Campus Computing News

By Dr. Maurice Leatherbury, Senior Director of Academic Computing

Microsoft Campus Agreement Coming Soon

The Computing Center has tentatively selected a vendor (HiEd) as its agent for the Microsoft Campus Agreement and is in the process of finalizing the Agreement (reviewing it for legal issues, preparing a purchase order, etc.). Under the Campus Agreement, UNT will have the right to install Microsoft desktop operating system upgrades, Office Professional, FrontPage, Visual Studio Professional, Backoffice Server Client Access Licenses, and MS Press' Office Starts Here Step-by-Step Interactive on all University-owned computers without paying for each license separately. Faculty and staff will also have the right to run one copy of the software, for school related activities, on either a laptop or desktop that they own or lease. We are working out the details on how to distribute the software to home users, but it's likely that a nominal fee ($6.00 to $8.00) per CD will be charged to defray the costs of duplication of the media and for administering the distribution. We expect to have the Agreement in place by the end of June.

The Campus Agreement will be in effect for one year, after which we will either renew it or remove any copies of the software that were installed during the year and purchase licensed copies through some other program. Microsoft software products that aren't covered by the Campus Agreement (such as the Windows NT Server, SQL Server, Project, etc.) will be purchased under an Open License agreement that is also being finalized.

While we don't anticipate any last-minute problems with completing these agreements, there's always the possibility that one or both of them could fall through because of unresolved issues such as our legal requirements for Year 2000 compliance or disagreements over how to count employees under the Campus Agreement.

Student E-mail System is Being Enhanced

In response to repeated requests in the past to send messages about important University events to all students, the Computing Center is in the process of enhancing the Student E-mail system. We expect to have these enhancements in place by the 1999 fall semester. While the system's specifications are still being developed, at the present time the following features are under consideration:

• All students will be required to activate free UNT E-mail accounts (currently, about 15,000 enrolled students have accounts).

• A policy will be written stating that E-mail is an official form of communication from the University to students and that students are expected to read their E-mail periodically.

• Students will be able to forward their mail to some other address if they wish, although they will be required log into our system in order to receive some UNT-generated messages.

• Authorized individuals on campus will be able to send mail messages to groups of students based on various selection criteria, including:

• All students
• Classification (freshman, senior, graduate students, etc.)
• College or school
• Major
• ZIP code
• Class (CECS 5010.001, GEOL 1610.002, etc.)

• Mail messages will be composed and sent using a Web form.

• Attachments may be sent with the E-mail messages.

Because of the large volume of mail that will be possible under this system, we will be asking that senders exercise restraint in sending messages. Some guidelines that may be set are:

• Don't send messages frequently: the volume of messages could overwhelm our network and computer system plus frequent impersonal messages tend to be ignored.

• Don't send large messages or attachments (if your message is over about three paragraphs, put it on a Web page and ask students to read the message there).

An unanswered question about the system is "Who is authorized to send mass E-mail messages from the new system?" Our thinking at this time is that the instructor of a section may send messages to his/her students, department chairs may send messages to students in all the department's classes and to all majors of that department, deans may send mail to students in college/school departments or majors, and vice presidents, the chancellor, Public Affairs, and the Campus Police may send mail to all students. It's likely that this scheme will be expanded as we get further along in planning the system.

If you have any questions or comments about the mass student E-mail system, call Maurice Leatherbury at extension 3854 or E-mail him at leatherb@unt.edu.