Exeter On-Line

Fall 1997 Issue                                A Publication of Information Technology  

Implementation Sequence for this School Year

Campus wide network access through direct wiring or through modem dial-up is planned for the 1997-98 school year. Connectivity includes email, network printing, access to the Internet, access to Library resources, and personal space on the network to save work. To accomplish this work, wires need to be pulled and tested, network electronics configured, servers/desktop hardware and software installed. End user training and support services must be in place so issues may be resolved early. A majority of the wiring and server development was completed this summer leaving the electronics and desktop work to complete during the school year. Because of the volume and the complexity of the work it was decided to proceed in the following manner:

· Provide network access to the faculty, staff and students from current network computers.
· Activate phones and voice mail for students.
· Provide network orientation to all students.
· Transition the Community to Netscape Communicator's email.
· Provide network access for faculty from their residences.
· Connect academic and administrative departments to the network.
· Activate student dorm rooms and consider day student off-campus needs.

Remote Access Returns!

Two years ago an experimental remote access system was started with about 50 test users. It offered basic access and was inexpensive to develop and support. The system was not designed as a long term solution but to help determine the requirements of our off-campus community.

Beginning in July, we removed the old system and installed a new system that would accommodate our goal to connect our entire off-campus community.

Our plan is to offer remote access Fall Term to faculty requesting connection to the network from non-dormitory housing. In the future this service may also be available to day students and staff needing to connect remotely for work purposes.

Resources are currently being investigated to provide some direct support to those users accessing the network from personal computers in their homes. Stay tuned!

New Phone Exchange

Bell Atlantic NYNEX is providing the Academy with sufficient numbers within one exchange to convert all our published numbers to 777. It will eliminate the confusion and complaints we have received from dialing the wrong exchange with the right extension number.

This transition begins with the start of the new school year. As the students return, their numbers, dorm residence and common room numbers, will be accessible only through 777. For Academic and Administrative departments both 777 and 778 will remain active. As each department completes the change there will be a recording announcing the Academy has a new exchange and requesting the caller to please hang-up and dial the same four digits using the 777 exchange. We plan to complete this transition by the end of the 1997/98 school year. The Academy main number, 772-4311, will not change at this time.

Web Publishing

Information published over the Academy network falls into two main categories: private and public. Private information is accessible only from computers on the Academy network or with the appropriate remote access authorization. By definition, all information published over the network is private until it is made public, except for personal home pages which will remain private. This is done to maintain control over the information released from the Academy over the Internet and to allow maximum opportunity for experimentation and creativity for Academy network users.

Public information is published at www.exeter.edu. The Academy considers these web pages an official Academy publication and therefore, responsibility for design and content of these pages resides with the Academy communications office. Maintenance and supervision of the web site is managed by the Web Management Group (WMG), comprised of representatives from the communications office, Telecommunications department, library, alumni/ae affairs and development office, and the faculty. Decisions on areas and departments permitted to have official pages on the PEA web site and guides for publishing official pages are contained in the Campus Computing Handbook and are also available online.

Departments, clubs, or other Academy organizations creating official pages are responsible for the accuracy and the timely updating of the text and images contained on those pages. A page manager must be appointed and contents reviewed at least once per term. A page manager of any official page must be an employee of the Academy and may be a member of the WMG. Updates processed through the WMG will be done bimonthly. While students may design department pages, they may not serve as webmasters of official pages.

The purpose of the PEA web site is to provide information about the Academy, its mission and educational program, its faculty and students, and its events and programs. The site may also provide access to educational resources, informational tools, and navigational aids. Additions and improvements to the site are ongoing. Progress to date has been slow but steady, and with the cooperation of the Academy community, we hope to pick up the pace of improvements to the site over the course of the year. If you have comments or suggestions to share, please email scasale@exeter.edu.

