploying native IPv6 continues Abilene’s evolution as a leading-edge network
environment that supports the development of new applications. IPv6 is the next version of the
Internet protocol, updating the data packaging and routing standard. The current version is IPv4;
IPv5 was experimental and was never widely deployed.
IU network engineering staff provided leadership for a major upgrade to the Internet2 Abilene
network, upgrading Abilene coast-to-coast backbone connectivity to OC-192, or a speed of 10gb per
second, a four-fold increase in the previous capacity. IU’s engineers were solely responsible for the
April 2003 logistical and technical implementation of this major enhancement, and delivered it on
schedule and on budget.
HOPI
HOPI, or the Hybrid Optical Packet infrastructure, is an experimental testbed network created by
Internet2 to promote research into provisioning and advanced control planes for what are called
Layer1, Layer2, and Layer3 networks. The network consists of optical and packet switches at five
locations, connected over NLR and Abilene at combined speeds of 20GB. The network is open to
researchers working with tools that can automatically and instantly alter the design of the network for
their research needs. For example, a researcher could automatically configure the network to provide
a custom, dedicated 10GB channel from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles for a short amount of
time, and then reconfigure the network to give him a dedicated channel between New York and
Seattle. The Global NOC at Indiana University was chosen as the main provider of operational
support for the network and also installed and provided initial setup of all the HOPI devices.
MANLAN
In 2003, Internet2 created an advanced research and education networking exchange point in New
York called Manhattan Landing (MANLAN) to allow high-speed advanced networks to peer directly
with each other and to foster new optical and Layer2 experiments among networks. As of November
2005, MANLAN supports a number of 10GB connections and is working with a wide range of
global organizations including Canada's CANARIE, the Netherlands' SURFnet, and Nortel to
experiment with user-based provisioning of optical connections. IU's Global NOC was chosen to
deploy, monitor, and provide all of the engineering support for MANLAN.
TransPAC2
TransPAC2 is the five-year continuation of the highly successful TransPAC project. The National
Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Information and Communications
Technology in Japan will continue funding TransPAC2. TransPAC2 is part of the NSF’s
International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program and continues NSF efforts to provide
fundamental network infrastructure to support e-science collaborations between international
researchers.
Architecturally, TransPAC2 connects US national and international networks with the Asia-Pacific
Advanced Network (APAN) in Tokyo, Japan. Indiana University provides technical and
administrative support for TransPAC2 in the US. KDDI Corporation will provide similar support
for TransPAC2 in Japan. The TransPAC2 Project provides high performance connectivity between
the US and Japan. In addition, TransPAC2, working with its partners in Asia, has established an
inter-Asia backbone connecting Tokyo to Hong Kong and Tokyo to Singapore.
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TransPAC2 provides scientists worldwide with high performance access to data and computing
resources located throughout Asia. In addition, TransPAC2 provides scientists with remote access to
exceptional, world-class instruments such as electron microscopes, telescope arrays, and satellitebased imaging devices.
The US National Science Foundation grant funds the TransPAC2 Project for five years, concluding
in January 2010. Research goals for TransPAC2 center on increasing production and experimental
bandwidth from Asia to the US and within Asia. Two specific research projects involve measurement
— both capacity and the very important end-to-end measurements. TransPAC2 will also act as a
vehicle for increasing security cooperation between the US and Asia as well as globally. Closer
relationships will also be developed with other NSF-funded International Research Network
Connections (IRNC) efforts such as GLORIAD, the Global Ring Network for Advanced
Application Development.
Global NOC
The Global Research Network Operations Center (Global NOC) at Indiana University provides
engineering and operations services for leading high performance research and education (R&E)
networks and for international connections to US and global R&E networks, and is undertaking
research and development for support of Grid operations. The mission of the Global NOC is to
create and maintain the world’s most advanced network engineering and operations service
organization for global high performance R&E networking, thereby enabling the advancement of
global R&E networks and the applications that utilize those networks.
Through the interconnection of national and international advanced R&E networks in a global
framework, researchers and educators in all endeavors are provided access to such resources as largescale datasets, grid computing, scientific instruments, tools, colleagues, and collaborative spaces, that
would otherwise not be possible. The Global NOC plays a key role in establishing and maintaining
the persistent advanced networking infrastructure that makes possible access to these global
resources and collaborations.
Some of these global collaborative activities include:
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International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory. The iVDGL global data grid serves forefront
experiments in physics and astronomy. Its computing, storage, and networking resources in
the US, Europe, Asia, and South America provide a unique laboratory that will test and
validate grid technologies on international and global scales.
Advanced Networking for Telemicroscopy. Scientists at Osaka University and the University
of California, San Diego, utilize international research networks to couple the world’s largest
and most powerful transmission electron microscope at the Research Center for Ultra High
Voltage Electron Microscopy, Osaka University, to a remote-use computer pavilion set up at
UCSD.
Grid Datafarm. The Grid Datafarm is a data-intensive computing project initiated in Japan
to develop a peta- to exascale parallel file system exploiting local storages of PCs spread over
the worldwide Grid.
Data and Information Access Link. DIAL is a web-based distributed system to search,
access, and visualize satellite remote sensing data for global change research. 3D data are
transferred from NASA to NASDA using TransPAC/APAN, then processed and visualized
for the Web.
The networks, international connections, and services managed by the Global NOC are listed below.
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•
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Internet2 Abilene is a 10-Gigabit-per-second national backbone supporting high
performance connectivity and Internet innovation within the US research university
community.
National LambdaRail (NLR) is a major initiative of US research universities and private
sector technology companies to provide national scale optical networking infrastructure for
research and experimentation in networking technologies and applications. Phase One of the
NLR network, a fiber path taking a northern route from Jacksonville, FL to San Diego, CA
was completed on August 25, 2004. In conjunction with efforts by fiber provider Level(3)
and Cisco Systems, the NLR NOC helped deliver, install, test and turn-up the Cisco 15808
optical systems in more than 100 locations.
TransPAC2 provides high performance international Internet service connections from the
Asia Pacific Advanced Network to US and global advanced networks for the purpose of
international collaborations in research and education.
The Science, Technology, And Research Transit Access Point (STAR TAP) is a persistent
infrastructure to facilitate the long-term interconnection and interoperability of advanced
international networking.
The Manhattan Landing (MAN LAN) is a high performance exchange point in New York to
facilitate peering among US and international research and education networks.
AmericasPATH (AMPATH) provides interconnection of the research and education
networks in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico to US and non-US
international research and education networks.
The Indiana GigaPoP provides a Midwest regional aggregation point for connections from
research and educational institutions to national R&E networks and the commercial
Internet.
The IP-grid connects computing and visualization resources at IU and Purdue to the
TeraGrid national backbone. TeraGrid is a multi-year effort to build and deploy the world’s
largest, most comprehensive, distributed infrastructure for open scientific research. IU and
Purdue are connected to the 40-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) TeraGrid network via two 10
Gbps connections from Indianapolis to Chicago.
The International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory’s (iVDGL) Grid Operation Center (iGOC)
provides a repository for information regarding network, storage, and computing resources
of the iVDGL, and serves as a central monitoring point for operational activity at each site
and among the sites (the iVDGL in total).
The Global NOC serves as the watch desk for the REN-ISAC (Research and Education
Networking, Information Sharing, and Analysis Center). The REN-ISAC has responsibility
for receiving and analyzing network security threat, warning, and attack information within
the R&E networking infrastructure.
The Global NOC was selected to serve as the Services Desk for the new National
LambdaRail (NLR) network, and IU engineers were selected to head a task force that will
define detailed network services that IU will provide to NLR in the coming years. These
roles will grow incrementally as the NLR network grows to completion in 2006. IU’s
selection further solidifies its leadership role in providing network operation and engineering
services to advanced research network initiatives nationally and internationally.
The Global NOC is the initial point of contact for all operational matters concerning these
connections. Operating 24/7/365, the Global NOC provides problem, change, security, and
performance management; resource allocation, monitoring, communications and coordination; and
reporting. The Global NOC is located at Indiana University’s Indianapolis campus and is co-located
and operated with the NOC for Indiana University campus and State networks. The Global NOC is
funded in part by international connections grants from the National Science Foundation High
Performance International Internet Services (HPIIS) program, and the State of Indiana.
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Wireless Networks
Action 51. Implementation should begin for a University-wide wireless network, initially through a trial with a School.
