In the new millennium, universities are depending on electronic resources as never before. At Penn State, students frequently use services like LIAS on the Web to search for books, journals, maps and special collection items. Many also connect daily to the University's on-line academic counseling service, e-Lion, to access academic records, add/drop capabilities, and interactive advising sessions. Still others send e-mail, use a microcomputer lab, or dial into the University's network via a telephone line. Faculty members also increasingly use Web-based instructional technologies to manage course assignments, reading lists, and syllabi distribution. These services, many scholars agree, along with electronic directories and the World Wide Web, are becoming indispensable to the Penn State community.
None of the above would be possible, however, according to Russell Vaught, associate vice provost for information technology, without a system known as the Penn State Access Account.
The Penn State Access Account is a "userid" and password that enables University students, faculty, and staff to use the full range of Internet services on or off campus (at computer labs or on personal computers). Begun originally as a means for a handful of students to communicate with one another in early 1990s, the Access Account is now used today by 95% of all students, faculty, and staff University-wide.
"Many people don't realize what a unique resource the Penn State Access Account is, and how much it can benefit them," explained Vaught. "The system is extremely powerful because it enables so very many different services. Very few institutions have as comprehensive and extensive account services as this University."
Because Penn State's Access Account system uses a technology called the Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) to bundle all of its services and make access secure, it is extremely easy for individuals to use and cost-effective for the University, he added. "At many other universities, students, faculty, and staff need to use different accounts to access various services such as the library, email, dial-up and so on. At Penn State, this all occurs through one common account, so it's much less complicated."
Aside from the fact that it makes services like e-mail, LIAS on the Web, and eLion accessible, many organizations throughout the University depend on the Penn State Access Account system to provide a secure environment for Web-based collaborations and to protect the distribution of sensitive material.
For example, an application designed by the Office of the University Registrar uses the system to make it possible for faculty and staff to compare drafts of the Penn State Schedule of Courses, according to David Stucky, a network analyst in Enrollment Management and Administration. The application enables specific individuals to review and contribute to a working draft of the Schedule simultaneously via the Web while it's being compiled. Stucky says that an Internet-accessible index of enrollment counts, similarly managed by the Registrar's Office, is also made available through the access account system enabling staff members to securely retrieve enrollment numbers as needed.
There are numerous other divisions that use the Penn State Access Account system. At the Smeal College of Business Administration, instructors use password and userid authentication to issue Web-based tests to their students; and the Office of Human Resources provides personal benefit statements via the Web, by using the Access Account to verify staff and faculty identities.
Faculty members, too, increasingly describe a need to design curricula around access account-based resources. For these instructors, Penn State makes a "course server" available at http://www.courses.psu.edu/ that provides Web space for instructional purposes. Through this service, the Course On-line Account system (COLA) enables instructors to receive up to 50 megabytes of Web space for their instructional development interests; and the Student On-line Development Account system (SODA) provides students with an additional 10 megabytes each of Web space for course assignments.
"We're in an age in which students must develop multiple literacies in order to communicate both responsibly and productively," said Stuart Selber, an assistant professor of English at University Park, who teaches courses in technical writing, software documentation, and rhetorics of the Internet. "Making large amounts of Web space available to students enables them to work in literacy environments that parallel what they're going to find in the workplace."
Selber, who also designed a World Campus course in technical writing, points out that distance learning is another instructional environment made available to students via the Penn State Access Account. "Using this technology is both challenging and invigorating," he observes. "We all know the many ways we can exploit more traditional educational technologies in fact, they have become almost invisible to us. But we really don't know all the best ways that we can use computers yet. The Penn State access account is providing us with the tools to perform this exploration."
If you'd like to learn more about how the Penn State Access Account system can benefit you, visit http://cac.psu.edu/accounts/. For additional information about services provided by the Center for Academic Computing (CAC), a subdivision of Computer and Information Systems (C&IS), please go to: http://cac.psu.edu/.