EDUCATION AND COMPUTING

AT MIT

A 10th Birthday Snapshot

of Athena and her Kin

Gregory A. Jackson

Director of Academic Computing

MIT Information Systems

Fall 1993

CONTENTS

(c) 1993 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

# EDUCATION AND COMPUTING AT MIT

A 10th Birthday Snapshot of Athena and her Kin

G.A. Jackson

Director of Academic Computing, MIT Information Systems

Ten years ago MIT, Digital Equipment Corporation, and IBM Corporation became partners in Project Athena.[1] Project Athena, as the partners saw it, had two overarching goals:

- to design and to implement a large-scale distributed computing environment, and
- to use that environment for the improvement of undergraduate education.

This report seeks to describe the range of academic-computing resources MIT devotes to education following the first decade of Athena, including both central and departmental activities. Yet this goal is impossible, for two reasons.

First, educational computing comes from widely diverse sources at MIT. It is delivered in widely dispersed venues. It is clear from earlier analysts and surveyors that the best one can do is suggest the range of MIT educational computing, inevitably underestimating its scope in the process.

Second, and more fundamental, MIT's commitment to integrating research, practice, and education undercuts efforts to draw boundaries between, for example, research and educational computing. I'm reminded of the perhaps apocryphal but analogous debate, while I was teaching at Stanford in the 1970s, about cardiac surgery at the University's hospital: was it clinical service to paying customers, research on new methods to restore cardiac damage, or education for the medical students observing from the galleries above?

## SOME HISTORY

Computing long had been a part of MIT undergraduate education before Project Athena, of course. The goals for undergraduate computer use started out modestly: even MIT students outside computer majors were expected to acquire a modicum of programming skill, and to understand how to use computer programs to perform complex calculations in engineering and science. When I was an MIT undergraduate in the late 1960s, for example, my peers and I used MULTICS or Information Processing Services mainframes to write FORTRAN programs. The Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) received an appropriation of "dollars" that could be spent on mainframe computing, and reallocated them to students who wanted computer time.

As the 1960s ended, many departments began to acquire their own computers, and to make excess capacity on them available to students. By the time Project Athena got underway, in 1983, computing for MIT education had become bimodal on the organizational scale: there was substantial central activity and substantial departmental activity but, with the IBM Personal Computer only two years old and the Macintosh a newborn, virtually no individual computer ownership.[2]

From the outset Project Athena replicated the bimodality of educational computing at MIT. Centrally, it employed a development and operations staff, ran servers, and maintained public clusters eventually housing about 400 workstations. Departmentally, it supported faculty courseware-development projects and provided workstations for departmental clusters.

Some departments organized most of their educational computing around Athena. Some departments used both Athena and other educational-computing facilities. Some departments chose not to use computers educationally. Meanwhile, individual computer ownership was increasing dramatically, but largely disconnected from central and departmental academic computing.

Following a year-long study and detailed recommendations from an Institute-wide faculty committee in 1989-90,[3] Project Athena's experimental distributed-computing system has become the Athena Computing Environment. Its facilities and staff have evolved into a service organization within Information Systems committed to education and innovation.

## ATHENA & ACADEMIC COMPUTING TODAY

Except for a research and development on visual computing, most of the academic computing Athena spawned is provided today by IS by three departments working closely together.[4]

- Academic Computing Services (ACS, which I direct) provides general oversight and coordination for Athena and other services and facilities, supports faculty who use computers educationally, works closely with academic departments on educational-computing plans, selects and deploys commercial software tools and applications, communicates with numerous visitors and other universities interested in MIT academic computing, and develops and manages electronic classrooms.
- Computing Support Services (CSS, Dan Weir) provides consulting, training, documentation, accounts, and other user support. Its MIT Computer Connection (the computer store and service facility in the Student Center) participates actively in equipment renewal and service.
- Distributed Computing and Network Services (DCNS, Cecilia d'Oliveira) operates MITnet (on which Athena depends), develops software for Athena and other networked computers, and manages Athena's servers and public clusters.
- In the summer of 1991, Project Athena's Visual Computing Group became the core of the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, a research and development group directed by Professor Steven Lerman and operated primarily with outside funds.

In its final years, Project Athena employed about 80 EFT and had resources equivalent to about $12-million annually. After the merger with Information Systems and the move to MIT general-funds budgets, these numbers dropped to about 50 EFT and $4-million. The FY93 approval of a continuing renewal plan for Athena equipment has brought spending on Athena and other central academic computing to the equivalent of about $6-million annually.

Academic Computing Services currently receives its appropriation from core academic budget funds, and then redistributes part of this to Computing Support Services and Distributed Computing and Network Services.

MIT's peers[5] with separate academic computing facilities spend just under 2% of their educational and general budgets on central academic computing.[6] MIT spends only 1.6% of its instructional budget on Athena and other central academic computing:[7] about as much, it has become fashionable to point out (if not entirely correctly), as the Institute spends on its Department of Chemistry.[8]

Athena continues to deploy about

- 400 public workstations across a score of public clusters, Electronic Classrooms (including one equipped with Macintoshes), the MIT Libraries, and lecture halls;
- 400 workstations in departmental clusters and faculty offices;
- 200 Athena workstations in staff offices; and
- 100 behind-the-scenes servers (many of which also serve networked personal computers and non-Athena workstations).

Over 7,000 different individuals use Athena and other authenticated network services on the typical weekday, or about half of the 13,000 individuals who have made arrangements to do so.[9]

As I suggested above, this report almost certainly understates MIT's educational use of academic computing. The report is organized as follows:

- an overview of the central organizations and resources involved in computing for education at MIT,
- outlines of school-by-school and department-by-department educational-computing resources and activity, and
- some thoughts for the future of academic computing at MIT.

Interspersed among the different sections of the report are some stories illustrating the different ways technology comes to improve education at MIT (some of which also appeared in the first MIT Faculty Newsletter for this fall).

# OWL

Because of my training as a statistician, I was scheduled to teach the data and methodology segment of an IS Quality Awareness Workshop one afternoon. It occurred to me that I should talk about the Hawthorne Effect, whereby experimentation per se causes positive outcomes. I remembered some specifics: experimenters increased light levels and productivity increased, they decreased them and productivity increased again, and so on, all because workers were being interviewed after each change.

But I couldn't recall where the eponymous Hawthorne factory was. I logged in at an Athena workstation, and invoked ONLINE WITH LIBRARIES (OWL). I asked, "What was the Hawthorne Effect named for?" The program informed that no one was available to answer my question right then, that I should check back later.

About an hour later I logged in at another workstation and my answer was waiting: the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric company, outside Chicago. The reference librarian who answered my question went further, though. She provided some more detail, gave me citations to the original studies[10] and to several confirming and disconfirming reanalyses of the data, and told about a Hawthorne aficionado elsewhere in the Libraries.

OWL complements more traditional online library services, such as online catalogs and periodical indexes (which I also use extensively). We in Information Systems worked closely with the staff of the MIT Libraries to design and build software for OWL. Reference librarians in the MIT Libraries use the software to communicate with patrons. The service just won the MIT Library Council Special Achievement Award for exemplary library service.

OWL grows out of two other Athena services: ON LINE CONSULTING (OLC), which connects users with consultants for help with Athena or other computing activities, and ON LINE TEACHING ASSISTANT (OLTA), which connects students with teaching assistants in subjects that use it. In each case queries are classified by topic or subject, and the system manages a query queue for the consultants, teaching assistants, or faculty members who will respond. The system keeps logs, places queries at the top of the queue when they go unanswered, and provides for archives of stock answers that students or other users may peruse.

The OLXX services (as we call the set of three) were recognized as one of 101 success stories in higher-education academic computing nationally by EDUCOM last year,[11] one of perhaps a score of national and international awards MIT has received in this area. The OLXX services currently are available on Athena, and will be available for networked Macintoshes in early 1994. A Windows version is scheduled for release in Fall 1994.

# MIT-WIDE ACTIVITIES

This section outlines central academic-computing activities, especially those provided by Information Systems and by the MIT Libraries.

## INFORMATION SYSTEMS

The three academic-computing organizations within Information Systems (ACS, CSS, and DCNS) provide five layers of service:

- a network,
- a commons of basic network services,
- the Athena Computing Environment,
- public computing facilities, and
- support for users including consulting, training, and documentation.

Outside of Academic Computing budgets, Information Systems also provides

- telecommunications,
- microcomputer and network consulting,
- computer sales and service,
- help with software license terms,
- administrative and research computing support,
- computer facilities management,

and numerous other services important to education at MIT.

### Network

MITnet reaches virtually all academic buildings on campus.[12] By January 1994 it will reach all undergraduate dormitories, fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups as well. Network users (except students) pay modest flat-rate installation and monthly fees.

### Commons

Computers connected to MITnet have access to numerous services, many of which originated on Athena:

- electronic mail (mh, TECHMAIL),
- online discussion groups and bulletin boards (DISCUSS, USENET),
- instant messaging (Zephyr),
- access to library catalogs and other databases (BARTON, FIRST SEARCH, WILLOW),
- campus-wide information (TECHINFO),
- network navigation tools (GOPHER, WWW, ARCHIE, ftp, telnet),

and so on. In many cases Distributed Computing and Network Services has developed easy-to-use client software for Macintoshes and DOS/Windows personal computers, giving users Athena-like access to network services. In addition, of course, DCNS continues to develop and maintain network services and other software for Athena.

### Athena

The Athena Computing Environment provides faculty, students, and staff UNIX workstations with free access to

- highly developed versions of the Commons network services outlined above,
- courseware developed specifically for MIT subjects,
- commercial software to perform numerous tasks,
- other kinds of software,
- a common file system, so that users have the same services, files, and working environment at any Athena workstation,
- central login authentication, and
- a flexible, powerful, multitasking system with a graphical user interface that makes the whole easy to use.

Athena provides all this to about 1,000 client workstations and numerous dialup users. It does this with very few operations staff.

### Facilities

Public facilities for academic computing include

- 16 public Athena clusters with about 360 workstations open every day around the clock,
- a Macintosh cluster that doubles as a classroom (2-032),
- two additional electronic classrooms with workstations for each student (1-115 and 14-0637),
- two lecture halls equipped with instructor workstations and video projectors (6-120 and 3-190), and
- a Visitors Center equipped with diverse workstations and video projection (E40-302).

In addition, IS shares some costs with departments to provide a score of departmental Athena clusters with more than 175 Athena workstations students may use. Many departmental Athena clusters also include other computers. In addition, several departments operate non-Athena computer facilities for their students.