Communicating on the Network

The past year has been one of great change for Exeter and this year will be equally challenging. The availability and use of the network is increasing. The pilot program of providing network access for individual users was tested during Summer School in the library and across campus on public computers. The Telecommunications Department continues the process of establishing email and server access for all faculty, staff and students. In that effort, the department is launching Netscape Communicator for the community's use and evaluation. Netscape Communicator provides a standard interface for email, newsgroups, scheduling, conferencing, composing web pages, and a number of other functions requested by the community. Netscape Communicator has already been installed on many of the public computers on campus, in the library student computer lab on 1M and in the Faculty Lab. Communicator is an enhancement and upgrade to Netscape Navigator, a package that is already familiar to many users on campus. Therefore, transitioning to the new version should be more comfortable than learning an entirely new email product.

The rollout of Communicator will continue throughout Fall Term. Training for email in Netscape Messenger (the email program provided in Netscape Communicator software) will be available to all faculty and staff starting this month. Training in other Netscape Communicator features will be offered during the academic year.

Web Desk - Telecommunications Home Page

The Telecommunications office has begun assembling items to place on our department's home page. The purpose of the page is to provide links to support information relevant to the Academy's network design and useful to the community. Among other support-related items, the home page will provide links from which users may download Netscape Communicator Pro for both Mac and Wintel machines. In the future, we hope to offer files of frequently asked questions (FAQs) for products available on campus. The website will also contain announcements about the status of the network and plans for the future. The current location of the web page is: http://help.exeter.edu/.

Passwords-Network Access,
Email & Remote Access

As a result of the recreation of the email server, all passwords have been synchronized. This means that the passwords which you use to access email and remote access are the same as your network access password. Your Username (or Identification, on the Mac platform), is generally the first character of your first name, followed immediately with your full last name. Because usernames must be unique, some may include the middle initial in order to differentiate between users with the same name. So that it may be compatible with all platforms on campus, your password must be between six and eight characters in length. Faculty and staff may have their passwords reset by calling the Telecommunications helpdesk at extension 3693. The helpdesk specialist will ask you to supply the last four digits of your social security number. This will prevent unauthorized users from resetting your password and will preserve the security of your email. Then faculty will be asked to supply a new password of their choice, between six and eight characters long. Students needing to change passwords should visit the Telecommunications Department office in person and present their student ID cards in order to have passwords reset.

Virus Care From the Helpdesk

The Telecommunications helpdesk (extension 3693) has received several calls recently regarding email viruses, specifically the "join the crew" virus. Several callers reported receiving an email message from a friend warning them of a destructive virus deliverable via email which "can erase your entire hard drive." Email virus warnings are generally a hoax-if there is a virus, it would reside in an attachment. Thus, if a message is received which you suspect could be a virus, deleting it before opening it will prevent any possibility of file damage.

Did you get my Email?
"Return Receipt Requested"

As more users begin to explore the use of email as a business and educational tool, the fragility of the system is becoming increasingly apparent. Internet email operates on the premise that mail has been received if it hasn't been returned. The responsibility for not accepting mail resides with the receiving system and mail "hubs" on the Internet. Respectively, this depends on whether the user or the host.domain is unavailable. A typical email address takes the form of user@host.domain or user@domain. Although the sending host is the one you hear from because it can't deliver the message, nothing can be done with a message that does not come back. Several years ago this didn't seem to pose much of a problem and messages were rarely lost.

Today's Internet standards require that we continue attempting delivery for 2 - 3 days before returning it to the sender. It can take that many days to reach some busy hosts. The days of instant delivery seem to be fading fast as Email systems administrators find themselves inundated with message traffic. Regular email users at the Academy have gone from 250 to 750 in the past month alone. Much of this can be attributed to the arrival of the students but more and more people are expected to use email everywhere. Individual message volume also increases as users spend more time using email.