In 2002, IU made major strides toward a goal of complete wireless access in a VPN-secured
environment. In June the Vice President for Information Technology directed UITS to provide the
University’s campuses with comprehensive wireless access within the next 15 months. As a first step,
a fulltime Project Analyst was hired in July 2002 to oversee the wireless initiatives for IU, beginning
with assessing the needs at IUB and IUPUI and further providing stable, robust, and secure wireless
access to students, faculty, and staff.
The VPN-secured wireless network has been in production since July 2001. This provides solid
encryption for the wireless link and requires authentication with an IU Network ID before use of the
network is allowed. This infrastructure also secures remote access to IU network resources for users
who are increasingly accessing these resources via high-speed vendor networks utilizing DSL and
cable modem technology.
The wireless initiative for IUB and IUPUI is divided into three phases: Phase A, which constitutes an
immediate-impact effort targeted at student access, and Phases B and C, which cover the longer
term.
Phase A, geared toward the student population, called for providing wireless connectivity in indoor
and outdoor communal areas, auditoriums, large classrooms, and conference rooms. This was
completed in June 2003.
Phase B called for extending wireless service more widely into faculty and staff locations, including
offices, lounges, conference rooms, and most building locations where coverage might be needed,
not including such areas as equipment rooms, janitorial closets, and the like. This phase was more
complicated than the former, because of the potential for signal interference created by building
infrastructure and by the fact that some areas are considered private spaces. UITS worked closely
with LSPs, building facilities managers, and staff to coordinate the wireless installations in these
private spaces. This phase was completed in fall 2003. Efforts are now underway to create a
completely wireless environment for the School of Medicine facilities including the Cancer Research
Institute, Krannert Institute of Cardiology, Medical Research Facility, and Research Institute.
Implementation of Phase C continued in 2005. Phase C will provide coverage to any areas not
covered by the first two phases. This phase will extend wireless services into typically non-academic
areas, which are generally more difficult to cover because of distance and limitations of current
technology. Technology continues to evolve, including phased-array antennas that cover much larger
area at longer distances. For these areas, UITS is installing Vivato phased-array antennas that use 13
highly focused antennas that enable such connectivity as connecting to the IU Network via the
Virtual Private Network from more than one mile away. Vivato antennas are now installed at the
IUB Memorial Stadium and at Ballantine, Eigenmann, Foster, and Tulip Tree. At IUPUI antennas
were installed at University College, covering the courtyard area to the north and the University Place
Conference Center and Hotel food court, and at Inlow Hall, pointing west to cover the outdoor areas
near University Library as well as minimally covered locations in Engineering/Science and
Technology Building (SL), Science Building (LD), and the Library. These devices are expected to be
much more cost-effective than individual access points at covering such open areas as dormitories,
athletic arenas, and other outdoor areas.
Multimedia & Streaming Media
Action 52. The networking demands due to the increasing use of multimedia applications should be addressed as the
University network continues to develop.
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Action 53. The University should begin the production deployment of streaming media services such as videoconferencing
and video and audio stores. It should ensure that support is provided for quality of service on the University networks to
ensure that emerging instructional and research applications relying on interactive or streaming media (including digital
libraries and distributed education) can have consistent and acceptable performance.
Videoconferencing Services
Videoconferencing systems can be categorized into two models: group systems, comprising
classroom and conference room systems; and desktop systems. During 2005, steady growth
continued in the deployment and use of videoconferencing. By November 2005, 256 group systems
were deployed, with approximately 250 desktops. Digital Media Network Services (DMNS)
encourages owners of legacy videoconferencing hardware to upgrade their systems by January 2006
to take fullest advantage of the improved video and audio quality inherent in the new lineup.
In 2004, Digital Media Network Services (DMNS) completed its initiative to make all Indiana
University endpoints compatible with the ViDeNet Global Dialing Scheme hierarchy, which allows
for direct in and outward dialing to H.323 compliant systems at college campuses worldwide by a
numerical “telephone” alias called E.164, which eliminates the reliance on IP addresses to connect.
During 2005, DMNS worked toward meshing with H.323 global directory services based on LDAP,
and sought partnerships with industry professionals to investigate how Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP) can advance integrated directory services at IU and multimedia communication among SIP and
legacy H.323 devices.
As IU’s web-collaboration service goes into production, DMNS kept pace by outfitting publicly
available videoconference rooms at all IU campuses with the necessary hardware (networked PCs
and data projectors) to conduct a tandem H.323 videoconference and web-collaboration session.
DMNS has also taken steps to integrate H.239 (the ability to present XGA resolution graphics within
the H.323 stream) in these rooms as an application-specific alternative to the parallel H.323 + webcollaboration method.
Great strides have been made to streamline the scheduling process for videoconferencing rooms
across all IU campuses as well as video bridge space (for multipoint conferences) using familiar
Microsoft Outlook scheduling mechanisms. By December 2005, any IU user can create a single
Outlook meeting request to schedule meeting participants, rooms, video bridge space, and associated
telephone bridge space. DMNS introduced a new videoconferencing bridge with enhanced features,
including individual control of multipoint conference layout; far-end camera control within
multipoint meetings; and vastly improved audio latency (allowing more natural dialog within
meetings). Connecting to a point-to-point conference or to a multi-point conference was simplified
by using the Polycom global address book, which eliminates user confusion.
Streaming Media
The iStream system grew to support more than 50 academic courses by spring 2005. In addition, a
pilot program to extend the recording capabilities was launched. Apple iPods were used with
microphones to record lectures and upload them to the iStream system for later student downloads.
Podcasting support was added in the summer of 2005 to better integrate iStream with Apple's iTunes
software. Also in 2005, the first experimentation with high-resolution VGA streaming and archiving
that leverages IU's large videoconferencing infrastructure was realized. This allows classes, meetings
and presentations to be delivered both synchronously and asynchronously in an efficient and
effective manner.
DMNS continues its involvement in the EVIA-DA project, funded by the Mellon Foundation in
collaboration with the University of Michigan. This project strives to preserve and share
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ethnomusicological videos for future study. The EVIA-DA project has been in full swing for more
than a year. The project utilizes DMNS transcoding, streaming, and storage resources.
DMNS performed the first full-scale load tests of IU’s streaming media infrastructure. A great deal of
experience was gained in performance tuning the storage/server/network combination. Performance
problems and limits were identified prior to any negative impact on students, faculty, and staff using
the systems. As a result of this testing, the file storage system utilized by all IU institutional streaming
servers was completely reconfigured and its performance improved by 300 percent.
The IU Transcoding Service was configured to convert DVD files directly to streaming media
formats and automatically deliver the output files to the streaming media storage system. This
workflow results in significant labor savings. In addition, DMNS specified four new streaming media
servers and added them to the ICTC Data Center.
Web Collaboration
In spring and fall 2005, DMNS pilot tested Macromedia’s web-collaboration solution, Breeze, with
more than 100 faculty and staff. Breeze, which allows meeting hosts to share presentations or
desktop applications with remote participants using only a Web browser, has been widely regarded by
pilot testers as an outstanding service and a tremendous benefit to academic and administrative work.
A spring 2006 rollout of the production Breeze service is planned.
VIII. Support for Student Computing
Recommendation 8: IU must provide the information technology tools, infrastructure and support services so that
students effectively engage in learning and research, appropriate to their various academic disciplines and areas of study.
IT support for students should include technology support centers and a computing environment that is seamless across
boundaries of campus, home, residence hall, and community.
The Actions associated with this Recommendation address IT support services for students,
including Student Technology Center and Support Center services (Action 54), access in student
residence halls (Actions 55, 56, 57), and student ownership of computers (Action 58).
Student Technology Support
Action 54. UITS, with the departments, schools and campuses, should develop a model for student technology support
that provides:
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A basic level of support and technology infrastructure to all students;
Advanced support, typically for advanced degree students in graduate and professional programs, that is
discipline-specific and may be integrated with the teaching or research activities of a school or department; and
Advanced support to undergraduate students, as needed, especially for students in disciplines that do not
provide such specialized support.
Information Commons
The renovation of the first floor of the West Tower of the Indiana University Herman B Wells
Library began on January 6, 2003. The project transformed the 27,000-square-foot space into the
Information Commons (IC), a state-of-the-art, highly integrated technology and information center
that fosters student learning and enhances faculty research and teaching opportunities.
A joint effort between the Indiana University Libraries and University Information Technology
Services, the Information Commons, opened in August 2003, provides valuable space for
collaborative learning. In addition to housing print collections, the Commons is a centrally located
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place for students and faculty to interact, attend technology training classes, consult with reference
librarians, and find full-service access to technology and technologists.