### Support

A computing environment of this scope and complexity requires substantial support for users. IS provides this in diverse ways:

- introductory and training sessions,
- documentation and how-to materials, and
- help desks designed especially for microcomputer users, Athena users, network users, and faculty.

The help desks work closely together, since user queries often cross departmental lines. The help desks handle walk-in, telephone, and online queries.

Use of Athena and related facilities has grown steadily over the years, as Figure 1 illustrates. This growth has continued even though facilities have expanded only marginally, and appropriations for academic computing in 1993-94 are only about half of what they were in 1989-90.

Central academic-computing resources, like other academic resources at MIT, are insufficient to satisfy all demands for them. We consider four overlapping principles when allocating resources among competing demands.

- Breadth. We try to help educate many students, especially undergraduates, rather than only a few students,
- Focus. We try to emphasize the center rather than the periphery of MIT students' educational experiences.
- Innovation. We try to support creative and innovative educational uses of technology.
- Equity. We try to reduce rather than exacerbate historical inequities in access to academic computing among departments.

The Academic Computing Council (ACC), a faculty committee appointed by the Provost and currently chaired by Professor Steven Lerman (who once was Director of Project Athena), interacts with Academic Computing Services, other IS departments involved in academic computing, and selected educational-computing research centers on general questions of policy and practice. During 1992-93, ACC comprised

- 4 faculty members from the School of Humanities and Social Science,
- 3 faculty members from the School of Engineering,
- 2 faculty members from the School of Science,
- 1 faculty member from the School of Architecture and Planning
- 1 faculty member from the School of Management,
- 3 senior staff from Information Systems,
- 1 senior staff member from the MIT Libraries, and
- 2 students.

## MIT LIBRARIES

### Visit the MIT Libraries.

The MIT Libraries provide numerous network services to faculty and students with computers. These include

- an online catalog, BARTON;
- numerous bibliographic and scholarly databases accessible within specific libraries from CD-ROM or remotely;
- a few similar databases available on the MIT network, such as MEDLINE and a set of databases available through FIRST SEARCH;
- some experimental mechanisms for retrieving and displaying full texts and images from selected documents;
- special scripts for accessing other college and university libraries from Athena workstations (and assistance for people who want to do the same from networked personal computers); and
- the innovative and integrative OWL system for reaching reference librarians.

The MIT Libraries and Information Systems collaborate closely on the design, implementation, and operation of these diverse services. In particular, they are collaborating closely to replace the aging GEAC library computer with a sophisticated, pioneering new library system of clients and servers that will exploit MIT's extensive network and widely distributed computing environment.

Arrangements for access to online databases probably will change as the new library system supplants the old. To begin exploring options, the MIT Libraries, Information Systems, and Professor Jerome Saltzer in the Laboratory for Computer Science have been collaborating on various experiments grouped under the rubric Distributed Library Initiative (DLI). These include

- an Athena-based program for searching the widely-used MEDLINE database,
- a pilot project to make the full text of LCS technical reports available online, and
- a collaboration with the Elsevier publishing conglomerate to make images of selected journals available online.

### Facilities & Staff

In addition to the aging and soon-to-be-replaced GEAC, the Libraries provides personal computers for CD-Barton and CD-ROM database searching, and for many of its staff. In addition, the Barker and Hayden libraries house full public Athena clusters. Over the past year the Libraries and Information Systems have collaborated to place an Athena workstation at each reference desk in the system, and another public Athena workstation in the reference area in many cases.

The MIT Libraries Systems Office is directed by Tom Owens under the general supervision of Greg Anderson, and employs an additional 5 EFT.

## OTHER MIT-WIDE ACADEMIC COMPUTING

MIT education not only involves central academic computing support and departmental activity, but also computing resources from several other organizations.

The MIT Supercomputer Facility (MITSF) operates a Cray X-MP supercomputer primarily for research use. With support from Cray, MITSF makes substantial supercomputer time available for faculty and students to use instructionally. In collaboration with Information Systems, MITSF has developed the TRANSPARENT COMPUTING MODEL (TCM), a mechanism whereby Athena users can run programs on the Cray using Athena-based files and retrieve results without mastering the intricacies of file transfer and remote logins.

The Undergraduate Academic Affairs Office, which oversees the logistics of General Institute Requirements and performs numerous other academic support activities, uses computers to provide many of its educational services. For example,

- the Writing Requirement and the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) both use tailored databases on personal computers to track student progress,
- both of these programs rely heavily on Athena and electronic mail to communicate with students,
- UROP posts openings in TECHINFO,
- the Residence/Orientation Week Clearinghouse uses Athena software to keep track of freshmen,
- the Math Diagnostic uses a database program to distribute timely results to freshman advisors during R/O (this fall, with a new version developed with IS's Administrative Systems Development organization),
- and Information Systems recently worked with the Dean for Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs to make on-line voting for the Undergraduate Association possible.

The Registrar does most of its business with students and faculty on paper. However, Information Systems worked closely with the Registrar over the past two years to create the STUDENT INFORMATION SERVICE (SIS). SIS permits students to see their academic records on Athena, and to request changes in their addresses and other demographic information. We expect greatly expanded use of Athena and MITnet when the Registrar's new computer system becomes operational, currently projected for the fall of 1994.

Finally, several research laboratories and centers provide computer facilities or activities that serve MIT education directly or indirectly. Chief among these are the major computer research organizations on campus, such as the Laboratory for Computer Science, the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and the Media Laboratory. Several other research groups provide additional educational support, such as the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives in the Provost's Office, the Laboratory for Advanced Technology in the Humanities in the School of Humanities and Social Science, the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems in the School of Engineering, the Center for Space Research in the School of Science, and the Computer Resource Laboratory in the School of Architecture and Planning.

# SCHOOL OVERVIEW

This section sketches some School-to-School differences in academic computing, which are not easy to discern in the following section's department-by-department outlines. It also surveys educational computing in the General Institute Requirements, and in selected other cross-cutting educational domains.

## SCHOOL SUMMARY (QUANTITATIVE)

Some simple summary statistics describing Schools and Departments provide a useful backdrop for discussion. Table 1 gives a few departmental attributes, and a few measures of academic-computing activity.

Whether subjects use computing is, of course, a basic measure. Figures 2 and 3 provide some rough, conservative, comparative data on this point.

Figure 2 shows the number of subjects in each Department that formally use Athena computers (the solid shading) or other computers (dotted shading). Figure 2 also shows what percentage the subjects using computing are of the total subjects offered by each Department. EECS has the largest number of subjects using computers, evenly divided between Athena and other departmental facilities. Media Arts & Sciences uses computers in the largest fraction of its subjects. MIT-wide, about 11% of all subjects use computers.

Figure 3 aggregates the same data by School, and organizes them as fractions of total subjects, total subjects using Athena, and total subjects using computers. Engineering accounts for over half of all subjects using computers, and an even larger fraction of all subjects using Athena, even though it accounts for only about 35% of all subjects at MIT. Conversely, Sloan's 5% or so of all MIT subjects account for 10% of all subjects using computers, but virtually no part of subjects using Athena.

The data in Table 1 and the Figures come from the MIT Planning Office, from Academic Computing Services records, from individual departments, and (in the case of subjects using non-Athena computers) from an approximate tabulation based on subject descriptions in the MIT Bulletin 1993-94.

Figures 2 and 3 are conservative because faculty need no permission or special arrangements to use Athena or other computing educationally, and subjects which use computing without asking assistance are not counted. In addition to Athena use, which is tabulated from Academic Computing Services records, Figures 2 and 3 contain estimates of non-Athena educational-computing use.

## SCHOOL SUMMARY (QUALITATIVE)

In the aggregate, the School of Engineering uses educational computing more widely than any other School. In part this stems from the importance of computers as objects of study in the School, especially in Computer Science but also in other departments. But it also reflects the School's early belief that computers could drive innovation and reform in undergraduate education. Except for EECS, which operates a large autonomous facility, a great deal of computing for education in Engineering involves Athena workstations and services.

The Schools next most active in educational computing are the School of Architecture and Planning and the Sloan School of Management. These Schools have developed much of their educational-computing practices and infrastructure somewhat autonomously. These schools have used Athena and collaborated with central organizations where convenient, but have proceeded independently for the most part. Both Schools are at crossroads, as Sloan considers how to replace and renew its aging mainframe-based facilities and as Architecture and Planning considers the dramatic incorporation of computer tools into design and planning practice.

The School of Humanities and Social Science comes next. Several of its departments use computers aggressively in education, although others do not. As was the case for Engineering, this partly reflects the School's subject matter. However, it also reflects some early antipathy to computing within the School. More controversially, many faculty within the School believe that it received less educational-computing support during Project Athena's early years than other Schools, and that this inhibited educational computing within the School. Whether or not this belief is valid, it has clearly influenced the course of educational computing in the School.

The School of Science uses computers extensively in research, and its faculty generally are comfortable and skilled with technology. Nevertheless, subjects within the School rarely use computers educationally. One explanation for this is the School's emphasis on theoretical instruction, an emphasis to which early educational-computing tools were ill suited. Another explanation is the same belief about Project Athena that inhibited educational computing within the School of Humanities and Social Science. In any case, as the School and educational computing have evolved there has been much more educational-computing activity within the School of Science recently than in the past.

Each of these School characterizations is a caricature, of course, exaggerating features and underplaying internal diversity. The remainder of this paper provides underlying detail, sketching educational computing department by department.

## ACADEMIC COMPUTING IN MIT'S CORE CURRICULUM

MIT's General Institute Requirements (GIR) begin with several specific subjects that all students must take in

- Mathematics (variations on 18.01 Calculus I and 18.02 Calculus II),
- Physics (variations on 8.01 Physics I and 8.02 Physics II),
- Chemistry (5.11 Principles of Chemical Science or 3.091 Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry), and
- Biology (variations on 7.01 Introductory Biology).

Among these,

- 3.091 Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry uses Athena courseware and communications heavily,
- 8.01 Physics I and 8.02 Physics II sometimes use MIT's cable-TV system to distribute lectures,
- 7.012 Introductory Biology uses genetic-modeling software and communications services on Athena,
- the instructors for 5.11 Principles of Chemical Science are working to make handouts available on Athena and to use other network services, and
- the versions of 8.01 Physics I and 8.02 Physics II taught in some alternative freshman programs use departmental and Athena computers for instruction.

The General Institute Requirements also include

- Required Electives in Science and Technology (REST, previously called Sci- D) and
- required distribution and concentration subjects in Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS).

Many popular subjects satisfying these requirements use computers educationally. For example, almost a fifth of the 48 subjects students currently may take to satisfy REST use Athena or other computers instructionally, and several HASS subjects do so as well.

