Information Technology at Reed

Where We Are Today

1993

            For many years, Reed College has been nationally recognized as a leader in educational computing. It was one of the first liberal arts colleges to establish a policy of total access to computers for all faculty and students, it created one of the first fiber-optic campus-wide computing networks, and it has a reputation for providing computer laboratory facilities on par with those found at some of the best research universities in the country. While preserving the traditional values and goals of the liberal arts education, Reed has endeavored to incorporate computing into many aspects of student life and the curriculum.

            For example, Psychology students use computerized laboratories for homework assignments and independent projects to investigate cognitive processing, learning, perception, and psychophysiology. Political Science students use the computerized Public Policy Workshop to conduct quantitative research on a variety of contemporary policy issues. Student in Biology use software developed at Reed to investigate population dynamics of amphibia, students in Philosophy explore the concept of artificial life through computer simulations, and students in Chemistry build and manipulate complex molecular models using high-powered graphics workstations.

            The campus-wide computing network, Reed-LAN, utilizes the latest technology in fiber optics to connect every classroom, laboratory, office, and public work area, such as those in the Hauser Library, to Macintosh microcomputers, UNIX workstations, and other computer facilities throughout the campus and around the world. Through Reed-LAN, students can access printers, file servers, the Library catalogue, and a variety of other resources, such as an electronic drop-box for submissions to the school newspaper. In many classes, professors encourage students to use electronic mail for out-of-class discussions. Reed's computing facilities are accessible to all students 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

            Microcomputing facilities at Reed include more than six hundred and fifty college-owned microcomputers, in addition to approximately five hundred microcomputers owned by students. Many of the college-owned machines are available for general student use in Information Resource Centers (IRC's) located in the Library and in various academic buildings throughout the campus. In addition to hundreds of microcomputers, the College owns more than twenty-five high-powered UNIX workstations. Rather than one central "host" computer, the College maintains a number of distributed computing facilities for students and faculty that include a DECsystem 5500 (Romulus), a DECsystem 5000 (Bombina), and two Sequent S27's (Itchy and Scratchy). All distributed hosts run the UNIX operating system. Through its participation in the National Science Foundation SuperQuest Program, the College also has access to an Intel iPSC860 Parallel Supercomputer, currently housed at the Oregon Graduate Institute.

            The campus network is connected to the Internet, a coalition of computing networks which spans the United States, Europe, the Far East, and other parts of the world. Through the Internet, Reed students and faculty gain access to computing resources, databases, and electronic mail exchange with colleges, universities, corporations, research laboratories, and government agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

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            Reed offers extensive consulting support and training services for all computer users. Services include free computer orientation, specialized tutorials, manuals, help sheets, and a professional staff to answer questions and assist with computer problems. There is also an on-campus shop, Computer Hardware Services, that sells and repairs microcomputers and workstations to students and other members of the Reed community..

            Historically, Reed's computing resources have extended beyond the campus through membership in organizations such as the Apple University Consortium (AUC), the InterUniversity Consortium for Educational Computing (ICEC), and the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges(CLAC). In most cases, Reed has been selected for these consortia because of its leadership role in liberal arts computing. In the AUC and ICEC, for example, Reed was chosen from among six hundred private, liberal arts colleges to participate with universities such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Cornell among others. Reed serves as the national headquarters of CLAC, an organization that includes fifty of the top liberal arts colleges in the United States such as Williams, Swarthmore, Oberlin, Carleton, Wellesley, and others.

            Reed also enjoys valuable relationships with many computer vendors. For example, through its close association with Apple Computer, Reed became one of the first colleges to develop software for the Macintosh that has since been licensed to organizations such as NASA, Lockheed, the National Institutes of Health, Los Alamos National Labs, Tektronix, Standard Oil, AT&T, Johns Hopkins University, Dartmouth College, Tulane Medical School, Cal Tech, and more than 150 others.)

            Reed's accomplishments in educational technology have been assisted in many ways by its outstanding alumni, as well as by its faculty and students. Among the alumni who have achieved distinction in the field of computing are Peter Norton, founder of Norton Utilities, one of the country's most successful microcomputer software companies, Kenneth King, former president of EDUCOM, a national consortium for educational computing, Steven Jobs, founder of Apple Computer and NeXT, Inc., Howard Vollum, founder of Tektronix, Inc., Wendy Lehnert, a University of Masschusetts researcher in artificial intelligence who has been honored as a Presidential Scholar by the White House, and Robert Gillespie, one of the country's top computing consultants who has worked, most recently, on the creation of the National Research and Education Network (NREN).

            In 1992, Reed was selected by the National Science Foundation to be a site for its SuperQuest Program, along with four other distinguished institutions, the Cornell Theory Center, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, the Supercomputer Center of the University of Alabama, and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico. Through its collaboration with the Oregon Graduate Institute and the Intel Supercomputer Systems Division, Reed represents the Pacific NorthWest in a very special program to enable high school students from all areas of the United States to learn how the most sophisticated computing tools can be applied to scientific research.

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The Challenge for Tomorrow

            While Reed's commitment to instructional technology has enabled it to provide faculty and students with some of the best computing resources in higher education, the rapid evolution of technology makes it impossible for us to rest on our laurels. Reed must continue to keep pace in this area if it is to supply the computing tools necessary for maintaining the highest quality of undergraduate teaching and research.

         With a solid technical and organizational infrastructure now in place, the College can turn its attention to ways in which specific aspects of the curriculum could be enriched through technological innovation. In order to identify these areas, the Academic Computing Committee has asked the staff of Computing & Information Systems to conduct a needs assessment of computing needs for each academic department. The assessment began with departments in the arts and humanities and will be completed for the entire College by November 1993. Some of the ideas that have already surfaced include:

•     Multimedia Lab for the Humanities

•     Music Composition & Synthesis Lab

•     Image Database for the Arts

•     Foreign Language Software

•     Computational Chemistry Lab

•     Math/Economics Lab

•     Classroom Projection Facilities

         An overriding theme that has emerged, however, is that of faculty development. Although many Reed faculty members are sophisticated with respect to computing, many have indicated that the greatest obstacles to incorporating technology into the curriculum are insufficient knowledge of new possibilities and inadequate resources for gaining such knowledge. Enabling faculty members to travel to other institutions or to conferences that focus on instructional technology, bringing courseware specialists to Reed for seminars and workshops, providing a regular update of new courseware products, creating incentives for courseware development or integration ­­ such as summer stipends or release time allowances ­­ are among the ideas that faculty have proposed as ways of promoting innovative curricular uses of technology.

      Reed's internal assessment of its technology needs must be complemented by explorations outside the College as well. Maintaining close contact with peer schools in the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges keeps us apprised of the way technology is currently incorporated at the best schools across the country. But we can go beyond this. By establishing a Technology Advisory Council comprised of distinguished individuals from the private sector, Reed hopes to gain a fresh perspective on future possibilities of technology and education at the same time that it explores avenues for cooperation with research laboratories, corporations, and other types of organizations.