The technology- and information-rich environment in the Commons today includes individual
seating and comfortable study areas along with workspace for groups, equipped with more than 250
individual- and group-configured computer workstations and wireless networking. On hand to assist
students are IT support resources and consulting, including the UITS Support Center.
The Information Commons brings together several campus units in one place. The University’s
Writing Tutorial Center offers on-site help for students writing research papers. IU’s Adaptive
Technology Center occupies a prominent location at the entrance of the IC and provides technologybased solutions for students with disabilities, offering, for example, Braille printing and voicerecognition software. Housed within the Commons is a multimedia production lab and IT Training
& Education classroom and instruction areas.
On hand are library reference services, providing links to other library research and instruction
services, campus resources, and connections beyond Indiana; a library circulation area for materials,
laptops, video equipment, and the like; and a career reference center. The Commons benefits IU
students by offering seamless access to a broad and integrated suite of information and resources,
accessible 24 hours a day. See http://ic.indiana.edu/
In response to the overwhelming popularity of the Information Commons, construction has begun
on a second-floor extension called Information Commons 2 (or IC2) on the second floor of the
West Tower of the Main Library. With tree-top views of the campus arboretum, IC2 will include 68
computer workstations; seating and electrical power for more than 100 laptop users in individual and
collaborative spaces; current, high-use core book collections; technology consulting during all open
hours; library reference assistance; printing; wireless networking; and quiet study space.
In September 2004, the Trustees of Indiana University approved architectural plans for the
extension, which will convert an additional 9,600 square feet of the Main Library to help meet
student demand. Construction was completed in 2005. The Information Commons is a partnership
of the IUB Libraries and University Information Technology Services.
Usage statistics for 2005 for IC and IC2 include:
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Wells Library West Tower gate count: 1,703,125
Wells Library West Tower UITS Student Technology Consultant contacts (including fifth
floor): 60,568 (51% of total consultant contacts for all labs)
IC and IC2 UITS Student Technology Consultant customer contacts: 56,948 (48% of total
consultant contacts for all STCs)
IC and IC2 public workstation logins: 802,873 (16% of all STC-supported logins)
IC and IC2 public workstation pages printed: 6,952,944 (28% of all STC-supported printing)
IC Library reference interactions: 19,012
IC Library instruction sessions: 408
IC Library instruction session students: 7,674
IC UITS Support Center walk-in contacts 26,252
IC UITS Support Center carry-in contacts (workstations dropped off for repair): 1,287
IC UITS STEPS classes: 235
IC UITS STEPS class participants: 3,551
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Support Center Enhancements
The UITS Support Center, with locations at IUB and IUPUI, enhanced services in 2005 by offering a
new service where IU faculty, staff, and students can engage in live support chat with a consultant.
This consultant has state-of-the-art workstation tools to assist in diagnosing customer problems. The
Support Center continues to offer support via telephone, email, and walk-in at convenient locations.
Frontline support is available via telephone for regional campuses on evenings and weekends, when
local campus help desks are closed. This coverage extends hours on those campuses to 24/7/365,
providing the same level of round-the-clock support that is in place on the core campuses.
Walk-in support in Bloomington is located in the Information Commons in the Wells Library, and at
the Indiana Memorial Union. In Indianapolis, faculty, staff, and students can visit the Support Center
in the new ICTC building. The Support Center also continued work on enhancing systems that
include help desk inquiries, service requests, account management, and requests for instructional
technology resources, and has focused a great deal of effort and resources to supply self-service and
online services and support.
In 2005, the Support Center logged 173,427 phone contacts, 41,376 walk-in contacts, 2,406
ITHelpLive chat sessions, and 34,748 email contacts. The Knowledge Base and online support
totaled over 22M hits for the year from the IU system, IU affiliates, and the public. IU is now
delivering Knowledge Base services for Sakai, the IU Global NOC, and the TeraGrid.
200,000
180,000
173,427
160,000
140,000
120,000
100,000
80,000
60,000
41,376
34,748
40,000
20,000
2,406
0
phone
walk-in
ITHelpLive
email
Figure 11: Support Center Contacts
Online Support Environment
In fall 2003, the UITS Teaching and Learning Information Technologies Division and
Communications and Planning Office completed the first stage in the development of a new Online
Support Environment (OSE) by redesigning the UITS web space to focus on support and services.
Built on the best of IU’s current support structure, including the Knowledge Base and strong human
help presence, the OSE incorporates thousands of pages of information on accounts, passwords,
networks, hardware, software, and many other popular IT topics, as well as access to online services.
It provides an efficient, intuitive virtual support center with help and information 24 hours a day,
year-round, that will empower users to make the best use of the University’s IT environment. This
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environment won the “ACUTA Member Site to See” for the first quarter 2005 and a SIGGUCS
Communication Award in the “Computing Services Web Site” category in November 2005. In
January 2006, the OSE won a Distinguished Award in the Society for Technical Communication
Chicago Chapter competition for online user support tools, making it eligible for the Society’s
international competition.
A UITS research paper titled “Customer-Centered IT Support: Foundations, Principles, and
Systems,” was published by the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) on November 9,
2004. A second paper, “An Architecture for Evolving IT Customer Service,” was published by
ECAR on July 5, 2005. These papers have been some of the most popular downloads from the
ECAR web site, and have resulted in many inquiries and visits by other universities interested in IU’s
online support model. In January 2006, “An Architecture for Evolving IT Customer Service” won a
Merit Award in the Society for Technical Communication Chicago Chapter competition for
scholarly/professional articles. A third, related publication is in the works for early 2006.
An initiative of the OSE called ITHelp Live! provides tools for remote desktop assistance including
computer diagnostics, automated repair tools and scripts, and full remote control. Users can control
the level of access to their computers and view a log of activity in Falcon, IU’s enterprise troubleticket system. This tool was used to assist users over 2,400 times in 2005. Other interfaces to user
support resources include telephone, email, and a real-time online chat.
UITS is building additional automated tools and systems to encourage use of online services and
support. UITS developed and released a desktop client called ITNow to push communication of IT
news, alerts, and events directly to the user. This enables user communication even in the event that
email or web servers are unavailable. Other tools continue to be created and integrated. See
http://uits.iu.edu/.
Adaptive Technology Center
The Adaptive Technology Center (ATC) is a hub for alternate media production where print material
can be rapidly converted to accessible media for those who face challenges in using traditional print
media. The ATC practices of creating electronic text to provide accessible formats for individuals
with a variety of disabilities, including dyslexia, blindness, low vision, and mobility impairment, have
been adopted by many post-secondary institutions that have robust adaptive technology programs.
In 2005, the Adaptive Technology Center saw a number of initiatives, enhancements, and
collaborative efforts along with an increased demand for its premier service—conversion of print
materials to electronic format for access by students, faculty, and staff with disabilities. Client
contacts grew at both IUB and IUPUI, with a particular increase in the number of students receiving
services who are blind or have low vision. This year the ATC also provided video caption services for
several campus departments.
The ATC created a captioned video called "Tracy's Success Story" for delivery via the Web that
features video highlights success of a student who uses ATC services. The ATC web site was also
updated to make it as accessible as possible for individuals with all disabilities.
The ATC continues to offer to non-profit organizations and educational entities via the Web its
OCR Rocket software (written in-house) that automates many of the scanning/recognition steps of
the high-speed scanning process; continues to share books through an agreement with
Bookshare.org, a national repository of electronic books; and helps Bloomington-area schools
incorporate adaptive technology into their programs, most notably through the use of software to
assist students with dyslexia.
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The IUPUI ATC opened in November 2004, consists of two suites located in the 24-hour Student
Technology Center on the first floor of the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex,
and is open seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Students have access to Kurzweil 3000 software that
reads electronic text aloud so they can see it on a monitor while it is read. Dragon NaturallySpeaking
helps those with mobility impairments create documents, send and receive email, and use the
Internet by voice. Users with low vision have access to ZoomText screen magnification software that
enlarges by 16 times material on the monitor. ZoomText also includes a speech feature that reads
aloud documents, names of desktop icons, and web pages. Those who are blind can use JAWS, a
screen reading software that voices whatever appears on the monitor, including controls, enabling
users to negotiate the desktop without using a mouse. JAWS also supports Braille.
The IUPUI ATC also offers a selection of alternative keyboards and mouse devices for those with
mobility impairments. In addition, high-speed scanners convert written materials (books, course
packs, etc.) into electronic text that can then be read with adaptive software. Tactile graphics are
provided for individuals who need graphical information in a form they can feel with their fingertips.
Students may schedule appointments to use the ATC suites with a full-time UITS staff member, or
request onsite training in using adaptive hardware and software.