Demand for HASS subjects often exceeds the available seats, requiring a lottery to provide fair access. This lottery has taken place separately in each subject during the first week of classes, providing a ragged start for instruction. Beginning in 1994 the HASS lottery will go online, with students stating preferences electronically, a computer program maximizing first-choice assignments, and results announced by electronic mail as each term begins. Development of the new network-based HASS system is a collaborative venture among the Dean for Undergraduate Education, the Dean of Humanities and Social Science, and several groups within Information Systems, with support from various Information Systems budgets.

The final pieces of the GIR are a laboratory requirement and competency requirements in Physical Education and Writing. Since much modern laboratory work involves computers, so do many Laboratory Requirement subjects. Students who do not satisfy the Writing Requirement by examination often enroll in Writing subjects. Many of these use Athena facilities, especially the NETWORKED EDUCATIONAL ONLINE SYSTEM (described below in the section on Writing and Humanistic Studies).

## ELSEWHERE ON THE ACADEMIC LANDSCAPE

### Special Programs

MIT operates three programs which restructure the freshman year for their participants in various ways.

- Experimental Studies Group (ESG), the oldest of the three, operates a small computer cluster including a few Athena workstations, some personal computers, and an array of special equipment and software. ESG has become very interested in the problems blind students face at MIT, and has been preparing to test its thinking when an appropriate candidate enters the program.
- Concourse uses Athena and other computers for some instruction, especially in Physics.
- Integrated Studies Program (ISP) is closely linked to ECSEL, in the School of Engineering, and uses many of the computer materials developed there.

In addition, the Office of Minority Education operates a tutoring facility for any MIT student who might benefit. The tutoring program's attractive facility in Building 12 includes two Athena workstations, a workstation for 6.001, and a few personal computers.

### Health Sciences & Technology

A few subjects in this joint program between MIT and Harvard use courseware or analytic tools on Athena. For example,

- HST.090 Cardiological Pathology uses software that simulates cardiac functions plus MATLAB, LISP, and OLTA, and
- HST.583 Advanced Methods of Image Analysis for Medical Applications uses MATLAB and image-processing software called KHOROS.

HST students also use HODGKIN-HUXLEY, described below under EECS.

HST graduate students spend a great deal of their time doing clinical rotations and taking classes at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. At one time Project Athena operated two Athena workstations remotely at HMS. The Department has asked us to re-institute this service, and its technical feasibility and cost are currently under study.

Beyond workstations at HMS, HST operates a small cluster of Athena workstations and a separate facility where students may do coursework on several Macintoshes in building E25.

### Outreach

The Council on Primary and Secondary Education (CPSE) promotes and coordinates a wide range of activities whereby MIT works with teachers, students, and school systems to improve K-12 education. In several instances we have worked with CPSE to provide Athena accounts and Internet access for specific groups of teachers and students. We also have helped CPSE to design more ambitious ways to use the Internet for educational improvement, for example by linking groups of students and teachers to experts and mentors in government, industry, and higher education. Unfortunately, CPSE has yet to secure funding for these Internet initiatives.

In addition, Information Systems provides Athena access directly to summer programs for high-school students at MIT, such as the Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) and the Research Science Institute (RSI).

# TODOR & GROWLTIGER

In Project Athena's heyday there were few commercial software solutions to MIT's instructional problems. Faculty members who wanted to use Athena for instruction developed software ad hoc, with grants and other support from Project Athena. One major courseware project was a collection of simulation and analysis programs called TÓDOR. These programs permitted Aero/Astro students to simulate everything from flow across airfoils to orbital decay, using the computational power of Athena workstations to permit what-if "experiments" otherwise requiring wind-tunnel time or NASA involvement.

Today Aero/Astro students continue to use TÓDOR in class and outside, as the instructional changes it wrought have become instructional staples. But it has had other effects as well. Other departments soon recognized that fluid flows were fluid flows, for example, so that TÓDOR found users in Ocean Engineering and elsewhere. The project's principal investigator, Professor Earll Murman, went on to head Project Athena for some years, and then to become department Head - a dramatic counterexample to the myth that only peripheral faculty get involved with instructional computing, and only at risk to their careers. TÓDOR won a prestigious national EDUCOM Software Award. And how to use computers effectively figures more prominently in Aero/Astro's curriculum deliberations than it might have had TÓDOR not been so successful.

Similarly, courseware called GROWLTIGER gave students in Civil Engineering the tools to translate design and material attributes into computer-simulated bridges and other structures, and then to see how the simulated structures reacted to various loads and stresses. Before long this software was used in a few other departments as well (more on this under "Mechanical Engineering", below).

Yet two forces make success transitory for courseware like this.

- First, courseware generally arises to serve a specific instructional need. How it does so depends on the instructional context, which includes both the state of knowledge in the relevant field and the faculty member(s) who use the courseware. When either of these changes, the courseware's relevance changes, usually for the worse, and eventually it becomes "the courseware that Professor Doe used to use."
- Second, courseware authors usually work in a specific hardware and software environment. As hardware and software evolve, courseware often requires maintenance and revision. This usually is expensive. If the resources to maintain courseware aren't available, then the accessibility and functionality of the courseware decline.

The two forces work synergistically - it's difficult to find resources to maintain software that is becoming irrelevant, and ill-maintained software is more likely to become irrelevant.

Today the cost of developing and maintaining courseware like TÓDOR and GROWLTIGER is prohibitive within MIT, and in most other colleges and universities. In some cases we invest in revamping existing courseware, as ACS recently has done with GROWLTIGER. In other cases departments or individual faculty keep software up to date, but these have been exceptions rather than the rule. We rely increasingly on commercial software, more widely available for our environment than it once was, and on authoring systems that permit faculty to develop certain highly specific kinds of instructional software easily and portably.

# SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

The School of Engineering is MIT's largest, in terms of departments, faculty, majors, subjects offered, core budgets - any measure one can imagine. The earliest plans for what became Project Athena arose from the School of Engineering, and the School was a major actor in the experiment's eight years. Professor Gerald Wilson, Dean of the School of Engineering during Project Athena, chaired Project Athena's faculty Executive Committee from the outset.

## 1 CIVIL & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

### Subjects

Subjects in Civil Engineering use computing in several distinct ways, with some overlap: programming, modeling and simulation, data analysis, design, and communication. For example,

- 1.00 Introduction to Computers and Engineering Problem Solving, which introduces C programming, uses C compilers and debuggers, In addition, 1.00 uses the MIT-developed, Athena-based, and award-winning NETWORKED EDUCATIONAL ONLINE SYSTEM (NEOS) for collecting and redistributing assignments.
- 1.38 Engineering Geology uses courseware called GEOLOGY TUTOR to teach students the fundamentals of geology. This multimedia courseware, developed with a Project Athena curriculum-development grant, uses the MUSE authoring language from the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI) on Sun workstations provided by Academic Computing Services. It provides text, still pictures, tools for highlighting geological features in pictures, workbook exercises, and quizzes.
- 1.12 Computer Models of Physical Engineering Systems uses MATLAB.
- 1.552 Computer Aided Engineering II helps students build computer-aided design (CAD) applications.
- 1.211J A Workshop on Geographic Information Systems, taught jointly with Urban Studies, uses ARCINFO and similar GIS applications to analyze and display location-specific data.

Professor Steven Lerman chairs the faculty Academic Computing Council.

### Facilities & Staff

Civil Engineering operates several somewhat autonomous educational-computing facilities, each involving some Athena equipment and some non-Athena equipment.

In the Parsons Laboratory, a small room houses five Athena workstations, a few other UNIX workstations, and a few personal computers. There are five additional Athena workstations in smaller facilities available to students, and several Athena workstations on faculty desks.

In Building 1, where the rest of Civil Engineering is located, there is one room housing four Athena workstations for 1.00 teaching assistants, and several smaller rooms with about four more. In addition, these rooms house several non-Athena workstations, including the two Sun workstations Athena provided to Professor Einstein so that he could continue working with GEOLOGY TUTOR. The Transportation Laboratory operates a cluster of DOS/WINDOWS machines and Macintoshes. Several additional Athena workstations are on faculty desks.

Historically Civil Engineering has employed a part-time staff member to oversee its computer facilities in the main buildings, and the Parsons Lab has staffed facilities located there. Teaching assistants provide additional support, especially in the large 1.00 programming subject.

## 2 MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

### Subjects

Many subjects in Mechanical Engineering use MAPLE, MATLAB, and other mathematical and analytic programs available on Athena. Some of this is formal, in that students receive direct instruction from in-class demonstrations or teaching assistants. Much of it is student-originated and informal. Some other subjects in Mechanical Engineering use more specific courseware developed for them. A subset of these were developed through Project Athena curriculum-development grants. The rest were developed using newer, simpler authoring tools.

2.01 Mechanics of Solids illustrates both kinds of ad hoc courseware. Initially 2.01 was an interesting example of cross-department sharing, as GROWLTIGER expanded from its original base in Civil Engineering to 2.01. More recently, 2.01 faculty began using a wider range of Athena services, including the XESS spreadsheet for calculations and OLTA for communications between students and teaching staff. Professor Louis Bucciarelli made some handouts available on Athena, including graphs and drawings. Soon he began using cT, an authoring language developed at Carnegie-Mellon University, to enhance online problem-set solutions by making the solutions interactive and portable (since cT-based materials run identically on Athena and on most Macintosh and DOS/WINDOWS personal computers).

Professor Bucciarelli has developed cT materials that provide a limited subset of GROWLTIGER's functionality. The striking difference is that GROWLTIGER required several person-years of faculty and programmer time (a level of expenditure neither Academic Computing Services nor academic departments currently can afford), whereas the cT-based subset required several weeks of Professor Bucciarelli's time (with substantial help at the outset from Academic Computing Services staff).

A very different use of computer tools in Mechanical Engineering involves ADINA and NEKTON, programs for finite-element and other mathematical analysis. Both programs are powerful, but learning to use them from scratch can be daunting. Moreover, ADINA and NEKTON run on the MITSF Cray X-MP, so that users must not only learn how to use the programs but also how to navigate between Athena and the Cray. Rather than require this of students, Professor Anthony Patera and his colleagues in 2.274 Computational Fluid Dynamics developed a set of templates to mediate between students and the Cray programs. Students could use Athena to specify parameters and observe results in terms familiar from lectures and texts, with calculations carried out efficiently on the Cray in the background.

Professor Patera, who served on the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing in 1989-90 and who is also co-Director of MITSF, is active in an Institute-wide effort to explore options for advanced visualization and multimedia. Some Athena facilities are being used for this exploration.