Where am I going with all this? In over 10 years of using this medium, I have been the victim of inexperienced users, hacker tricks and overloaded email systems, including our own prior to the latest upgrade. As a result I had to adjust my expectations and develop an effective process for using email. The "voids" which appear as systems around the world are overloaded do little to build our confidence in the use of Internet email. The proliferation of new users also means that many don't check their email on a regular basis. They often don't check it until you call them and ask them if they received your message. Until Internet email evolves to a positive response type system and becomes a regular part of an individual's day you need to protect your own interests and handle that verification yourself.

Here is a way I found which takes very little time and effort from the individuals involved in this form of communication. When it is essential that you know your message was delivered or even read, ask the user to send a quick reply.(Got it!) You can place this at the bottom of your message or even put it in your signature file if you would like a response for every message you send. The latter might be a bit much. I ask for a reply only when I really need one. If you don't hear from that person, you might follow-up quickly with another message or better yet use a different medium.

Telecommunications Staffing

The department begins the school year with four new staff joining Barb, Marilee, Mark, Tracey and Shelley. While Matt Trotter is leaving Exeter to start his own business, we will continue to see him, since we will use his services on a contractual basis.

Barb Bolduc joined our staff as our Telephone Receptionist last spring but we have not officially introduced her to the community. Barbara is not new to our school. She was a Toddler Teacher at the Children's Center before joining our department. In addition to answering the calls coming into the school's main number, she works with our voice work order and Call Accounting systems in addition to doing a variety of other tasks.

Our department had five positions approved for this year and we filled four. These four individuals all started within the last month.

Mike Pennington joins us as our Systems Administrator. He is a Portsmouth native, who comes to us from the University of Southern Maine where he served as the Director of Academic Computing for four years. Golf, not computing, is his passion. His Mac history and his experience in supporting computers on a campus is an asset to the department.

Al Olson, our Network Administrator, has been on campus since Spring Term 1997 but joined our staff full time this August. Al is a former chemist, who directed research into opthamological products. Al decided to make a major career change into the world of networking and recently achieved Microsoft certification as a Systems Engineer. Al resides with his wife and two children in Strafford. Some of his other interests include golf, vegetable gardening and backyard astronomy.

Joni Mason joins the department as a network specialist from a consulting firm, which specialized in the government markets arena. She has worked as a Systems Administrator for both the US Department of State's Consular Affairs National Passport Center at Pease International Tradeport, as well as at the National Passport Information Center in Dover, NH. Joni's experience varies from managing a network, wiring, setting up hardware and installing software, to managing a voice switch.

Vi Richter joins the department as Helpdesk Specialist. Previously, she contracted as a computer helpdesk consultant to a large corporation. Additionally, Vi supported students, faculty and staff as a computer consultant for the Information Services Department of Wellesley College. Over the past 15 years, Vi provided technical training and support to organizations involved in education, engineering, R&D, finance and risk management.

Student Phones

By now you may be aware that students will be responsible for supplying their own phones this year. Basically any analog phone will work on our lines. Students were informed not to bring cordless phones to school since this may cause crossed connections or party lines with so many lines in such a confined area. They can either bring their own phones from home or can also purchase a phone through the Bookstore. The Bookstore will also sell ancillary equipment for the phones, such as tail cords.

This decision for students to supply their own phones was made by the Deans Office and Dorm Heads subcommittee at the request of the Telecommunications Department. Our department spent more time than we had planned on issuing and collecting equipment and supplies. The Department primarily wanted to get out of the "phone store" business to allow department resources to focus on networking the campus and data and voice support.

Students' voice lines were activated at the start of school, provided a Telephone and Networking Policy Form was signed by student and parent and returned to the school. Since students will be bringing their own phones, the message waiting light feature will no longer work on the lines. When students pick up their handsets, they will hear a stutter tone to alert them they have a new message.

Directory Assistance

Due to the volume of outside calls which continue to come through the switchboard, the switchboard operator is unable to provide directory assistance to internal callers. On average, she receives 100 requests per day from internal callers who wish to be transferred to an internal extension. Most of the numbers requested are not newly assigned extensions. In order to process calls from outside the Exeter community in a timely manner, please refer to your face book, faculty family phone list, or phone directory.