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Electronic Collaborative Communication

Technology Alternatives

Draft for Discussion
Amended for December 16, 1996 Meeting
Amended November 26, 1996 for release via Web
For December 9, 1996 Meeting of the
Electronic Collaborative Communication Subcommittee
of the Academic Advisory Committee
of the Computing Management Board
prepared by Alex Nishri

 

Available UTORdial/ IC PCs1

Finding unread items

Finding unread items from IC PCs (instead see more than once.)

Restrict posting to instuctor /posting to class/reading to class

Technology Scalable to large number lists & people

Support Initial/Ongoingfor instuctor
for students

Security (e.g. Resist Virus Attack, etc.) /Denial of Service Attack

 

IC Cost

Guesstimated Incremental Cost

UTC Cost

Guesstimated Incremental Cost

Mailing Lists

yes/yes

1. Start mail
2. give password

 

same-except problem for Mac home users (fixed within year dep on vendors)

yes/yes/yes -but can be circumvented by students

no

high/high

low/low

Poor/Poor

1.0 FTE (AMS)

2.5 FTE (ramped up)

0.4 FTE (AIMS)

1.0 FTE (ramped up)

ƒ hardware

Newsgroups

yes/ initially off

1. Start Netscape

2. Select News

 

no-possibly within 1 year depending on vendors

yes/no/no

-but easy to circumvent by students

yes

medium/low
low/low

Poor/Poor

1.0 FTE

0.2 FTE

$30K oto2


$ 5K per year

Web-based

yes/yes

1. Start Netscape
2. Open bookmarks
3. Select bookmarks
4. "Whats New?"

 

no-expected within 2 years from vendors.

yes/no/no -harder to circumvent

yes

med-high/low
low/low

Medium/Poor

0.5 FTE

0.3 FTE

Shared Mailbox3 Folders

future one or two years

1. Start mail
2. give password

<- same

 

yes/yesyes - harder to circumvent

 

yes

low/low
low/low

Poor (fix in two years depends on vendor & infrastructure) /Poor

2.0 FTE

0.5 FTE

0.5 FTE oto4

$30K oto
$ 5K per year

Footnotes

  1. It is customary for UNIX, other timesharing systems, and proprietary email systems to say if there is unread mail or news at Login. Internet standard technologies (used by UTORdial/UTORmail) do not exist to accomplish the same. Hence to check if you have unread mail or news you must literally be running the e-mail or news package.
  2. If UTORnews is more widely used, it should be put on a seperate machine
  3. Shared Mailbox Folders are most similar to Newsgroups, except (1) there is good access control as to who can read and who can post messages (2) the post office, not the local hard disk, records which messages have been read by each user. Assuming expected delivery of technology by vendors and assuming we put in infrastructure to support this, approximately 1-2 years away.
  4. OTO additional staff guesstimated to be necessary for pilot by next Fall, assuming products will be in place as expected.

 

 

 

 

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