Beyond these examples, about 20 other Mechanical Engineering subjects use Athena courseware and tool applications to teach topics including

- systems dynamics, design, and control;
- fluid dynamics and materials behavior;
- thermodynamics and heat transfer; and
- design for manufacturing.

### Facilities & Staff

Mechanical Engineering has two substantial Athena departmental clusters available to students, and one smaller cluster. In one of the larger Mechanical Engineering clusters the department plans to add DOS personal computers, since a faculty member wishes to use them for instruction. The DOS machines will replace obsolete Athena workstations long used by Professor William Durfee.

This illustrates one of the dilemmas both Academic Computing Services and departments face: What lifetime should we assume for computers? How should we make replacement decisions, given the sometimes transitory nature of faculty commitment and instructional preferences?

Mechanical Engineering employs a half-time professional to manage its computer facilities and to assist faculty with technical implementation. The professional involved, Steve Ellis, works for Aeronautics and Astronautics in a similar capacity. He also works for Academic Computing Services providing technical support for certain mathematical applications and libraries and for most FORTRAN work on Athena. Having one individual serve all these different functions creates interesting and productive links across departmental lines.

## 3 MATERIALS SCIENCE & ENGINEERING

### Subjects

One member of the Materials Science and Engineering faculty, Professor Augustus Witt, long has used Athena to promote communication among his students and teaching assistants, to make handouts and other curriculum materials available, and to provide some simple analytic and modeling tools for students to use. There has been little use of Athena or other educational computing outside 3.091 Introduction to Solid-State Chemistry (Professor Witt's subject), 3.13 Structure of Materials, and 3.185 Transport Phenomena in Materials Engineering.

Until recently, that is. Several members of the Department, including Professor Gerbrand Ceder, Professor Kirk Kolenbrander, Dr. David Ragone, and several other members of the Department's instructional faculty, began thinking in an organized way about educational computing. Their discussions led to several proposals for curricular innovation and change. The curricular proposals integrated various computer tools into teaching, especially molecular modeling and various analytic procedures. Some of these would work effectively on Athena; others won't.

The group first secured departmental approval of its plans, and then the financial backing of the department Head, Professor Merton Flemings, for some computer facilities. They approached Academic Computing Services, seeking collaboration and an Athena base for much of the work. Academic Computing Services agreed to provide equipment for a small Athena cluster in the department the fall of 1993.

Professor Bernhardt Wuensch served on the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

### Facilities & Staff

When we finish deploying Athena equipment to Materials Science, the new cluster will have four workstations and a printer. In addition, the Department is seeking additional workstations with different capabilities for the cluster, which should double the total number of workstations. A few personal computers will complete the facility.

Materials Science & Engineering plans to hire a part-time professional (or perhaps a graduate student) to manage its educational-computing facility and to support faculty using it.

## 6 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING & COMPUTER SCIENCE (EECS)

EECS is the largest department at MIT, with about a third of all undergraduates and a tenth of all faculty. This alone would make its use of educational computing complex and important. "Educational computing" in EECS means not only using computers as educational medium, but also as subject matter. These needs require somewhat different facilities. This makes the complexity and scope of EECS educational computing greater than that of other departments. EECS is highly integrated with several large research laboratories whose research facilities also serve education, including the Laboratory for Computer Science and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

### Subjects

Computing-as-subject-matter dominates educational use of computers in EECS. Among subjects, the largest using educational computing in EECS, and probably in the Institute, is the innovative and pioneering 6.001 Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs developed by Professor Gerald Sussman and Professor Harold Abelson. Students use SCHEME, primarily in the subject's own computer clusters (although there is some Athena use), to understand guiding principles of programming. The Department views this understanding as fundamental to all electrical engineering and computer science. Almost half of MIT undergraduates take 6.001 at some point.

About 40 other EECS subjects make explicit use of Athena computing. Some, such as 6.021J Quantitative Physiology, use courseware developed at MIT (in this case the HODGKIN-HUXLEY software developed by Professor Thomas Weiss, which is an excellent example of computing as the medium of instruction, and won a national EDUCOM Software Award). Others use analytic tools such as MATLAB. Many of these subjects also use OLTA, course lockers, and other central network facilities. 6.013 Electromagnetic Fields and Energy has begun using cT in addition to MAPLE.

Professor James Bruce, Professor Michael Dertouzos, and Professor Weiss all served on the faculty committee that reviewed MIT academic computing in 1989-90. Professors Bruce and Dertouzos, along with many other faculty members, also participated actively in the series of committees and other groups that created Project Athena. Professor Harold Abelson and Professor Weiss are members of the faculty Academic Computing Council.

### Facilities & Staff

6.001 has its own clusters of Hewlett-Packard computers in building 38, about 44 workstations and 3 printers in all (with some currently awaiting replacement). The department has about 40 Athena workstations available for students in four major clusters and a few other locations. Many of the Athena workstations share cluster space with a large number of Hewlett-Packard workstations provided by the Department centrally for subjects other than 6.001. There a few other clusters of non-Athena workstations as well.

EECS employs a Director of Departmental Computing, Ed Moriarty, who also has been very active in various efforts to use computing in Science core subjects and to develop general, high-powered authoring tools for Athena. Moriarty manages the central EECS public computing facilities, including its local-area networks and servers but not the 6.001 labs or some faculty-managed facilities. A staff of 2 professionals and some student assistants works with Moriarty on facilities management, and on logistical support to EECS faculty. Additional staff support the 6.001 labs.

## 10 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

###

### Subjects

Several Chemical Engineering subjects use general-purpose analytic tools available on Athena, such as MATLAB, MAPLE, and SAS. Among these are

- 10.37 Chemical Kinetics and Reactor Design,
- 10.71J Air Pollution Control,
- 10.28J Multivariable Control Systems I, and
- 10.940J Seminar on Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry Management.

In addition, some subjects use tools more specific to chemical engineering, such as

- CHEMKIN and MOPAC for studying chemical reactions in 10.985 Seminar in Combustion Chemistry and
- ASPEN for studying polluted ground-water propagation in 10.491 Integrated Chemical Engineering III.

Chemical engineering increasingly requires students to understand the intricacies of molecular structure, especially for complex organic chemicals and other substances important in biotechnology. This calls for sophisticated simulation and visualization software. The department has been investing in equipment suitable for this software, especially Silicon Graphics workstations. It has been evaluating software and experimenting with ways to use Athena for these purposes (which may include upgrading IBM workstations that Academic Computing Services provides).

In addition to these computing-as-medium educational applications, Chemical Engineering teaches the large, popular 10.001 Introduction to Computer Methods. This C programming subject competes with 1.00 and 6.001 for students who want to learn some programming. 10.001 uses Athena extensively.

Professor Herbert Sawin (who also holds an appointment in EECS) served as a member of the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

### Facilities & Staff

A major public Athena cluster occupies part of the basement in Chemical Engineering's building. In addition, the department operates a cluster with six Athena workstations and several Silicon Graphics and other workstations. How this cluster will grow, and whether it will evolve toward more or less Athena equipment, depends on the eventual compatibility between Athena equipment choices and the department's current explorations of visualization software.

The department employs a staff member to manage its Athena and non-Athena cluster and the computers distributed among faculty offices. Professor Gregory Rutledge takes special responsibility for computing in the Department.

## 13 OCEAN ENGINEERING

### Subjects

Ocean Engineering uses Athena in about 15 subjects, including two freshman seminars. As is the case in many other departments, some Athena use involves courseware, and some involves basic mathematical tools. The focus of Athena use follows the department's curriculum, balancing basic hydrodynamics and ocean science with ship design.

In addition to Athena facilities, the department operates several other workstations on which students can use software that will not run on Athena.

In an especially visible example of how research, service, and education overlap, Professor Jerome Milgram got involved in the hull design for the successful AMERICA3 effort to secure the America's Cup for the United States, California, San Diego, and Dennis Connor (not necessarily in that order, of course).

Ken Olsen, an avid sailor, loyal alumnus of the Institute, and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, agreed to donate a Digital VAX- 9000 superminicomputer to MIT for the hull-design effort. Information Systems agreed to operate and maintain that machine (known as Patriot) within the academic-computing budget. Ocean Engineering used Patriot, and AMERICA3 won.[13]

### Facilities & Staff

Ocean Engineering locates most of its student-usable equipment in one large and one small cluster across the hall from one another. Together, the clusters contain about seven Athena workstations with a printer, plus a similar number of non-Athena workstations provided by the department.

There is also a cluster of Athena workstations at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), where many Ocean Engineering faculty and students spend time. The WHOI workstations are separately financed and managed.

The department employs a graduate student part time to oversee its computer facilities and to assist faculty with non-Athena software.

## 16 AERONAUTICS & ASTRONAUTICS

### Subjects

Aero/Astro was among the first departments to develop a large, crosscutting software suite for use across its subjects. With major support from Project Athena curriculum-development grants and departmental funds, a group of faculty members, graduate students, and programmers led by Professor Earll Murman (who would eventually head both Athena and his department, and who served as a member of the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing in 1989-90) spent well over four years developing TÓDOR. This is collection of about 40 programs designed to do calculations and display simulations of aeronautical and astronautical phenomena including rocket re-entry and airfoil design. TÓDOR programs have consistent interfaces, provide numerous opportunities for simulated measurements such as might be undertaken in wind tunnels, and branch from a unifying front-end program.

TÓDOR has been very successful, permitting students to test a range of hypotheses that otherwise would have required wind-tunnel time or NASA support. The collection of programs won a national EDUCOM Software Award, and was the fertile spawning ground for many of Athena's most successful developers and faculty liaisons. Some programs in the TÓDOR suite were used in subjects outside Aero/Astro, especially to help students understand fluid flows.

Aero/Astro continues to use Athena extensively in subjects, yet TÓDOR is little used today. A partial explanation for this is commercial progress:

- simulations and analyses that once required ad hoc development à la TÓDOR can sometimes be carried out using standard analytic packages such as MATLAB and MAPLE, which are widely available on Athena.

But two additional explanations are less benign, as was the case for Civil Engineering and GROWLTIGER.

- The faculty members who brought TÓDOR into Aero/Astro subjects moved on (in this case, to the administration rather than the competition), and the new instructors sometimes chose to teach otherwise.
- As Athena moved on to new versions of UNIX and to new hardware, specific features of TÓDOR's programs (especially those involving displays) needed to be changed, which required programming time that neither Aero/Astro nor Academic Computing Services could supply.