Access in the Student Residence Halls
Action 55. UITS should work with the Halls of Residence and Residence Life, at IUB and IUPUI, to provide
students with a seamlessly integrated computing environment, available on campus, in the residence halls, including
academic support centers, or from remote locations.
Action 56. Housing on the IUPUI campus should be planned carefully with involvement of UITS and others to
ensure that it is developed as a premier living and learning community, making effective use of technology for student
learning.
Action 57. UITS, in partnership with the Halls of Residence and Residence Life, should develop a program to provide
teaching and learning technology support services in one or more selected residence halls, as one part of an on-campus
pilot in distributed learning.
Twenty-eight Residential Technology Centers are located throughout IUB campus housing. Several
include Academic Support Centers jointly managed by Residential Programs and Services and UITS,
with updated technology and software. At IUPUI, the Residential Technology Center in Ball
Residence Hall received and installed updated equipment. Residential Technology Centers at IUB
and IUPUI include more than 300 workstations and Express Email Stations, and more than 30 highspeed laser printers. Residential IT Services (RITS) consultants staff the Residential Technology
Centers on afternoons and weekends, providing application support to residents of campus housing,
as well as free in-room computer consulting.
As college and universities around the country identify security for privately owned networked
computers as a primary challenge, Indiana University continues to provide leadership in the area of
network security. IU has enhanced the tools that enable the more than 12,000 students to connect
their personal computers to the IU network during a five-day period that precedes the start of Fall
Semester classes. The “Get Connected” kit students receive contains a CD that requires that they
install Symantec AntiVirus (or another antivirus application) and critical updates and services packs
for Windows XP and Internet Explorer before they connect their computers to the IU network. The
“Get Connected” CD also contains spyware and adware detection and removal utilities, a printer
locator utility, as well as the new ITNow client, which alerts users to critical outages even when email
services may not be available.
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During 2005, RITS introduced a new long-distance service available to all IU students, and a new
discounted personal cell phone partnership with Cingular. For more on campus housing IT
resources, see the narrative under Actions 55 and 56.
Usage statistics for 2005 for Residential Technology Centers include:
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RTC workstation logins: 879,599 (18% of all STC-supported logins)
RTC workstation pages printed: 6,895,242 (25% of all STC-supported printing)
Student Ownership of Computers
Action 58. IU should consider a program of incentives to increase student ownership of computers, including some
combination of direct financial assistance, negotiation of institutional discounts for student purchases, on-campus sales
and support, and encouragement from the highest levels of the University. IU should further evaluate programs that
would require computer ownership for all students.
Although IU does not require students to own computers (because of the potential impact on
students’ personal expenses), computer ownership continues to rise on the core campuses.
According to the 2005 UITS User Survey, 97% of students at IUB and 96% at IUPUI stated that
they own or have access to a computer or PDA at home. These figures are believed to reflect on the
incentives in place that encourage ownership.
Each year UITS provides extensive guidelines to all incoming students in the form of “The
Computer Guide,” which contains current hardware and software recommendations, instructions for
connecting to the IU network, and information on special offers on computers. Prospective students
receive this guide before matriculating, enabling them to research purchase options before arriving
on campus. During new student orientation sessions, UITS staff members advise students and their
parents about IT resources. “The Computer Guide” is also available online from uits.iu.edu,
accessible year round any time members of the IU community want to research hardware purchases,
upgrades, and general information about computing at IU.
IU continues to leverage the buying power of the University by working with vendors to secure
special pricing on high-quality computers and software, and by extending University pricing to
students for their personal purchases.
IX. Digital Libraries & the Scholarly Record
Recommendation 9: The University should build upon and expand its digital library program, and develop the digital
library infrastructure needed to support research, teaching and learning.
The Actions associated with this Recommendation address the development and implementation of
an array of digital library services and initiatives, including digital library infrastructure (Action 60),
access to electronic resources and electronic reserves (Actions 61, 62), lifecycle funding for existing
digital library services (Action 63), digital archives and electronic records (Actions 64, 65), and digital
library research (Action 59).
The IU Digital Library Program (DLP) is a collaborative effort of the Indiana University Libraries,
the OVPIT, and the University research faculty with leadership from the School of Library and
Information Science and the School of Informatics.
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Digital Library Research
Action 59. The University should develop a program of digital library research, and engage in national initiatives, to
address the issues of user services, creation and management of digital collections, the federation of distributed digital
libraries, and the design of digital library systems.
Digital Library Brown Bag Series
Since fall 2003, the Digital Library Program and the School of Library and Information Science
sponsored a series of lunchtime brown bag presentations dealing with a variety of digital library
projects, issues, and research. The Digital Library Brown Bag Series Archive is available online, with
presentation slides and other materials from the programs presented during the past two years. The
program, which generated extremely positive feedback, will continue in 2006. See
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/workshops/brownbags/ and
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/workshops/bbfall2005.htm.
Variations2: Digital Music Library
The Indiana University Digital Music Library project has worked to establish a digital music library
testbed system containing music in a variety of formats, involving research and development in the
areas of system architecture, metadata standards, component-based application architecture, and
network services. This system, which has been used as a foundation for digital library research in the
areas of instruction, usability, human-computer interaction, and intellectual property rights, was
funded in part by a grant of $3M in 2000 from the federal Digital Libraries Initiative – Phase 2
(DLI2) program, with support from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment
for the Humanities. In May 2005, the Variations2 system was transformed from an experimental
research system into a production one, replacing the pioneering Variations system that had served
the Cook Music Library and the Jacobs School of Music at IUB since 1996. The Variations2 system
offers access to sound recordings and musical scores in both image and notation formats, as well as
capabilities for bookmarking, playlist creation, annotation, and self-testing. See
http://variations2.indiana.edu/.
Variations3
In October 2005, the Digital Library Program received a new $768,747 grant from the federal
Institute of Museum and Library Services for a three-year project to develop a new turnkey digital
music library and learning system based on Variations2, to be known as Variations3. This system is
designed to be easily deployable at a wide variety of institutions to provide access to both local and
licensed remote music collections, along with a set of tools for use of music in teaching, learning, and
research. In addition, research will be conducted on metadata models to support improved searching
and browsing capabilities for music. IU is partnering with four other universities who will serve to
test the software and provide feedback on requirements and functionality. See
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/variations3/.
Building a Digital Library Education Program
In 2004, the Digital Library Program and the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS)
received a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) program Librarians for
the 21st Century to create a digital library specialization for master’s and post-master’s library science
students in SLIS. The three-year project involves a four-way partnership with SLIS, the School of
Library and Information Science at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the digital library
program at UIUC. This project will fund curriculum research and development, a digital library
education conference in each of the three years, and digital library internships and residencies in the
digital library programs of both institutions. The first group of five fellows was recruited for fall
2005, a workshop at the Joint Conference on Digital Libraries was conducted, and the SLIS
curriculum was revised in the area of digital libraries. See http://lair.indiana.edu/research/dlib/.
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Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Consortium
The Digital Library Program continues to play a leadership role in the Text Encoding Initiative
Consortium. In October 2004, a staff member was elected to a two-year term on the TEI Council, a
group of experts who guide the development of the TEI. Staff attended the 2005 annual TEI
Members Meeting to represent IU at the meeting, vote for new Board and Council members, and
give presentations on technical developments.
Chymistry of Isaac Newton
The NSF-funded Chymistry of Isaac Newton project entered its third year in 2005. The project has
made significant progress toward its initial goal of digitizing, editing, and publishing 1,000 pages of
Isaac Newton’s alchemical manuscripts. To date, approximately 600 pages have been transcribed and
encoded, including Newton’s two most important laboratory notebooks, Cambridge University
Additional Mss. 3975 and 3973, three versions of his “Index Chemicus,” an index to alchemical
substances and processes, and a number of smaller manuscripts. Systems have also been developed
to publish the texts on the Web.
The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project is featured prominently on the web site for “Newton’s Dark
Secrets” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newton/), a Nova/PBS television program about Isaac
Newton, with special emphasis on Newton’s alchemical and theological pursuits. For project
information see: http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/newton/.
