1 Project Athenareg., Athena(TM), Discuss(TM), Hesiod (TM), Moira(TM), and TechMail(TM)are registered trademarks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Names of specific hardware and software cited in this document generally are registered trademarks of the corresponding producer or vendor.

2 M.L. Dertouzos (chair), Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Future Computational Needs and Resources (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1979)

3 Committee on Academic Computation for The 1990s and Beyond, M.L.A. MacVicar (chair), Computation and Academic Community: A Background Paper and Computing for Education at MIT: Final Report (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1990)

4 A quick comment on notation: I print the names of subjects and other organized educational units in italics, and the names of courseware or other software in SMALL CAPS.

5 The peer group is institutions classified "Research University I" in the Carnegie scheme; A Classification of Institutions of Higher Education 1987 ed. (Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1987)

6 C. Warlick, 1992 Directory of Computing Facilities in Higher Education (Austin TX: University of Texas, 1992)

7 The numerator for the MIT percentage is $6-million, the Academic Computing appropriation from general-funds budgets with equipment amortization replaced by equipment purchases. The denominator for the MIT percentage is MIT's 1992-93 operating expenses of $1,134-million less expenses attributable to Lincoln and on-campus sponsored research, or about $382-million. J.J. Culliton, Report on the Financial Results of Operations for Fiscal 1993, Attachment B, September 8, 1993.

8 J.D. Litster (chair), Report of the Academic Council Subgroup on Support and Services (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1993). According to the Planning Office, Chemistry spends $8.7m from general and fund accounts, which is almost 50% more than the $6m Academic Computing Services spends. The departments whose spending most closely approximates ACS's are Civil Engineering, $5.8m, and Earth & Planetary Sciences, $6.8m.

9 These statistics come from the Kerberos server, which controls access to Athena, TechMail, Discuss, Zephyr, and other network-authenticated services at MIT. Kerberos is a system for controlling access to services in a distributed computing environment without moving passwords over the network in the clear. Students, faculty, and on-campus staff are eligible for Kerberos principals, a total of about 16,000 eligible individuals. S.P. Miller, B.C. Neuman, J.I. Schiller, & J.H. Slaltser, "Kerberos Authentication and Authorization System," Project Athena Technical Plan, Section E.2.1 (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1987)

10 J.F. Roethlisberger, Management and the Worker; An Account of a Research Program Conducted by the Western Electric Company Hawthorne Works, Chicago (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1939)

11 J. Boettcher (ed), 101 Success Stories of Information Technology in Higher Education: The Joe Wyatt Challenge (New York NY: McGraw-Hill, 1993)

12 Except in dormitories and independent living groups, where it is provided to students without charge, MITnet recovers its operating costs through charges to users, receiving no subsidies. A network drop in most on-campus buildings costs $300 to install and $20/month thereafter.

13 When the race was over, we developed mechanisms for operating Patriot as a fast, vector-processing server for computationally intensive Athena jobs. We operated Patriot this way during 1992-93. However, use of the machine never came close to justifying its $175,000 annual operating costs. We shut Patriot down in late June.

14 Committee on Educational Survey, W.K. Lewis (chair), Report to the Faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1949)

15 Boettcher, 101 Stories...

16 E. Barrett, "Collaboration in the Electronic Classroom", Technology Review 96 (1993) pp 50-55

17 MacVicar, Computing for Education...

18 Dertouzos et al., Report of the Ad Hoc Committee...; Project Athena Executive Committee, G. Wilson (chair), Project Athena: An Introduction (Cambridge MA: MIT, 1983)