### Facilities & Staff

Aero/Astro operates one Athena cluster with about ten workstations for student use, a pair of workstations for teaching assistants, and several workstations in faculty offices. The department also has non-Athena workstations, and uses Macintoshes extensively in research.

Steve Ellis, a research engineer, divides his time between coordinating departmental computing in Aero/Astro, doing the same in Mechanical Engineering, and providing expertise on mathematical software and FORTRAN to Academic Computing Services.

## 22 NUCLEAR ENGINEERING

### Subjects

Nuclear Engineering subjects use computers primarily as analytic tools. Students run mathematical applications such as MATLAB and write some programs in C and FORTRAN in, for example, 22.113 Nuclear and Atomic Collision Phenomena and 22.562 Advanced Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Seminar. At least one subject, 22.312 Engineering of Nuclear Reactors, uses more specific courseware.

### Facilities

Nuclear Engineering is housed in two separate locations, Building 24 and the MIT Reactor. Each location has a small, 5-workstation Athena cluster for student use. In addition, there are about six Athena workstations and a large number of DOS machines on faculty desks.

Nuclear Engineering operates its workstations without customization, and relies entirely on Athena staff for maintenance and operational oversight.

## ECSEL

The Engineering Coalition of Schools for Excellence in Education and Leadership (ECSEL) comprises seven colleges and universities that have joined together, with National Science Foundation funding, to explore ways of attracting and retaining more students in engineering. Some of ECSEL's work involves developing modules that can be used in different engineering and pre-engineering subjects at different colleges and universities. Some of these involve educational computing.

At MIT, for example, ECSEL helped

- Professor David Gordon Wilson and his colleagues to continue developing EDICS, a multimedia repository of basic mechanical-engineering data,
- Professor Einstein to continue developing GEOLOGY TUTOR,
- Professor Bucciarelli to continue developing materials for Mechanical Engineering and ISP subjects using cT,

and several other faculty to make similar progress.

# ROOM 2-032

Ever since Project Athena chose to emphasize UNIX workstations there has been a vocal and active group of faculty who preferred to use Macintoshes educationally, and a less vocal but perhaps larger group of faculty who preferred to use DOS machines. These individuals managed to develop facilities of their own, in some cases with grants and in other cases through their departments. MIT provided them little central support.

A few years ago Apple Computer donated several Macintosh computers to Project Athena as development platforms for a Macintosh-based Athena. The development project didn't work out, after about two years of development work (the Macs of that day weren't really powerful enough, and there were profound difference between Apple's and Athena's facility for login and access control), but the computers were here. We installed them in a small cluster for class use. As use of that facility grew, we began to reconsider public Macintosh facilities.

One major obstacle was the susceptibility of these machines to corruption. This problem has led other universities either to restrict or to staff their Macintosh facilities - neither being a promising solution for us, since we provide essentially unrestricted public facilities without staffing them. (This is one reason we can offer so much more academic computing to MIT faculty and students than other research universities offer to theirs, without spending more than they do.)

Working with others in IS, we identified software and developed operating procedures that would permit us to have an unattended, public Macintosh cluster. Productive collaboration ensued: the School of Science generously provided space for the Macintosh cluster, CRSP renovated it, and Information Systems bought furniture and new computers and other equipment. The result is 2-032, a well-equipped, networked Macintosh cluster available for scheduled classes or for public use by students.

Users of this new facility have included

- several freshman seminars,
- a few astronomy subjects in Earth and Planetary Science,
- some Biology subjects,
- some Physics classes in alternative freshman programs,

and assorted other classes. Within about a year the facility has gone from unknown to scarce resource. If the facility continues to prove manageable under load, then we may provide more Macintosh facilities in the future.

The upcoming completion of RESNET, which will provide network connections for dormitory residents and for fraternities and other independent living groups, will affect the need for Macintosh and DOS/WINDOWS facilities as well. We have begun to talk about other kinds of specialized facilities, ranging from public workspaces where faculty and students can plug in portable computers, to clusters with personal computers, to facilities with special computational, display, input, or interactive capabilities.

# SCHOOL OF SCIENCE

The School of Science is MIT's second largest by most measures. Although Science majors constitute about a fifth of undergraduate majors at MIT, the School teaches most of the Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology requirements that can occupy of an MIT undergraduate's first year. MIT's rapid climb to prominence among technological institutions of higher education is largely traceable to the Institute's judgment that superior engineering practice depends upon rigorous scientific preparation, a judgment that took form during the Karl Taylor Compton's presidency and resolved itself into curriculum following the Lewis Committee's report in 1949.[14]

## 5 CHEMISTRY

###

### Subjects

Graduate students in Chemistry use several applications on Silicon Graphics workstations. In addition, 5.33 Advanced Chemical Instrumentation uses several programs to analyze data and output results. We have worked with the Department to make Chemistry subject handouts available on line. The first major outcome of this collaboration will come when Professor Alan Davison and his colleagues teaching 5.11 Principles of Chemical Science begin using online handouts and other network services in the spring of 1994. The availability of FRAMEMAKER on Athena may finally spur this kind of activity during 1993-94.

Professor Jeffrey Steinfeld served on the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

### Facilities

Chemistry operates a cluster of Silicon Graphics workstations primarily for graduate-student use, running several pieces of software to analyze molecules and reactions. It also has one Athena workstation located near its teaching-assistant offices.

## 7 BIOLOGY

### Subjects

Biology has used very little computing in its subjects historically, except for some limited use in

- 7.73 Human and Mouse Genetics,
- some network communications in 7.23 General Immunology, and
- some use of SAS in 7.89J Seminar on Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry Management.

Professor Sheldon Penman has long explored ways to use Athena and other computing in his subjects, and campaigned tirelessly for widespread access to voluminous databases such as MEDLINE. Although he has identified some promising opportunities to use multimedia materials, these have not resulted in curricular applications as yet.

Last year a Biology freshman seminar used TIERRA, which simulates various genetic and evolutionary processes, and some other applications on Athena and Macintoshes. We have been working with the same instructor, Dr. Brian White, to help him use TIERRA and other courseware and to distribute class handouts in 7.012 Introductory Biology, one version of the new General Institute Requirement in biology.

Finally, Professor Vernon Ingram has used prize-winning Macintosh software called BIOQUEST to teach both in the Experimental Studies Group and in Biology proper,

Biology does not operate any Athena or other computing facilities for students. White has an Athena workstation, and also uses our Macintosh cluster.

## 8 PHYSICS

### Subjects

Professor Walter Lewin videotapes his lectures in 8.01 Physics I and 8.02 Physics II, and then broadcasts them on MIT Cable TV so that students may review material they missed.

Physics subjects informally use mathematical programs and communications tools on Athena. Some software has been developed for 8.284 Modern Astrophysics, but it has not yet seen much use. Physics instructors in several of the alternative freshman programs use computers in some of their teaching, especially in the Macintosh classroom.

Professor Edmund Bertschinger is a member of the faculty Academic Computing Council.

Physics does not have departmental computer facilities for undergraduate use.

## 9 BRAIN & COGNITIVE SCIENCE

### Subjects

Several subjects in Brain & Cognitive Science use Athena programs to analyze or simulate neural nets, including

- 9.39 Computational Laboratory in Cognitive Science,
- 9.62J Introduction to Cognitive Science, and
- 9.641 Connectionist Models of Cognitive Processes.

In addition,

- 9.S12 Motor Learning in Humans and Robots and 9.37 Computational Approaches to Motor Control encourage students to write programs on Athena simulating control processes.

### Facilities

Brain & Cognitive Science operates a small Athena cluster for student use, with six workstations.

## 12 EARTH & PLANETARY SCIENCE (EAPS)

### Subjects

EAPS subjects use both Athena and Macintosh facilities. 12.603 Solar System Dynamics uses courseware on Athena. 12.412 Advanced Astronomical Techniques, 12.400 The Solar System, and 12.410 Observational Techniques of Optical Astronomy use IMAGE REDUCTION AND ANALYSIS FACILITY (IRAF) software on Athena. Professor James Elliot has long been a proponent of sophisticated mathematical tools such as MAPLE and especially MATHEMATICA (which is an interesting and problematic case for us: software that is very powerful and popular, but too much more expensive than its competitors for us to have chosen it as our basic mathematical package). He served on the faculty committee that reviewed MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

### Facilities & Staff

Earth & Planetary Science operates a departmental computer facility with six Athena workstations, other UNIX workstations, and Macintoshes. Steve McDonald coordinates departmental computing for EAPS.

## 18 MATHEMATICS

### Subjects

Several subjects in Mathematics use Athena. Three of these serve many students in other majors: 18.03 Differential Equations, 18.04 Complex Variables with Applications, and 18.06 Linear Algebra.

- 18.04 uses specific tools to do graphical analysis of complex functions.
- 18.06 uses MATLAB.
- 18.440 Probability and Random Variables and 18.443 Statistics for Applications use SAS and other statistical software available on Athena.
- 18.330 Introduction to Numerical Analysis uses the NUMERICAL RECIPES set of subroutines.

The evolution of Athena use in 18.03 is interesting. This was one of the first subjects to use the LECTURE AUTHORING SYSTEM (LAS), Athena's first effort to create an authoring tool for faculty. Based on the LAS experience, Edward Moriarty from EECS (who had worked on LAS), John Haass from Mathematics, and several colleagues began developing a more general and easy-to-use COURSEWARE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM (CDS). Developing CDS required more time and resources than were available, and it never reached a fully usable state. Meanwhile, the 18.03 teaching materials needed updating. Rather than stretch to maintain the now-obsolete LAS/CDS foundation, we worked with the faculty involved to re-develop the 18.03 materials using cT, the same software Professor Bucciarelli uses in 2.01. This proved efficient and successful.

Professor David Jerison serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

### Facilities

Mathematics operates a cluster of Sun workstations primarily for research, but undergraduate and graduate students also use them occasionally.

# 4.203 AND AUTOCAD

Professor William Mitchell, the new Dean of Architecture and Planning, believes strongly that students must work with the technological tools of their trades while they are here. One of his faculty members, Dr. Earl Mark (now at the University of Virginia), wanted to incorporate very substantial use of AUTOCAD, a commercial drawing and design software package, and some ray-tracing software into 4.203 Computers and Architecture. The Dean asked us to help out. The School has substantial computing facilities of its own, and some that we have helped support, but they were insufficient for what Mark had in mind.

We were evaluating AUTOCAD against other CAD programs for possible inclusion in our software library when Mark approached us mid-summer in 1992. Since his needs were focused and pressing, and since we thought AUTOCAD would work well on Athena, we decided to buy a limited number of licenses and let his students use them for that fall. We negotiated a reasonable price with the vendor and moved forward.