Open Archives Initiative
In 2004, the Digital Library Federation and National Science Digital Library formed an initiative to
build upon and document the experience of OAI implementers in order to assist others in sharing
metadata for digital library objects. This effort has resulted in the Best Practices for OAI Data
Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata, currently under internal review and soon to go
out for public review and comment. For the current version of the best practices documentation, see
http://oai-best.comm.nsdl.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?TableOfContents. The Metadata Librarian in the Digital
Library Program chaired a group within this initiative focusing on shareable metadata, the first
section of the larger best practices document to be completed. The Best Practices for Shareable
Metadata covers issues of appropriate representation and context for metadata, methods for
crosswalking, and specific recommendations for various classes of metadata elements, transforming
expertise gained by the Digital Library Program into practical recommendations for other metadata
creators, for the purpose of improving interoperability among disparate digital libraries. For the text
of the Best Practices for Shareable Metadata developed under the leadership of the Digital Library
Program’s Metadata Librarian, see http://oai-best.comm.nsdl.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?PublicTOC. This work has
to date resulted in a planned workshop on creating shareable metadata to be held prior to the
WebWise 2006 conference in Los Angeles in February 2006 and a grant proposal to the Institute of
Museum and Library Services in cooperation with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to
develop a shareable metadata training program.
DLF Aquifer
Indiana University is a major partner in the Digital Library Federation’s Aquifer project, with three
DLP staff serving on or chairing Aquifer project working groups. DLF Aquifer participants leverage
shared actions, resources, and infrastructures to encourage the creation of digital collections that can
be brought together and made accessible across the globe. The DLF Aquifer initiative pushes the
limits of the network by maintaining distributed, loosely coupled organizational and technical models.
Beginning with a significant, well-bounded collection of digital content in the area of American
culture and life, DLF Aquifer is creating a test-bed of tools for selecting, collecting, and providing
access to quality digital content. Grounded in the thinking that libraries add value through the
organization of information, DLF Aquifer offers opportunities for collaboration among libraries,
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with scholars and with partners building repositories, content management systems, course
management systems, and other solutions that support the scholarly process. Future broader scale
collaborations can be modeled on the DLF Aquifer experience. See http://www.diglib.org/aquifer/.
Sound Directions
In February 2005, the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music, in partnership with the
Archive of World Music at Harvard University and the IU Digital Library Program, received a
$348,441 Research and Development grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities
Division of Preservation and Access to undertake a joint project that will create best practices and
test emerging standards for digital preservation of archival audio. Sound archives have reached a
critical point in their history marked by the simultaneous rapid deterioration of unique original
materials, the development of expensive and powerful new digital technologies, and the consequent
decline of analog formats and media. It has become clear to archivists that analog-based preservation
methods are no longer viable and, for a variety of technical and economic reasons, that new strategies
must be developed in the digital domain. The Digital Library Program is overseeing software
development in support of the project and will conduct experiments in loading digital audio
preservation packages into IU’s digital library object repository. See
http://dlib.indiana.edu/projects/sounddirections/.
Sakai-Libraries Integration
In 2005, staff from the Digital Library Program and IUB Libraries participated in a series of meetings
sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to discuss issues of integration of library services
and content within the Sakai collaboration and learning environment. These discussions are
anticipated to result in a collaborative project beginning in 2006 to develop tools for faculty and
student use of library resources within the Sakai environment and within IU’s implementation of
Sakai known as Oncourse CL. These software tools will be based in part on the Twin Peaks tool
developed by staff in IUB Library Information Technology to enable faculty to search for and link to
library content from within the Sakai authoring environment. See https://twinpeaks.dev.java.net/.
Digital Library Infrastructure
Action 60. The University should develop a digital library infrastructure that will provide a common technical and
organizational base for new and ongoing digital library programs.
With staff and funding from UITS, the Digital Library Program launched in fall 2005 a two-year
initiative to reengineer IU’s digital library technical infrastructure to ensure that it continues to
provide a strong foundation for access to and preservation of digital information. At the core of this
work is the implementation of a digital library object repository based on the open-source Fedora
digital repository software developed by Cornell University and the University of Virginia. This
repository will serve as a centrally managed system for managing storage of both metadata and digital
content—image, text, audio, video, and data—and will utilize the Massive Data Storage Service
(MDSS) for storage of very large digital objects. Surrounding this repository, a variety of applications
will be developed and deployed to provide access to various types of digital content, including
upgrades to the DLP’s current systems for providing access to art images (DIDO – Digital Images
Delivered Online), text collections, documentary photography collections, sheet music, and
manuscripts.
The DLP continued to expand the number of collections and the number of metadata formats
available through its Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) Data
Provider, which allows IU to easily share metadata for items in its digital library collections with
other institutions running OAI-PMH Service Providers. Indiana University was one of the first
institutions in the US to provide metadata records in the MODS (Metadata Object Description
Schema) format, developed by the Library of Congress. The DLP currently provides metadata
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records via OAI-PMH for over 38,119 digital objects, which is harvested by service providers such as
OAIster at the University of Michigan and the Sheet Music Consortium web site at UCLA.
Electronic Information Resources
Action 61. The University Libraries, with UITS, should provide students, faculty, and staff at all campuses with
convenient and reliable access to a comprehensive and coordinated collection of electronic information resources, on the
campuses and off.
Action 62. The University should develop within its digital library program an “electronic reserve” service so that
faculty can assemble and make available content in all media and formats: text, image, audio, or video; published or
unpublished; digitized representation or original digital artifact; etc.
OneSearch @ IU
The Libraries conducted a successful beta test of the Sirsi/MuseGlobal SingleSearch software on the
Bloomington campus during spring 2005. In fall 2005, the service was renamed OneSearch @ IU
and was completely integrated into the IUB Libraries web site section on databases and electronic
journals, Find Information. A general search page was created to link to a quick search of major
indexes covering all subjects, and a page for all databases included in the system was also made
available. Search capabilities were added to the Databases by Subject pages and to the library and
collection web pages. A system for requesting inclusion of a database in OneSearch was added to the
Libraries Content Management System. To date, more than 100 databases have been activated in
OneSearch for the Bloomington campus. A similar request system that generates automatic web
pages for use by each of the six participating campuses outside Bloomington was put into place and
campuses are actively adding titles to their OneSearch installations. See
http://www.libraries.iub.edu/index.php?pageId=3435.
The CIC Virtual Electronic Library, which allowed a user to search multiple library catalogs from the
CIC member libraries, has been one of the projects of the CIC Libraries group for nearly ten years,
but the software did not work well and is no longer supported by OCLC. We have worked with
Sirsi/MuseGlobal to create connectors and are setting up a replacement page for the CIC VEL in the
new OneSearch @ IU system.
The Unicorn System and IUCAT
The Libraries upgraded to version 2003.1 of the Unicorn library management system and made
changes in IUCAT screens in May 2005.
The IU Southeast Library moved into a new building and changed their government documents to
allow them to be checked out to users, converting more than 160,000 items to allow circulation.
Work began on several major projects planned for completion in 2006. These include: overlay of
records for Chinese vernacular materials to convert them to the Pinyin Romanization method; an
extract of serial holdings records for the OCLC union list of serials; and a “flip” of holdings symbols
in OCLC to change all IU records to display a specific holdings symbol for each campus.
Growth of Libraries Web Site
This year brought a concerted effort to review and migrate all of the old pages from the former IUB
Libraries web site to new pages using the Content Management System. Last year there were more
than 8,000 pages on the Veritas server; by fall 2005 that number was down to about 2,000 pages. The
number of electronic resources available from the library web site increased during the past year.
More than 49,000 are now available. A new library was added to the web site (Wylie House), the
Main Library was renamed to the Herman B Wells Library, and appropriate changes were made in all
pages. Unplanned downtime was reduced to about 20 minutes for the entire year.
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Planning for a refresh of the Libraries web site is underway. Focus groups, surveys, and various user
tests will be conducted in spring 2006.
Electronic Reserves
Library Information Technology supports an increasingly popular electronic reserve system. The
following content and use data figures cover from January 1, 2005, to November 30, 2005, for the
Bloomington campus:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Course Pages Added:
Total Course Pages:
Total Documents Added :
E-reserve Home Page Hits:
Course Page Hits:
Document Hits:
899
3,232
16,859
136,430
265,983
577,219
Support for Digital Library Initiatives
Action 63. The University should establish sound funding for existing digital library initiatives (including
VARIATIONS, LETRS, IMDS, others), and should provide support for other digital library projects of merit that
are advanced in the years ahead.
Digital Library Projects & Collections
VARIATIONS
As noted above under Action 59, VARIATIONS has been replaced by the new Variations2 system,
which continues to provide access to sound recordings and musical scores for Jacobs School of
Music students and faculty in support of instructional and research needs. VARIATIONS and
Variations2 delivered 208,555 sound file accesses between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2005. To date,
Music Library staff have digitized approximately 10,912 sound recordings and 393 scores. See
http://variations2.indiana.edu/.
