Campus Computing News

Campus Computing News

By Dr. Maurice Leatherbury, Senior Director of Academic Computing

UNT is now officially an Internet 2 Member

We were formally notified on February 25, 1999, that UNT's application for membership in UCAID was approved. UCAID is the organization that manages membership in Internet 2 and you can now find us listed with the other 145 members at UCAID's membership site.

$1.5M Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund Grant

The Texas Telecommuncations Infrastructure Fund was established by the legislature in 1995 to disburse $150M a year for ten years to public schools, not-for-profit health care institutions, public libraries, and higher education institutions in Texas. TIF awarded its first grant in 1997 and to date has dispensed $203M to over 2,500 institutions in Texas. On February 24th, we were notified that UNT is eligible to request up to $1,459,093 from a pool of $29M that will be awarded to four-year state supported and independent Texas colleges and universities. The Strategic Planning Committee of the Information Resource Council has appointed a subcommittee that will present a list of campus-wide infrastructure needs to the full IRC at the March 9, 1999 meeting. Funds from the TIF grant are restricted to connecting the library and its services to the Internet, "within-the-walls" networking (i.e., building wiring) some campus-wide networking hardware, and distance education hardware. I will be coordinating the submission of the grant proposal, which is due in Austin on April 19th.

Administrative Mainframe System Will be Unavailable During Spring Break

This information should be of interest to you if you use the administrative mainframe computer system (for SIMS, NHRMIS, THRMIS, NOBIS, TOBIS, CEATS, etc.).

As a part of our continued efforts to make all our critical administrative systems "Y2K Ready," Administrative Computing staff plan to do a series of "platform" software migrations over the week of Spring break, beginning Sunday, March 14 after all end-of-week processing (including file/database backups) is completed. We are uncertain as to how long this software migration will take, but it's sure to take at least the first 3-4 days of the week. During the migration period, the system will be either unavailable or unstable (up and down).

If you would like to be notified when the system is available again for production use, you can notify Don Swatloski (either by GroupWise E-mail or by phone at 565-4062), giving him your name and how you wish to be contacted (phone, E-mail, etc.). He will add you to his "to be contacted" list.

We regret any inconvenience that this activity may cause, but the spring break holiday offers the extended time-frame that we need to accomplish this with the least overall impact, so it's important that we take advantage of this opportunity.

Coy Hoggard
Sr. Director of Administrative Computing
940-565-3855

Computing Center HelpDesk Spring Break Hours

The Computing Center HelpDesk will be staffed by part-time staff the regular hours during Spring Break, with the exception of Saturday, March 13, 1999, when we will be closed. Office location: ISB 119; Phone: 940-565-2324

Regular hours include 8am-8pm Monday through Friday (walk-in and phone support), Saturday 9-noon (walk-in and phone), noon-5pm (phone support only), and Sunday 5pm-10pm (phone support only).