But AUTOCAD really needs color workstations to work well. Our electronic classroom in 1- 115 only had monochrome workstations, and so we also did a quick (but costly) switch and put color workstations into 1-115 primarily for Mark's use. Then we moved customers around - especially the Lowell Institute - to give Mark the large number of recitation slots he needed.

As the fall got underway it became clear that AUTOCAD didn't work perfectly on Athena, and that the problems were difficult to identify. One of my professional staff ended up spending almost a quarter of her time debugging AUTOCAD and providing other assistance to 4.203 - a much larger level of support than we usually provide any single subject. Moreover, it turned out that students needed filespace allocations much larger than usual to use AUTOCAD effectively, and this consumed additional resources that we might have been distributed more broadly.

But Mark had transformed the way his subject was taught, helping students to use technology routinely and to understand their profession better. This is precisely the kind of educational outcome Athena seeks. Mark had gone beyond AUTOCAD to use numerous other services on Athena, such as ON LINE TEACHING ASSISTANT (OLTA) and online handouts and assignments (most of which included graphics). He had helped us to understand what it would mean to provide Athena-wide AUTOCAD, from both a service and a resource perspective. And in the end he had been extremely appreciative, letting both us and his Dean know that he valued the services we had provided.

# SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE & PLANNING

In the summer of 1993 the Provost, the Dean of Architecture and Planning, and the Dean of Humanities and Social Science arranged for almost every member of the faculty in these two Schools to receive a laptop computer with a modem. In the School of Architecture and Planning, faculty were offered a Macintosh PowerBook computer. About 50 faculty accepted the offer. Many faculty who accepted this offer already had computers of various sorts, but for some this provided a first opportunity for extensive personal computing and computer-based communication.

###

### Shared Facilities & Staff

The School of Architecture and Planning operates a shared computer facility called the Computer Resource Laboratory (CRL). The CRL has Athena workstations, other workstations, and an array of Macintosh and DOS/WINDOWS personal computers in two flexible spaces known as the Garden and the Workshop. CRL emphasizes experimentation and interpretability. Many of its machines have special peripherals and software to give them special data-processing and communications capability. In keeping with the School's curricular foci, much of CRL's work emphasizes the spatial representation of data, whether those data are structural or geographic.

Since CRL develops and tailors much of the hardware, software, and data it uses, it employs a highly specialized staff. A faculty member, Professor Joseph Ferreira, devotes much of his time to managing CRL, working closely with Robert Smyser and Philip Thompson.

## 4 ARCHITECTURE

###

### Subjects

In addition to educating Architecture faculty and Academic Computing Services staff, 4.203 Computers and Architecture I has spawned additional use of drawing and design software, some of which is highly intensive computationally. Another Architecture subject, 4.401 Introduction to Building Technology, uses Athena's sharing technology to enable students and instructors to comment on each other's work-in-progress. One obstacle to further Athena use in 4.401 has been the lack of a workstation for its instructor to use in his office, which illustrates the central and departmental complexity of faculty workstation allocations. Beyond these subjects, the only major use of Athena for instruction has been the use of LUCID LISP in two identically named artificial-intelligence subjects, 4.835 and 4.933 The Art of Artificial Intelligence Programming.

Dean Mitchell has argued strongly that computers, and especially computer-based drafting and design tools, are fundamental to the modern practice of architecture. Therefore, they must become a fundamental part of the Department's curriculum. To advance this end, Mitchell has proposed a STUDIO OF THE FUTURE based on a highly integrated, networked yet portable architectural work station. The Dean has begun efforts to secure resources and renovate space in accordance with his ideas, with some early success. We have begun to work with him on how the Department's undertakings should interact with ours.

## 11 URBAN STUDIES & PLANNING

### Subjects

Urban Studies has long emphasized the use of geographically-organized data as the foundation of good planning. Its faculty have used computers extensively to do data analysis for their research. Initially this work involved relatively standard statistical programs feeding relatively standard graphical-display programs. In recent years these two functions have been combined into new Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Two examples are

- MIT MAPPER, which the Department developed for Athena, and
- ARCINFO, a commercial program now available on Athena and on the Department's computers in CRL.

These geographic information systems both figure prominently in 11.502J A Workshop on Geographic Information Systems and in other GIS-related subjects in Course XI.

In addition to subjects involving GIS or statistical software, Professor Donald Schön teaches 11.101J Learning to Design and Designs for Learning with Professor Bamberger from the Humanities Music Section. This subject explores the interplay between, among other things, diverse technologies and the origins of design knowledge.

Professor Joseph Ferreira serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

## MEDIA ARTS AND SCIENCES

### Subjects

This rather new program does not have undergraduate majors per se. It draws heavily on the technical and intellectual resources of the Media Laboratory for its graduate program and undergraduate subjects. Given the Media Lab's facilities, which are unmatched pretty much anywhere in the world, the modest use of Athena and other central computer facilities in Media Arts subjects is no surprise. All but one of the approximately 20 undergraduate subjects in Media Arts use technology educationally to some degree.

Professor Edith Ackermann served on the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

# MANAGEMENT FINANCE

This past spring a group of faculty in the Sloan School concluded that students in finance needed better exposure to the real world of financial transactions. Today this world - a world many of us know only from fictional renditions such as Bonfire of the Vanities - depends on time-critical electronic transactions following quick decisions based on intensely concentrated electronic news and information about markets, exchange rates, banking activity, and commerce. Exposing students to this world means either taking them to it, or bringing it here. The faculty group decided to try the latter: to build a simulated trading floor at MIT.

A trading floor requires

- a constant stream of information flowing in,
- computers to process, store, and retrieve that information,
- displays to make it readily accessible to traders, and
- worldwide communications to execute deals.

Much of the data and software involved is proprietary and expensive. The data flows - especially the inbound data flows - require dedicated, high-speed satellite and network connections. And the computers involved must be quite sophisticated, and extremely reliable.

Sloan is seeking hardware and software grants from vendors who equip "real" trading floors. Dr. Patricia McGinnis, who directs the International Financial Services Center in Sloan, approached us about possible connections between the proposed trading floor and Athena. After several discussions, it became clear that there were ways that MITnet, rather than Athena, might serve the trading floor, both for interconnecting machines and for bringing data in and out. In some cases more direct connections to data suppliers might require Telecommunications involvement. Some of the data collected for the trading floor might also be useful to others at MIT, and therefore the trading floor's file servers might be made more widely accessible than the trading floor itself.

We were able to provide McGinnis and Professor Robert McKersie some advice on these technological questions, and on the type and number of staff that an educational trading floor might require. Ultimately, however, it became clear to Sloan and to Academic Computing Services that the trading floor need have no integral connection to Athena. Rather, it should operate autonomously on MITnet, with special links to important data or communications where necessary.

MIT's flexible, entrepreneurial computing environment encourages educational interchanges like this: explorations of possible overlap between central and departmental efforts, with friendly autonomy a perfectly acceptable outcome.

# SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT

At about the same time other Schools were planning Project Athena, the Sloan School of Management worked out an arrangement with IBM whereby the School would receive an IBM mainframe and an assortment of other equipment. This equipment would permit faculty to analyze the large transaction databases central to much management research, and to help students learn to do the same.

Over the succeeding decade DOS/WINDOWS and Macintosh personal computers and some UNIX workstations have joined the IBM mainframe, creating a more functional and complex computing environment in the School.

## 15 MANAGEMENT

### Subjects

Much research in the School of Management relies heavily on statistical analysis, especially econometrics and summary statistics based on enormous transaction databases. The School's curricula place a corresponding emphasis on quantitative analysis, leading to significant computer use in subjects. Since the School operates its own computer facility, historically very little of this work has used Athena and other central facilities.

One exception is Professor Thomas Allen's 15.310 Managerial Psychology Laboratory, which has a cluster of 6 Athena workstations and is developing courseware that allows students to analyze data collected by faculty and researchers in the field.

With the arrival of SAS on Athena and of SAS-capable workstations at the east end of campus, this has begun to change. For example, 15.075 Applied Statistics and 15.138J Seminar on Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industry Management (cited above) use SAS for instruction. We expect further use of Athena in other Sloan subjects as the School redirects and modernizes its computing facilities.

In addition to these Athena-using subjects, many Sloan subjects in managerial economics, operations research, statistics, finance, and accounting use computers instructionally. The School's Information Technology subjects do too, of course.

Professor Thomas Malone served on the faculty committee that evaluated MIT academic computing during 1989-90, and serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

### Facilities & Staff

Sloan has extensive computer facilities of its own. In 1984 it acquired an IBM 4341 mainframe. It upgraded this to a 4381 five years later, having meanwhile begun to complement the mainframe with DOS and Macintosh personal computers (now numbering about 32 and 24 respectively) and other equipment networked together. Except for network connections, Sloan computing facilities operate essentially independently of Athena and other central facilities. For example, Sloan operates its own mailhub.

There is one cluster of 6 Athena workstations in Sloan, in addition to the public Athena cluster in E51-007.

Since the IBM mainframe has reached the end of its useful life, the School is in the midst of reviewing its options and charting a new direction. This new direction promises to be more parallel to what is happening elsewhere on campus. The School will retain its independence, but gain some efficiency and service from a closer collaboration with central organizations.

As described above, the School recently proposed to build a simulated trading floor where its students in finance could experience the data-intensive, high-pressure atmosphere of high-stakes finance directly. This will present challenges and opportunities for integration into the larger MIT computing environment.

Because it runs a relatively autonomous computing environment, Sloan employs a substantial computing staff led by Anne Drazen, Director of Information Systems, and Ray Faith, Manager of the Sloan Computing Center, who in turn manage about 5 EFT of other staff.

# SAS

In this context SAS is not an airline, but rather the statistical software most widely used in businesses, public agencies, and universities around the world. SAS has been available on MIT's fee-for-service mainframe for many years. More recently, Information Systems negotiated attractive bulk-license terms for the PC version. There was no workstation-based UNIX version, unfortunately, which meant there was no professional-quality, general-purpose statistical software on Athena.

This changed last year. Under a new educational program offered by the SAS Institute, we acquired 200 licenses for UNIX SAS. We spoke to faculty around the Institute, and found interest in numerous departments, especially those involved in quantitative social science: Economics, Political Science, Management, and History, for example. We acquired and installed the software. We began to explore its idiosyncrasies (which were substantial, given the SAS Institute's inexperience with large, networked UNIX environments) and to prepare documentation.