LETRS
The Library Electronic Text Resource Service (LETRS) continued to support the Digital Library
Program’s online electronic text collections and the electronic text components of a number of DLP
projects. LETRS consultants participated heavily in the ongoing Indiana Authors project, the
Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies (RIFIAS) project, and dozens of smaller projects. In the
annual UITS User Survey, LETRS consistently ranks among the top one or two Research and
Academic Computing units in user satisfaction and in 2005 LETRS received a user satisfaction rate
of 99%. See http://www.indiana.edu/~letrs/.
DMIC
Continued growth occurred in 2005 for the Digital Media and Image Center (DMIC), the Digital
Library Program’s primary digitization facility. For the first time, the IUB Libraries’ Collections
Department contributed $20,000 to fund a digitization project proposed by IU librarians, and the
DMIC led the digitization phase of these projects:
•
•
•
•
Continually updated digitization and quality control procedures for ongoing projects
Handled lifecycle upgrade of computers and scanning equipment
Upgraded imaging and productivity software in the DMIC, including Photoshop CS2
Consulted on imaging issues with numerous IU departments, including the Lilly Library, the
IU Art Museum, the Fine Arts Slide Library, University Archives, the Cook Music Library,
the Liberia Collections Project, the Black Film Center Archive, and IU East Library.
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In 2005, staff in the DMIC created 93,309 digital images drawn from more than twelve projects and
managed outsourced work by vendors to create 141,005 digital images drawn from three projects, for
a total of 234,314 digital objects. See http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/dmic/.
DIDO Image Bank
DIDO (Digital Images Delivered Online) is a partnership between the Fine Arts Slide Library at IUB
and the Digital Library Program that provides web access to more than 52,000 art images to users on
all IU campuses. In 2005, planning began for new software tools to support image cataloging,
searching, browsing, and classroom use, in the context of the Digital Library Program’s infrastructure
reengineering project. A variety of open-source and commercial tools are being evaluated, and
implementation will begin in 2006. See http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/dido/.
Indiana Digital Audio Archives Project
The Digital Library Program and Cook Music Library at IUB are subcontractors on a project at
Johns Hopkins University to explore methods of preserving audio recordings of faculty recitals from
IU’s Jacobs School of Music. IU has received $229,352 from John Hopkin’s Institute of Museum and
Library Services grant for this project, which runs October 2004 – June 2006.
Central American and Mexican Video Archive
The Digital Library Program is providing technical support to the Center for Latin American and
Caribbean Studies for a project to digitize videorecordings from selected archives in Central
American and Mexico, providing storage and delivery at Indiana University. This project, which will
run from June 2005 through June 2009, is supported through a $690,772 from the US Department of
Education Title VI Technological Innovation and Cooperation for Foreign Information Access
(TICFIA) program.
Film Literature Index Online (1976-2001)
A July 2002 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for $239,343 provided for
converting to electronic format 700,000 entries of an authoritative paper-based film and television
literature index, 1976-2001. Working in partnership with the State University of New York - Albany,
where the index is edited, IU has nearly completed the project. The index editors were unable to
locate readable electronic files for six years during the period 1976-1988. Rekeying and XML
encoding of these volumes was outsourced; these data have been parsed into the existing database. A
preview site was launched in November 2004, which has already generated positive response. Errors
in the data that came from the paper index continue to be corrected and improvements are being
made in response time for complex searches. The Film Literature Index Online underwent
optimization and was re-released as Version 1.1 on November 1, 2005. The search functionality has
been greatly improved, enhancing overall performance. See http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/reference/fli/.
Ethnomusicological Video for Instruction and Analysis Digital Archive
The IU Archives of Traditional Music, in partnership with the University of Michigan, has received a
series of grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, beginning in 2002, to develop a digital
archive of ethnomusicology field recordings and an accompanying set of software tools to support its
use in teaching, learning, and research. The Digital Library Program is providing technical support
for the project. In 2005, the project team developed a prototype web interface for searching the
collection of over 120 annotated hours of video, along with enhancements to the video segmentation
and annotation tool used by ethnomusicologists to annotate videos they have contributed to the
archive. This tool will be used again in 2006 by a new group of contributing ethnomusicologists. The
team also continued to develop the model for preservation metadata for the collection, based on the
MODS and METS XML standards along with other standards under development by the Audio
Engineering Society and the Library of Congress. See http://www.indiana.edu/~eviada/.
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IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana
An IMLS (National Leadership Grants — Library-Museum Partnership) grant for $343,000 provides
for developing tools for libraries and museums to catalog their sheet music collections, digitize sheet
music, and create a single web site to provide online access to 10,000 pieces of digitized sheet
music—about half from IU. This project involves a four-way partnership with the Indiana State
Library, the Indiana State Museum, and the Indiana Historical Society. The grant period runs from
October 1, 2004, through September 30, 2007.
This project builds upon an internally-funded project, Indiana University Sheet Music, launched in
April 2004, which provides access to metadata and some digital images from the DeVincent and Starr
sheet music collections in the Lilly Library. In 2005, approximately 1,975 pieces of sheet music were
added online for a total of 7,288. For sheet music digitized to date, see
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/sheetmusic/. For project information, see
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/projects/inharmony/.
Digital Library of the Commons
The Mellon-funded Digital Library of the Commons project continued its work in 2005. A database
was developed to support data entry for cataloging the DLC’s image collection. Papers from the 2004
International Association for the Study of Common Property (IASCP) conference were added to the
collection. A presentation on the project was given at the 2005 Digital Library Federation Spring
Forum. See: http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/.
Swinburne Archive
The Swinburne Archive project was selected as one of the initial projects to be incorporated into the
Mellon-funded NINES initiative. NINES (Networked Interface for Nineteenth-Century Electronic
Scholarship) is building a digital publishing environment for integrated, peer-reviewed online
scholarship centered in nineteenth-century studies, British and American. Prior to 2005, the project
had focused on printed works, but recently expanded to include digitized manuscripts and secondary
materials on Swinburne. See http://swinburnearchive.indiana.edu/ and http://www.nines.org/.
Victorian Bibliography
The Digital Library Program worked with staff from the Victorian Studies journal and IU Press
(publishers of the journal) to put the annual Victorian Bibliography online as a searchable reference
resource. The DLP will continue to work with both partners to streamline data entry workflows and
otherwise improve the production and digital publication of the bibliography. See
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/reference/victbib/.
David Bradley Film Collection Digitization
In July 2004 the Digital Library Program received a one-year grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts to digitize a portion of the films in the 16mm David Bradley Collection that are not
available on video. With additional funding from the library’s collections budget and the DLP, 129
rare and valuable films were digitized. These are now available on DVD, but the plan is to offer
online access to the public domain titles in the future. See: http://www.indiana.edu/~bradfilm/nea.html.
IUScholarWorks (Institutional Repository)
In 2005, the IUB Libraries and the Digital Library Program launched a pilot project for
IUScholarWorks, a digital repository for disseminating and preserving scholarly work created at
Indiana University. It manages and distributes digital items and allows for the creation, indexing, and
searching of the files and associated metadata to locate and retrieve the items. IUScholarWorks is
built on DSpace, open-source software created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
HP, that is widely used to create interoperable scholarship repositories. In 2006, the service will be
put into production. For more information, see: http://scholarworks.iu.edu.
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IUPUI University Library: Digital Libraries Team Projects
Three LSTA grants were awarded to IUPUI University Library in 2005. Projects include: Historic
Maps of Indiana, in collaboration with the IU Bloomington Geography and Map Library; a Historic
Indiana Architecture Slide Collection, in collaboration with the Historic Landmarks Foundation of
Indiana; and the Governor Morton Telegraph Books, in collaboration with the Indiana State
Archives. Collections are being digitized and metadata is being created and managed through the
CONTENTdm software system.
The Central Indiana Online Historical Collection
University Library is completing the second and final year of a grant, funded by the Central Indiana
Community Foundation Library Fund, in collaboration with the Indiana State Library and the
Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library. Collections have been digitized and metadata is being
created and managed through the CONTENTdm software System. Collections include:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sanborn Map Collection
Extensive descriptive metadata has been created for the Indianapolis Sanborn Map
Collection for years 1887 and 1898 using CONTENTdm and the collection is now public.
Users are able to search the collection by a landmark’s name, type of landmark, and address.
See: http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/SanbornJP2/.
Original State Plat Books
See: http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/IndianaPlat/.
Indiana Historic Atlas Collection
Digitization has been completed.
Indianapolis City Directories
Digitization has been completed.
