WEST CHESTER UNIVERSITY

When it came time to install a new LAN on the campus of West Chester University, school officials turned to Microsoft® Windows™ NT, Windows NT™ Advanced Server, and the Microsoft Office suite of applications to create a computing environment that could prepare the school for the future.

Like all colleges and universities, West Chester University in southeast Pennsylvania, is faced with the constant challenge of providing modern computing services to its 13,000 students, faculty, and staff.

As associate vice president for information services, Wes Fasnacht is responsible for the school's Information Services Division. The division oversees campus technology and consists of the Academic Computing, Administrative Computing, Media Services, Management Information Systems, and Telecommunications departments.

In this role, a big part of the division's job is predicting-and preparing for-the future. The group attempted to make this formidable task easier by identifying five trends that they believe are likely to significantly affect or be affected by computing at WCU during the next five to ten years. The trends are communications, operating environments, workflow, library, and multimedia.

A major concern was to select the computing environment that would best prepare the school to deal effectively with each of these trends.

Preparing for the Future

West Chester University has about 1300 PCs, 100 Macintosh® computers, and several UNIX® workstations. The school's administrative applications currently run on an IBM® mainframe. For the past eight years, a 9600-baud campus-wide network using data-under-voice technology has provided PC access to the mainframe from any location with a telephone. This was supplemented by a Banyan® VINES® network running over Northern Telecomm's LANSTAR in the Academic Computing Center and dorm computing labs.

Most administrative applications have been developed on the Model 204 database platform. IBM's PROFS® and OfficeVision® has been WCU's standard e-mail and scheduling system. The school has been connected to the Internet and Bitnet for several years.

They were faced with a major decision recently when WCU installed its new campus Ethernet LAN. "We spent a great deal of time and energy deciding on LAN software," says Adel Barimani, Director of Academic Computing. "We had been running Banyan VINES for several years and were quite happy with it. However, we recognized that, within the next few years, the network operating system is likely to be an integral part of a PC's operating system, and it was likely that VINES would not continue to be a big player in that environment." Barimani adds that, although Novell® has the biggest part of the LAN market, "we were spoiled by the simplicity of VINES and didn't really want to face the management complexities of Novell as they existed at that time."

In the final analysis, the group elected to take WCU in a new direction-one they believed would best prepare the school for the future. "We decided to use Windows NT Advanced Server and Windows™ for Workgroups operating systems as our networking platform," he says. "We liked the straightforward way Windows for Workgroups operates in the LAN environment, and we recognized that it was likely to work best with
Windows NT Advanced Server."

The Beginning of the Transition

WCU began installing its new LAN in spring, 1993, and now has some 500 active workstations using it. "We like the way Windows for Workgroups works with Windows NT Advanced Server, and the way it enables our users to easily share files and printers through the File Manager and Print Manager," says Barimani.

For desktop applications, WCU chose Microsoft Office Professional, which includes Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, the Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation graphics program, and the Microsoft Access® database management system. Microsoft Mail was chosen because "we see it as one of the best e-mail systems on the market and thought it would work best with other Microsoft applications."

Word is being used for basic desktop publishing, as well as word processing. Microsoft Excel will probably be used to develop a front end to the school's REVIEW executive information system. PowerPoint is being used by the faculty to develop everything from simple overhead transparencies to fairly sophisticated interactive presentation tools-including motion video using Microsoft Video for Windows™. Microsoft Mail has been readily accepted as a replacement for WCU's aging PROFS e-mail system, and Microsoft Schedule+ will be used in place of the PROFS scheduling facility, due to its easy-to-use visual approach.

WCU is also planning to move from its Model 204 database platform to SQL Server. But the school is being careful to make the transition slowly. "We have an extensive integrated database of student, personnel, and facilities data," explains Fasnacht. "It will probably take us four to six years to re-engineer our administrative applications and put the mainframe out to pasture." Meanwhile, the school is beginning to use the Microsoft Visual Basic® programming system to develop electronic forms and expects Visual Basic for Applications to be a primary development vehicle. In addition, WCU plans to promote Microsoft Access as an easy-to-use tool that end-users can use to develop their own queries and reports from our SQL Server databases and Model 204 legacy database using ODBC. "The ability of Microsoft Access to easily join a user's own data with our enterprise data is a real plus," says Fasnacht.

WCU's solution also includes document imaging. "We expect imaging to play a major role in our administrative processing in the coming years," says Fasnacht. Ths school is looking at products such as PaperBridge and Alacrity to provide that processing capability.

A Strong Step Forward

West Chester University's new computing direction has received a strongly positive response. "Windows NT Advanced Server is working out well as an enterprise LAN infrastructure, providing high-speed communications between all workstations on campus," reports Barimani. "We've been pleasantly surprised with its dependability and responsiveness." He adds that he is supporting more users per server with Windows NT Advanced Server than with the previous network.

Barimani also says Windows for Workgroups is making it easy for all network clients to use the LAN facilities. And the school is very

pleased with its Microsoft applications. "We've been teaching our introductory computing course for nearly a decade, and we're certainly able to accomplish more things with Word and Windows than we were with WordPerfect® and DOS previously," says Barimani.

He also finds Microsoft Mail "a whole lot easier to use" than PROFS, explaining that it's very difficult to edit on the fly in PROFS, and sending a note to someone on the Internet "requires a contortionist." However, he says users are finding that both tasks can be done easily with Mail.

Helping Create the Future

Fasnacht says the future looks bright for computing at West Chester University. "Our Windows NT Advanced Server-based LAN and Windows for Workgroups operating system can address every one of the five future trends we identified," he says.

Yet the work is far from over. "This is a never ending process," concludes Fasnacht. In the months and years ahead, WCU plans to move toward an object oriented environment and emphasize document imaging as the university moves to a paperless environment. Fasnacht is also excited about other capabilities the school's powerful new computing environment can offer. For example, he expects computer-based video to "dramatically change the way instruction and learning is carried out in the coming years."

It's a future West Chester University is already working to create.

Solution Overview

       School West Chester University, West Chester, Pennsylvania
     Solution Campus-wide computing network
 Architecture Client-server PC-based networking platform
Products Used Microsoft Windows NT
              Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server
              Microsoft Windows for Workgroups
              Microsoft Word for Windows
              Microsoft Excel
              Microsoft PowerPoint
              Microsoft Access
              Microsoft Schedule+
              Microsoft Video for Windows
              Microsoft Visual Basic
              Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications
      Benefit Provides a strong platform for future computing needs
              and growth; provides easier exchange of information among
              network users; enhances e-mail communication capabilities

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