Historically MIT social scientists haven't used Athena much, partly because they felt excluded from much of the early equipment and development-grant largesse, partly because social-science computing was largely based on mainframes and IBM-type personal computers then, and partly because Athena offered inadequate statistical software. As a result there was little demand for Athena at the east end of campus, where most MIT social scientists work. New facilities went elsewhere, and Athena facilities at the east end of campus did not evolve.

As SAS attracted faculty interest from social scientists, we worked on facilities. We converted an Athena cluster in E51 to new DECSTATIONS ahead of schedule, to help students. A few departments split the cost of additional DECSTATIONS with us, and placed the new machines in departmental clusters and faculty offices. We worked with several departments to upgrade or expand their departmental Athena facilities. We created large course lockers to hold datasets that the Libraries acquire and students use for subject assignments and theses. As a result, making SAS available on Athena prompted a dramatic increase in Athena use among MIT social scientists, broadening the Athena service to the School of Humanities and Social Science, the School of Management, and the Institute generally.

# SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE

As noted above, in the summer of 1993 the Provost, the Dean of Architecture and Planning, and the Dean of Humanities and Social Science arranged for almost every member of the faculty in these two Schools to receive a laptop computer with a modem. In the School of Humanities and Social Science faculty were offered a Macintosh PowerBook computer or an IBM ThinkPad computer. About 90 faculty - most of those eligible - accepted the offer. As was the case in Architecture and Planning, many faculty who accepted this offer already had computers of various sorts, but for many this provided a first opportunity for extensive personal computing and computer-based communication.

Another School-wide activity of note is the Computing in the Humanities group of interested faculty, who congregate regularly to share experiences and advocate effective educational computing. This group lobbies their Dean on behalf of computing, and lobbies Academic Computing Services on behalf of Humanities. Dr. Edward Barrett, a Senior Lecturer in the Program on Writing and Humanistic Studies, convenes this group.

## 14 ECONOMICS

### Subjects

Economics is housed at the east end of campus, intermingled with Political Science and Sloan. Much research in Economics is highly quantitative, requiring sophisticated tools for analyzing data and estimating models. As has been true for the neighboring Political Science and Management departments, and with a few important exceptions, Economics subjects historically have eschewed Athena and other central facilities in favor of local computers with the requisite tools installed. With the advent of SAS on Athena, Economics immediately became a much more active user of central facilities, using them in 14.31 Econometrics and, effective this coming year, in the heavily-enrolled sequence 14.01 Principles of Microeconomics and 14.02 Principles of Macroeconomics.

Data analysis requires data. Much data for instruction comes from widely used standard surveys of social and economic behavior and compilations of political statistics. Many of these are collected by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). The MIT Libraries acquire ICPSR data for use at MIT. We make data from these collections available on Athena for use in instruction. This was done ad hoc until 1992-93, and required tape transfers and other machinations. Beginning this fall, at the behest of Political Science faculty virtually all the widely-used ICPSR data will be available online without students or faculty having to request them. Economics makes substantial use of ICPSR data both for instruction and for undergraduate theses, as does Political Science.

Professor Jeffrey Wooldridge, who has since left the Institute, served on the faculty committee that reviewed MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

### Facilities & Staff

Economics operates a cluster of Athena workstations for its faculty and students. This facility also includes some non-Athena workstations and some DOS/WINDOWS personal computers with specialized software not currently available on Athena.

When the School of Humanities and Social Science arranged for its faculty to have new laptop computers, Economics faculty objected that the selected machines were not powerful enough for productive use by economists. After quick analysis and negotiation, we arranged for Economics to supplement the Provost's and the Dean's contributions to the laptop purchase and thereby to obtain somewhat more expensive and powerful computers. This illustrates both the mismatches that centralized computing decisions can cause, and the benefits possible when departmental and central organizations collaborate to balance efficiency and flexibility.

John Dippold, a systems programmer, manages computer facilities for Economics and provides direct support to its faculty.

## 17 POLITICAL SCIENCE

### Subjects

Faculty in Political Science used Athena early on. In Professor Heyward Alker's subject 17.803 Debates and Arguments, students built logical models of political processes such as the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Subjects requiring other computer tools, especially statistical software, relied on non-Athena computer facilities such as mainframes at Sloan or MIT's data center, personal computers, or, in some cases, dedicated workstations.

Like its neighbor departments, Political Science exploited the arrival of SAS and SAS-capable workstations by increasing its use of Athena. Thus, for example, 17.203 Political Science Laboratory and 17.842 Quantitative Research in Political Science and Public Policy both use SAS on Athena,

Political Science has been a prime mover in working with Academic Computing Services to make ICPSR data available on Athena.

### Facilities & Staff

Until recently Political Science relied on a few DOS personal computers for most of its departmental computing. This included some older Athena workstations providing access to basic communications and online services. In order for the department to exploit Athena's new statistical capabilities, we arranged for Political Science to have a cluster of 3 newer Athena workstations. In conjunction with other central and departmental clusters, these have brought substantial growth in Athena use by Political Science.

Professor Charles Stewart manages the computer facilities and computing activities within the department, and serves as its link with Academic Computing Services.

## 21F FOREIGN LANGUAGES & LITERATURES

### Subjects

During the years of Project Athena development, Dr. Gilberte Furstenberg and Dr. Janet Murray of FL&L's instructional staff developed À LA RENCONTRE DE PHILIPPE and DANS LE QUARTIER SAINT GERVAIS. These two multimedia computer programs immerse students in a French-speaking environment and thereby increase their mastery of the target language. Ultimately the development needs of this kind of courseware and Athena's capabilities diverged, leaving PHILIPPE and SAINT GERVAIS available only on departmental rather than central facilities. Before that, however, these two programs helped revolutionize thinking about educational computing in foreign-language instruction worldwide. They also made the Department an active participant in educational computing at MIT.

Today PHILIPPE is a commercial product, with continuing development under the auspices of Murray's Laboratory for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (LATH), and SAINT GERVAIS continues development under the auspices of Professor Lerman's Center for Educational Computing Initiatives (CECI). The two continue to be used in the Language Learning Resource Center (LLRC). LLRC was renovated recently to house both LATH and language-teaching technology for MIT subjects. In addition, LATH has helped Professor Shigeru Miyagawa to develop a Japanese analog to SAINT GERVAIS called TANABATA (THE STAR FESTIVAL).

When the two multimedia courseware projects in foreign languages separated from Athena, a hiatus ensued, but only for a while. During the past year foreign-language faculty began to seek tools on Athena for students to use routinely, especially tools to read and edit foreign-language texts. Two initiatives have evolved from this.

First, we identified and installed a Japanese-language EMACS editor on Athena. This permits users to display and to edit documents written with Japanese characters including texts for subjects, electronic mail, and other kinds of documents. We also updated a version of a Japanese language text formatting package based on LATEX. Tomoko Graham, Lecturer in Foreign Languages and Literatures, has learned to use these new editing tools and, with support from Academic Computing Services, has prepared a wide variety of class materials online. These include the syllabus, weekly schedules, reading assignments, and other handouts for 21F.501 Japanese I and 21F.503 Japanese III. Over the summer of 1993, a UROP student worked with Japanese faculty and Academic Computing Services to rewrite and improve an existing application for drilling Kanji character recognition. Professor Shigeru Miyagawa and his faculty colleagues will use this KANJI QUIZ software at all levels of the Japanese program.

Second, when we acquired FRAMEMAKER, a new document-preparation system for Athena, we also acquired several copies of INTERNATIONAL FRAMEMAKER, a special version that handles diacritics properly and provides foreign-language spellcheckers and thesauri. Several faculty members, including Professor Martin Roberts and his colleagues Shoggy Waryn, Gilberte Furstenberg, and Ellen Crocker, expect students to use INTERNATIONAL FRAMEMAKER in selected German and Romance language subjects that involve writing.

The faculty interest resulting from these two foreign-language initiatives has led Academic Computing Services to offer the affected departments new or upgraded workstations for use by faculty, and we hope to deploy this during the fall. It also has led us to arrange for students to have access to foreign-language USENET groups as a novel electronic window into other cultures.

These new facilities encourage students to use foreign languages routinely, as PHILIPPE and SAINT GERVAIS do, rather than confine themselves to textbook exercises.

In addition to these specific applications, other FL&L subjects, such as Professor Roberts's 21F.336 (née 21.218) Introduction to the French Short Story, use DISCUSS and other network communication tools to promote interaction among faculty and students.

Dr. Murray serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

### Facilities & Staff

The principal facilities for FL&L use of educational computing are in the LLRC in Building 20. This facility, which is used jointly for instruction and for the work of Janet Murray's LATH, comprises several traditional language-lab stations plus several specially configured Macintosh computers.

Ruth Trometer directs the LLRC, and is assisted by several other staff. LATH has several additional staff for educational software development.

## 21H HISTORY

### Subjects

The Head of the History Section in the Department of Humanities, Professor Peter Perdue, has had an Athena workstation on his desk for a few years. He uses it to communicate with students, to prepare documents, and to participate in communications among Humanities and other faculty interested in computing.

Two years ago Professor Anne McCants arrived to teach subjects in history and historiography. Her research involves statistical analysis of large historical data sets. She wanted to share her research approach with students. This was difficult without easy access to statistically-capable computers. When we brought SAS-capable computers to the east end of campus, Professor McCants was able to undertake research and teaching activities that had been difficult before. We also provided her an Athena workstation.

Except for Professor Perdue and Professor McCants, faculty in History rarely use computers educationally. Professor Perdue serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

## 21L LITERATURE

### Subjects

Professor Peter Donaldson teaches the popular HASS-D subject 21L.009 Shakespeare, which regularly attracts many more students than it can accommodate. Professor Donaldson is especially interested in the ways text, direction, and acting combine to produce diverse performances. Donaldson and a colleague at UC Berkeley exploited the rich set of Shakespeare performances available on videodisc to develop INTERACTIVE SHAKESPEARE, a computer program to study Shakespeare performance.

The INTERACTIVE SHAKESPEARE software, developed through LATH for multimedia Macintoshes, lets students view different performances of the same Shakespeare play scene by scene. As they view the performance, students have access to the full text of the plays annotated with literary, historical, cultural, thespian, and cinematographic notes. Students can also record their thoughts and observations in a notebook, and insert excerpts from text or video as illustrations. Professor Donaldson encourages his students to write their papers within the INTERACTIVE SHAKESPEARE notebook. Students therefore use the multiple media not only to formulate their arguments, but also to buttress them.

In addition to this specific application, other Literature subjects, such as Professor David Thorburn's 21L.432 (21.032) American Television: A Cultural History use DISCUSS and other network communication tools to promote interaction among faculty and students.