The Indiana Supreme Court Collection
IUPUI University Library is also collaborating with the Indiana Supreme Court and the
Indiana Historical Bureau to provide online access to copies of original documents and
research materials relating to Indiana's constitutional history (Road to Indiana Statehood).
The first phase will make documents and transcriptions that led to Indiana statehood in 1816
available and fully searchable on the Web. The sources for the original documents include
the National Archives and Records Administration, the Indiana State Archives, the Indiana
State Library, and the Library of Congress. These documents were digitized and are available
online using the CONTENTdm Management system. See:
http://indiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu/isc/.
Philanthropy Resources Online (PRO)
Use statistics for Philanthropy Resources Online (PRO) for a sample month (May 2005)
indicate nearly 1,700 hits and more than 542 page views during more than 400 visitor
sessions, resulting from more than 250 unique visitors. More than 25,000 pages of digitized
text are now available in PRO, with 2,500 pages added during the last year.
Philanthropic Studies Index
Use statistics (2004) for the Philanthropic Studies Index indicate nearly 24,000 hits and
15,494 page views during more than 6,700 visitor sessions, resulting from more than 3,000
unique visitors. In the same period, 460 new citations for journal articles were added to the
database.
Preservation of Digital Records & Materials
Action 64. UITS, in partnership with the University Archives, Internal Audit, the Committee of Data Stewards,
and others should develop a program to assure preservation of electronic institutional records.
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Action 65. UITS, in partnership with the University Libraries, University Archives, and others should evaluate
technologies and propose methods and standards to protect digital materials against media deterioration and
technological obsolescence.
Library Information Technology continues to participate in a project to address the need to archive
electronic journals, LOCKSS, which stands for “Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe.” In 2005, the
library installed three dedicated, identically configured systems to serve as production LOCKSS
caches. Each system has a 2.4Hz Celeron processor, 512MB RAM, and 250GB of disk space. This
provides a total disk capacity of roughly 750GB.
Currently, each LOCKSS system collects 121 titles, composed of 175 distinct issues (each issue is a
unique Archival Unit). One hundred fifteen of these titles are available to the library as open access
or subscription titles. Five titles are available through the Government Printing Office LOCKSS
Pilot Project. One title is for testing, published by the LOCKSS team at Stanford. Seventy nine of
these titles have been added to the LOCKSS collection this year (since November, 2004).
X. Security, Privacy, Intellectual Property
Recommendation 10: The University, with leadership from the OVPIT, must continue to develop policies and
implement procedures that protect the security of IU’s information technology resources and institutional data, safeguard
personal privacy, and respect intellectual property rights, while at the same time promoting two traditional university
values associated with academic freedom: access to information and freedom of discourse.
The Actions associated with this Recommendation address issues of information technology policy
and security, including the protection of information and security of IT resources (Action 66);
authentication and access mechanisms (Action 67); and intellectual property (Action 68).
IT Policy
Action 66. The University should develop clear and forceful policies to address the management and protection of
information and the security of IT resources.
The Information Technology Policy Office (ITPO) develops and maintains policies on the
appropriate use of IT by the Indiana University community, and administers education programs
about common technology and security issues and concerns. The Office coordinates investigations
of and responses to reports of abuse or inappropriate use of electronic information or information
technology, interacting daily with, and on behalf of, students, faculty, and staff. The Office also
works closely with University administration, judicial officers, counsel, and other IU agencies, as well
as internal and external law enforcement and prosecutors. In addition the ITPO coordinates
computer accounts management for centralized systems.
Technology Policy Activity
Most University-wide IT policies that are currently in place are now four or five years old, and many
still have an interim designation. Over this time, the policies have been tested by applying and
interpreting them to situations at IU. In 2005, the ITPO initiated a review of five of these policies in
order to move them to the approved status. Working with a diverse group of reviewers including the
IUB and IUPUI Faculty Council Technology Committees, four of these policies went through two
review and editing periods and were ready to be forwarded for approval to the Vice President for
Information Technology. These policies cover appropriate use, misuse and abuse, eligibility, and fair
use. A fifth policy, on privacy, went through one review period and was sent to University Counsel
for in-depth study. In addition, the IUPUI Faculty Council Technology Committee asked for the
development of a University-wide email usage policy. Progress has begun on merging old drafts of an
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email usage policy and a mass email usage policy with the Bloomington Faculty Council's Mass Email
Procedures and Restrictions Policy. Once drafted, it will go through the review process in 2006.
Educational Materials
"Digital Karma," a festival to expose students to the many legal ways to download digital music and
movies, was held on the Bloomington campus in February 2005. Vendors including Apple, MSN
Music, Movielink, the Motion Picture Association of America, Peer Impact, and Ruckus awarded
door prizes such as iPods and DVD players. Event staff dressed up in 70s theme costumes to teach
attendees about copyright and fair use issues, and Elvis even attended. The event was very well
received and it was estimated that nearly 2,000 students attended the event.
For National Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October, ITPO employed a 1940s-era horror film
theme to promote information about keeping one's computers and personal information secure.
20,000 postcard-sized versions of the posters were sent out each week with a different message to
every faculty and staff member at all eight IU campuses. The posters were also put up in student
areas. Students on the Bloomington, IUPUI, and Southeast campuses put together three-minute
videos promoting the security theme and entered the videos in a contest sponsored by EDUCAUSE.
Each week, the Bloomington student newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student, announced the theme
for the week and provided security tips. The IUPUI student newspaper, the Sagamore, also
highlighted this educational campaign. All postcards and posters directed readers to the
keepITsafe.iu.edu web page, where more tips and training were provided. The promotion was a
success based upon analysis of the hits on the web pages associated with the themes for each week.
Statistics show increases in four of the five areas: Keeping Passwords Secure grew from 42 hits in
September to 668 hits in October; Computer Viruses grew from 806 hits in September to 1,086 hits
in October; Phishing grew from 37 hits in September to 370 hits in October; and Handling Files
Safely grew from 18 hits in September to 101 hits in October. The number of hits on the awardwinning Windows Security online training tutorial developed by UITS IT Training & Education in
cooperation with the IT Policy and Security Offices also increased, reaching nearly 500 online
security tutorials taken in October. In January 2006, one of the poster designs received an award of
Excellence in the Society for Technical Communication Chicago Chapter competition in
promotional poster design.
Incident Response
Incident statistics continue to increase, primarily due to increased numbers of worms and viruses in
the wild. In addition, more proactive efforts by the ITSO to identify compromised hosts have caused
an increase in workload. Incident response staff responded with increased streamlining of
procedures. Tom Jagatic, the Incident Response Coordinator, implemented and continued to refine
the Recurrent Incident Management System (RIMS) used to manage compromised host reports
received from the ITSO engineers. He gave a well-received presentation at the 2005 EDUCAUSE
Security Professionals Workshop about the RIMS design and implementation. Incident Response
staff also participated in the design and implementation of the null route injection tool, and in
managing the more aggressive attention given to shut down malicious computer networks.
Accounts Administration
The Global Directory Services project continues to make frequent updates and changes to the tools
used by the Accounts Administration staff to complete their daily duties. By the end of 2005, a new
Account Management System was implemented allowing the staff real-time updates to accounts.
Because of the improvements this new system will bring, additional in-house training on working
with the new system is planned for early 2006. Accounts Administration also spent 2005 planning for
digitization of paper files including user access agreements. A new scanner was purchased and by the
end of 2005, all new paper forms were being filed electronically. In 2006, the unit will evaluate
scanning in archived files.
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IT Security
Action 67. UITS, with the Committee on Institutional Data and others in the University community, should develop
security mechanisms that properly enact institutional policy. Implementation of these security mechanisms should include
risk assessment, audit and controls, and education and awareness. UITS should focus special attention on providing
reliable authentication and access management systems.
The primary role of the Information Technology Security Office (ITSO) is to provide proactive
security analysis, development, education, and guidance related to Indiana University’s information
assets and information technology environment. The overall objective is a safe and secure
atmosphere for teaching and learning, research, service, and the conduct of University business. The
Office works closely with the Information Technology Policy Office (ITPO), assisting in
investigations of and response to reports of abuse or inappropriate use of information technology.
Units of the Office of the Vice President for IT and CIO continue to improve the security of IU’s
computer systems.
Two additional security engineers were added to the ITSO to enhance its efforts to proactively
identify vulnerable IT resources and re-actively detect compromised computers on the University
network. Intrusion detection sensors were deployed on the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses
to aid in this detection effort; these will be extended to the regional campus networks in the coming
months. Work also continues on the IP Security and Accountability Project, a project that will
significantly improve the University’s security posture by allowing for quick and easy identification of
system administrators responsible for devices that are on the network.