Professor Donaldson serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

## 21M MUSIC

### Subjects

Computers have affected music in extraordinarily diverse ways over the past few decades. They have broadened our conceptions of instrument, ensemble, composition, and sound itself. These changes have made their way gradually into Music subjects. For example, Professor Jeanne Bamberger's 21M.113 Developing Musical Structures has students use the LOGOMUSIC computer language to explore musical coherence. Professor Bamberger teaches another subject with Professor Schön of Urban Studies and Planning, 21M.150J Learning to Design and Designs for Learning, which explores the use of computers and other tools across diverse design processes.

### Facilities

Professor Bamberger's subjects rely on a small cluster of Macintoshes equipped with MUSICLOGO and other relevant software. The cluster also contains a piano.

## 21S SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, & SOCIETY

STS, which enrolls relatively few undergraduates, has made virtually no educational use of computers within the Department. However, several faculty in STS hold joint appointments in other Departments or participate in projects that involve educational computing, such as Mechanical Engineering and ECSEL in the School of Engineering.

Professor Sherry Turkle served on the faculty committee that reviewed MIT academic computing in 1989-90.

## 21Y ARCHæOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY

Except for electronic mail among faculty and students, the Archæology & Anthropology section of Humanities makes little educational use of computers. The department provides DOS/WINDOWS computers for its faculty and staff, primarily for writing and other scholarship.

## 21W WRITING & HUMANISTIC STUDIES

### Subjects

MIT students must communicate effectively in writing. Many arrive unable to do this. The Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies provides numerous subjects wherein students may learn to appreciate good writing and to write well themselves. It also offers various advanced and more specialized subjects.

A Project Athena curriculum-development grant and other support enabled the Writing Program faculty to work with Athena developers on the NETWORKED EDUCATIONAL ONLINE SYSTEM (NEOS). This suite of programs permits students to submit and retrieve papers (or other documents) online and provides tools for instructors to annotate papers and share them with students in seminars. NEOS was cited in an EDUCOM review of successful educational computing.[15] Several writing and non-writing subjects across the Institute use NEOS.[16]

In addition to developing NEOS itself, IS and Writing faculty have collaborated to design and implement a classroom for interactive, computer-based writing instruction. This room, 14-0637, has 17 Athena workstations, including one for the instructor, arranged around the walls, a large seminar table in the middle, and seats positioned so that students may swing back and forth between their workstations and the seminar table. A typical class session in this classroom moves back and forth between students working individually at their workstations and discussing whoever's paper the instructor projects up front. NEOS encourages collegiality and collaborative learning among students.

Recently a group of Writing Program and Engineering faculty proposed a new Writing Initiative. Selected Engineering (and perhaps Science) subjects would have extra session meetings taught by Writing Program instructors. These sections would be devoted to writing about the specific topics and technology under study. If it moves forward, the Writing Initiative will use NEOS and electronic classrooms extensively.

Professor James Paradis served on the faculty committee that reviewed MIT academic computing in 1989-90. Dr. Barrett serves on the faculty Academic Computing Council.

### Facilities

Except for its access to 14-0637 and a couple of Athena workstations on faculty desks, the Program on Writing and Humanistic Studies has no computer facilities of its own.

## 24 PHILOSOPHY & LINGUISTICS

### Subjects

The only substantial use of computers in Philosophy and Linguistics is for online class materials, faculty-student communication, and so on, for example in 24.172 Being and Time and 24.119 Minds and Machines. Philosophy and Linguistics students use Athena and other computers more individually for these purposes and to write programs for simulation and analysis.

### Facilities

Philosophy and Linguistics operates a small Athena cluster, which is used partly by its students and partly by other students in Building 20.

# ENHANCING COMPUTING AND EDUCATION AT MIT

Whither Athena's Adolescence?

Academic computing pervades MIT education for two reasons:

- because faculty and departments across the Institute have used Athena and other computing resources creatively to enhance instruction, and
- because networked computers have become the common tool and medium for scholarly work and interaction at MIT.

Project Athena's goals are amply met.

But new challenges require new goals. I'll conclude this report by suggesting what some of these goals are, and sketching how we plan to meet them.

## PLATFORM DIVERSITY AND LAYERED SERVICES

Athena currently supports four platforms:

- VAXSTATIONS running BSD UNIX (which date to 1990),
- DECSTATIONS running DEC ULTRIX (1991, 1992, and 1993),
- RISC SYSTEM/6000s running AIX (1992 and 1993), and
- Sun SPARCCLASSICS running SOLARIS (1993).

Bringing a new platform into the environment generally requires substantial effort, perhaps a person-year in all. Supporting a new platform requires substantial continuing effort, since a new platform increases complexity. We cannot afford such additional effort very often.

But departments regularly approach us requesting Athena support - or something like it - for new platforms. Today, for example, we have concrete requests or strong arguments from diverse quarters that we should support

- Silicon Graphics workstations,
- Hewlett-Packard workstations,
- DEC ALPHA workstations,
- Intel-based computers running LINUX, and
- any computers running WINDOWS NT.

We need to find a way to meet reasonable requests among these without exhausting our resources.

By next fall there will be suites of basic authenticated network services for Macintosh and DOS/WINDOWS personal computers: authentication, communication, access to help and online information, network navigation. In addition, we have developed a layered version of Athena for DECstations whereby a user can choose layers of service for an out-of-the-box workstation. We believe that this general direction - providing layers of network-based service to diverse private machines - will scale to more platforms and serve more faculty and educational needs than our current model.

But a layered model for "Athena" and network services will have costs. Most important, moving away from the vertically integrated Athena model will reduce our ability to manage and support academic-computing facilities with a few central staff. This, in turn, may mean a reduction in service levels (machines will be down more often, for longer times), increased support costs, or both.

## SOFTWARE LICENSING

As this report made clear, the last few years have brought a dramatic transition from ad hoc courseware to commercial tools and applications as the dominant medium for educational computing (except, of course, for programming instruction). Early on, MIT's prestige enabled us to secure attractive site licenses for much commercial software, but this is no longer the case. Today licensed software comes specifying who may use it, how many people may use it at once, and what mechanisms we must implement to enforce these restrictions. In extreme cases these specifications make software unworkable in our environment. More often, they simply make it much more awkward and difficult to provide some software for our users than it once was.

In addition, software is becoming more and more expensive. Even so it is a bargain: for example, Academic Computing Services currently spends about $200,000 on commercial software each year, whereas undergraduates probably spend more than $2-million on textbooks each year.

Some individuals argue that we should simply say "no" to software restrictions. However, most faculty and students demand that we provide the tools they need. Moreover, faculty members who ask us to purchase specific software generally expect us to provide ample access to that software, yet we often cannot afford the requisite number of licenses.

As other organizations begin to deploy computing environments as complicated as ours, software vendors will understand our needs better. They also will become more adept at pricing, and the bargains we once obtained because no one knew how to deal with us will become history.

We have begun work on mechanisms to enforce different software requirements without incurring unnecessary overhead. We will continue this work, but the software market shows no signs of manageable stability.

## OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

We in Academic Computing Services and Information Systems frequently compare experiences with other universities that have invested heavily in technology for education. We fare very well in these comparisons, providing more computing and more support to our faculty and students without spending commensurately more.

Like our peers, however, we are attempting to satisfy increasingly broad and complex demand with resources that are, at best, level. As an illustration, here is the essence of Figure 1 again, this time with central budgets for Project Athena (through the spring of 1991) and Academic Computing Services (thereafter) overlaid:

Trend juxtapositions like such as this present challenges. Maintaining an operational edge in the face of diversifying computer platforms, competing software, and expanding expectations will be difficult. It will require aggressive use of technology, adroit hiring and retention of staff, and flexible management. We are learning much about how to do this in Academic Computing Services and other Information Systems service areas by exploring quality-improvement and re-engineering techniques along with related organizational tools. We must remain open to new ways to organize our business for maximum quality and efficiency.

## EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The Committee on Academic Computing for the 1990s and Beyond made three central recommendations:[17]

- that Project Athena merge with Information Systems, with reasonable funding;
- that the merged organization provide a layer of Basic Educational Services and Tools for virtually all networked faculty and student workstations and personal computers; and
- that central funds be made available to departments to support faculty and staff developing innovative educational applications of computers and networks.

With the completion of RESNET and the accompanying basic network services for Macintoshes and DOS/Windows machines, the first two recommendations have become reality. The third remains a problem.

As this report has illustrated, support for educational computing varies across departments. This is especially true for educational development - that is, the work necessary to realize the educational potential of computer hardware and software. If MIT is to realize the full potential of its sophisticated computing and network resources then we must work to make flexible, useful authoring tools available on our systems, and departments must work to provide encouragement and support for faculty to enhance instruction with networked computing and other technologies.

As the MacVicar report argued strongly, it is important that educational improvement involving computing be integrated with more general educational improvement; thus her Committee's recommendation that development of educational applications of computing proceed from a departmental base. Similarly, Athena and other academic computing will be able to improve education at MIT only if MIT devotes the necessary resources to educational improvement:

- faculty time and other tangible resources, of course, but also
- moral and organizational support for pioneers and experimenters,
- tolerance and even enthusiasm for change, and
- mechanisms for measuring and institutionalizing educational-quality improvement.

## ETHEREAL NETWORKS AND PORTABLE COMPUTING

Project Athena's 1983 planning documents[18] began with speculations about technological trends, and it seems appropriate to conclude this report on the same note. As I write this, the MIT Computer Connection is reminding me that I am supposed to pick up my Apple Message Pad ("Newton"), a lightweight pen-based "personal digital assistant" (PDA) that is to decipher my handwriting and replace my assorted calendars and reminder cards. Airline magazines offer me modems for my portable computer that will connect to the cellular phone I don't yet have. Pagers can deliver long messages, not just beeps. Already it is difficult for me to move about professionally without a computer in my briefcase (LL Bean, of all places, just sold me a padded computer briefcase!), and I routinely connect my computer back to my office to stay in touch.

Readers of these tea leaves say that we must assume two important things about the future:

- everyone will carry around some form of digital computing device, be it PDA or laptop (and laptops already exist with the power of today's Athena workstations), and
- networks will connect these machines to one another and to servers without requiring physical connections.

Thinking about MIT academic computing from this perspective is both rewarding and unsettling. On the one hand, the client/server architecture and security features of our systems are well suited to a world with moving computers and wireless networks. On the other hand, portable computers will fundamentally change the nature of classroom interactions, requiring faculty and students to learn new ways of interaction beyond any Athena has suggested.

And so we move toward the future.

November 23, 1993