UITS and ITSO continue to collaborate on numerous security measures. In August 2005, additional
protections were placed on the residential networks at IUB and IUPUI to further protect student
computers. A local Microsoft Update Service was deployed in September 2005 that provided
students, faculty, and staff a local resource from which they can pull Microsoft software patches. This
is extremely important for those machines on the University network that cannot access the Internet
(and thus cannot pull their Microsoft patches from Microsoft directly). In November, an automated
process of removing compromised machines from the University network was developed. Previously
this process was manual and time-consuming.
Security awareness and education is an important aspect of IT security. In April 2005, ITSO
participated in the Indiana Higher Education Cybersecurity Summit that brought together
information assurance professionals from Indiana's leading universities and colleges and other public
institutions to share best practices, research, trends, and innovations in information assurance. The
program included presentations on legal, policy, and audit issues, as well as several short
presentations on practical security solutions. Several free Microsoft Windows security training
sessions were also held during summer 2005 to provide system administrators additional information
on securing that platform. In addition, the ITSO hosted the well-respected SANS Institute's Securing
Microsoft Windows training course in October to kick off National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
Representatives from 38 higher education institutions took advantage of this training at a significantly
reduced price (at a total savings of over $500,000 when compared to the regular cost of this course).
Additional awareness activities included weekly publication of news articles, postcards, and posters
highlighting key IT security concepts.
As in years past, IU continues to be involved in national security efforts. IU has representatives on
the EDUCAUSE Security Task Force Awareness & Training Working Group, the EDUCAUSE
2006 Security Professionals Conference Program Committee, the National Science Foundation's
(NSF) Cybersecurity Summit program committee, the Executive Committee of the
EDUCAUSE/Internet2 Computer and Network Security Task Force, and also has a staff member
presiding as the co-chair of the Task Force's Legal and Policies Working Group. In addition, the
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ITSO and ITPO are active members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation's (a consortium
consisting of the Big Ten institutions and the University of Chicago) Security Working Group.
Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research
In April 2003, Indiana University launched its Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR)
with a $125,000 private gift and matching funds from the University. The Center serves as a focal
point for cybersecurity research and teaching at Indiana University, as well as a meeting ground for
cybersecurity scholars and practitioners from each campus.
By drawing on IU’s research strength in computer science, informatics, accounting and information
systems, criminal justice, law, organizational behavior, public policy, and other disciplines, the Center
provides an environment where cybersecurity research and practice are intertwined, maximizing the
speed with which new research is applied and new threats become the subject of research. CACR
collaborates with federal and state governments, business, and other education institutions to
improve the quality of information assurance practice, research, and teaching at IU and throughout
the country.
In 2005, the CACR was instrumental in the development of a cybersecurity undergraduate cognate
with the School of Informatics at IUB and three new cybersecurity classes on the IUPUI campus.
The CACR collaborated with the IUPUI Computer and Information Technology department to host
the 2005 Secure Indiana Symposium and with the Computer Science department to develop the
Trusted Electronics and Grid Obfuscation (TEGO) Center. Finally, the Center aided in the creation
of the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) master’s degree program, rounding out the center’s goal
of coordinating the development of an innovative undergraduate, graduate, and continuing education
cybersecurity curriculum.
With support from Purdue University and the University of Notre Dame, the center also hosted the
second annual Indiana Higher Education Cybersecurity Summit, held at IUPUI in April. This event
was attended by more than 200 chief information officers, security professionals, auditors, lawyers,
technicians, and others from universities and colleges across the State of Indiana. The featured
speaker for the event was Amit Yoran, CEO, Yoran Enterprises, and former director of the National
Cybersecurity Division of the Department of Homeland Security.
Other efforts continued in the CACR’s mission to link University faculty and staff with external
resources in cybersecurity and related fields and to facilitate advanced cybersecurity research and
sharing ideas and information both inside and outside of the University. These efforts include serving
as an expert resource for various news sources across the nation including Money Magazine, The
New York Times, USA Today, Indianapolis’ WISH-TV 8, and other publications and radio stations.
Additionally, the CACR’s monthly Speaker Series brought eight nationally recognized speakers in
information assurance, research, and security disciplines to the Indianapolis and Bloomington
campuses.
REN-ISAC
The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace, announced by President Bush in early 2003, called for
establishing "information sharing analysis centers" to facilitate communication, develop best
practices, and disseminate security-related information. The Research and Education Network
Information Sharing and Analysis Center (REN-ISAC), operated by Indiana University, is an integral
part of higher education's strategy to improve network security through information collection,
analysis, dissemination, early warning, and response. REN-ISAC information products are
specifically designed to support the unique environment and needs of organizations connected to
higher education and research networks, and support efforts to protect the national cyber
infrastructure by participating in the formal U.S. ISAC structure.
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During 2005, REN-ISAC analysts provided many technical reports to the higher education
community describing security threats and recommended mitigation or protection techniques. The
various reports identified specific threats, general threat activity and trends, and specific machines
infected with what is known as malware. With that information members directly addressed specific
security incidents, stopped infections, break-ins, and identity theft, and were prepared to defend
against new and changing threat profiles. The REN-ISAC information product includes:
•
•
•
•
Daily Security Weather Reports - detailing activity levels of known security anomalies as well
as pointing out potential new anomalies
Daily Darknet Reports and Episodic Notifications - identifying specific infected machines at
member sites
Alerts - raising awareness of critical new and changing security threats
Monitoring views - displaying levels of threat activity on the Internet2 Abilene backbone
network
During 2005, REN-ISAC secured commitment from the Internet2 organization for contribution of
one full-time employee—a network security engineer for the REN-ISAC staff. That position was
filled in December 2005. Also during 2005, Louisiana State University dedicated one-half of a fulltime employee’s time to the project. The commitment began approximately midway through 2005
and has assisted with the development of the daily reports and programming projects. Discussion is
currently underway with another university regarding a similar contribution.
During fall 2005, the REN-ISAC worked in conjunction with the Internet2 organization to acquire
and deploy a sophisticated network security monitoring system, Arbor Networks Peakflow SP, on
the Abilene backbone network. The system is used to identify and report denial of service and worm
activity.
Intellectual Property
Action 68. UITS should collaborate with the Copyright Management Center on developing policies and programs that
advance the use of information technology and information resources, especially in areas of teaching and research, while
limiting the University’s liability exposure regarding intellectual property rights.
Although funding ceased for collaborative projects between UITS and the IUPUI Copyright
Management Center, the University Information Technology Policy Office continued to collaborate
with the center to develop policies and programs that advance the use of information technology and
information resources, especially in areas of teaching and research, while limiting the University’s
liability exposure regarding intellectual property rights.
In response to the Recording Industry Association of America’s increasing enforcement of the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, IU maintained heightened efforts to educate the University
community about copyright related to file sharing. With the cooperation of the Dean of Students
offices at the IUB and IUPUI campuses, and in consultation with University Counsel, those
implicated in Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices are still required to take an Oncourse-based
copyright tutorial and pass a short quiz.
Educational efforts on the theme “Are You Legal?” included design updates to posters placed in
STCs, campus housing, and apartments; 14,000 flyers distributed to all who live in housing
connected to the IU network; and numerous articles in student publications. A web page compiling
all educational material about file sharing for the IU community is kept current at
http://www.filesharing.iu.edu/.
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Digital Karma, a digital music and movie festival highlighting vendors of legal online music and
movie services, was held on January 26, 2005, and was attended by nearly 2,000 members of the IU
community. The purpose of the Digital Karma event was to increase interest and awareness among
Indiana University graduate and undergraduate students in using legitimate digital downloading and
streaming technologies and services, and to decrease illegal and unethical file sharing behaviors.
The IUPUI Copyright Management Center (CMC) in conjunction with the University Information
Technology Policy Office hired a temporary copyright coordinator to assist in facilitating the efficient
dissemination of copyright educational resources via the CMC web site at
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/, and to provide advice concerning the file sharing site at
http://www.filesharing.iu.edu/. The CMC also assisted in the planning for Digital Karma, and staffed a
booth at the event to answer copyright questions from attendees. Funding for the position
terminated in spring 2005, and the projects were necessarily completed at that time.
In keeping with providing copyright educational resources to the University community, the CMC
used the funding to enhance informational materials on the CMC web site to ensure that the
information on the CMC web site is current with University policies and recent trends in copyright
laws.
While funding for this project was temporary, the need for continued maintenance and improvement
of information resources continues. The CMC continues to seek to work with UITS to address the
copyright needs of the University.
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