While Oregon State is recognized as a leading center
for GIS research and instruction in the Pacific Northwest, it was
poorly organized to support and disseminate the tools to those
disciplines that urgently needed them. The campus was at a
crossroads. By pooling resources, the University could save
a large sum of money and still disseminate the technology to a much wider
user group. As is the case on many other campuses, GIS is
a tool that is being widely used in all disciplines, from basic
to applied research. There probably isn't a department at any university
that couldn't eventually make use of GIS. In Oregon, many of our state,
federal, and private funding agencies (e.g., EPA, Department of Environmental
Quality, Department of Forestry, the Bureau of Land Management, private
timber companies, consulting firms, etc.) are either using ESRI products
or planning to purchase them. OSU's ability to use the same product
in our research and education programs puts us in a better position
to attract research dollars and quality students. The only way to
economically provide such access was through a site license.
We then turned to a hybrid "centralized/distributed" model,
a compromise between the extremes of centralized funding in the
best of all worlds, and fragmented funding. The Contracts and
Customer Service departments at ESRI graciously allowed us to roll
over the maintenance fees that the campus had already paid for
that year ($11,000). The remainder came from
OSU Information Services ($7000), and the Colleges of Science
($2000), Forestry ($2000), Engineering ($2000), and Agriculture
($1000). With this hurdle passed we were on our way.
To the best of our knowledge, the campus installed
approximately $200,000 worth of software in 1996-'97 under the first
year of the site license. The following are the number of research
installations per College in during that year (i.e., licenses for
various products on individual machines):
Funding the Campus Agreement
Getting campus administrators to see the wisdom of a site license
was fairly easy. Getting them to actually fund it in the midst of a budget crisis
was an entirely different matter. The rationale was clear enough
(excepted from the original 1996 funding proposal):
As we began to investigate the mechanisms for funding
the agreement, we considered three possible
scenarios (Patterson and Shirley, 1994):
Based on experiences at the University of South Carolina, considered
at the time by ESRI to be the "model" campus for GIS site licenses,
we didn't want to consider the notion of fragmented funding
(i.e., individual departments chipping in toward the $25,000) as this
leaves dangerous implications for future growth. As almost 70% of
GIS usage on the OSU campus is for research, it was thought that
allocating moneys from indirect cost accounts within our Research
Office would be an appropriate and successful approach.
This would assure that the $25,000 per year would benefit all
participating departments, both large and small. Without this stability,
it would be too difficult to meet the demands of a recurring annual cost.
However, we were stymied by the discovery that our Research Office
does NOT fund recurring costs of ANY kind.
| Agricultural Sciences | 113 |
| Engineering | 259 |
| Science | 151 (136 of which were in Geosciences) |
| College of Oceanic & Atmospheric Sciences (COAS) | 50 |
| Forestry | 281 |
| Biological Computing Consortium* | 40 |
Not surprisingly, the department of Geosciences was a major user of the license during the initial year and has always had a huge investment in GIS. In recognition of this, and in light of the Research Office's policy on recurring costs, the Chair of Geosciences, provided $2500 from departmental funds to support the license renewal for our second year. He also proposed allocating the remaining costs to units based on their use of the license, as reflected in the installations noted above (less the Geosciences number for the College of Science). Listed below is how the $25,000 cost was shared for the 1997-'98 site license:
| Department | Original | Plus Use Cost |
Total Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Information Services | $7500/year | 0 | 7500 |
| Research Office | $7500/year | 0 | 0 |
| College of Science | $2000/year | 100 | 2100 |
| College Forestry | $2000/year | 1955 | 3955 |
| College of Engineering | $2000/year | 1805 | 3805 |
| College of Ag.Sciences | $2000/year | 790 | 2790 |
| COAS | $2000/year | 350 | 2350 |
| Dept. of Geosciences* | 2500 | ||
| TOTAL | $25,000 | 25,000 |
And so our "centralized/distributed" model has slipped along the continuum closer to fragmentation, but at least it has not descended to the level of individual departments or research units. However, we continue to urge individual department chairs to strongly encourage their Deans, as well as the Vice Provost of Information Services, to remember that the contract will require yearly attention.
Agricultural & Resource Economics - 12
Current Setting
Campus usage at this time is still estimated to be 70% research,
30% instructional. Listed below are the departments that are current,
active users of the site license. The number following the department
name is the estimated number of users (NOT actual licenses)
for the products they have ordered under the site license. Users
include researchers, graduate and undergraduate students, staff,
and faculty.
Biological Computing Consortium - 40
Bioresource Engineering - 16
Botany and Plant Pathology - 1
Columbia Plateau Conservation Research Center (CBARC) - 2
Civil Engineering - 23
COAS - 30
College of Engineering - 213
College of Forestry - 172
Computer Science - 7
Crop & Soil Sciences - 36
Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center (EOARC) - 2
Entymology - 7
Environmental Remote Sensing Applications Laboratory (ERSAL) - 3
Fisheries & Wildlfie - 25
Forestry Science Lab - 102
Forest Research Lab - 2
Geosciences - 136
Hatfield Marine Science Center (HMSC) - 10
Horticulture - 6
Klamath Station - 1
Oregon Climate Service - 8
Pauling Papers, Valley Library - 3
Northern Willamette Research & Extension Center (NWREC) - 4
Political Science - 2
Public Health - 2
Radiation Center - 7
Radiation Safety - 1
Rangeland Resources - 22
Statistics - 2
Seed Certification Program - 8
Zoology - 6
The Valley Library - 64
Administering the License
One of the first decisions made with respect to administering the
site license was determining the best method for distributing the initial
deliverables. With so many users on campus, access to and distribution
of these resources was a matter warranting considerable thought
and preparation, necessitating a dedicated coordinator. Once again,
in the best of all worlds, funds would be available to hire a systems
analyst solely for the position of "ESRI site license coordinator," whose
job it would be to oversee the acquisition, inventory and support
of ESRI products, and to transcend departmental and institutional bureaucracies
in raising the $25,000 yearly maintenance fee (e.g., Patterson
and Shirley, 1994). At OSU with one campus coordinator being an untenured
assistant professor and the other a full-time researcher, it has been a
challenge to maintain effective support procedures, as well as to
maintain accurate and current inventories.
Distribution of Software
One of the most important procedures instituted at OSU for quick
and efficient distribution of software was the use of a locally-
accessible, password-protected Novell network server.
CD platters sent by ESRI are made available on this server, from
which qualified users (usually departmental computer administrators) can
download ESRI software at their convenience. This server is currently being
used for the distribution of
Users obtain the needed ESRI product registration numbers for
installation of these products by sending an empty email message
to an account on campus that sends back the numbers using the
Unix vacation utility. In this way we also have an automatic
record of who has downloaded PC software from the server. We will take
steps to limit the account to the "orst.edu" domain. As most
of our users on campus are PC and Mac afficionados (mostly
Windows 95), this has been very easy to facilitate and manage.
For the smaller Unix and NT community, CD-ROM media are checked
out to users with the understanding that they must return the
media within 1-2 days so that the next user may have access.
General software distribution guidelines are outlined on the
OSU ESRI Site License Web Site at www.geo.orst.edu/esri_distrib.html#soft.
Keycodes, Keys, and Requesting Additional Products
For hardware key and keycode requests, users are encouraged to
join and send messages to a mailing list that has been set up for OSU
users of the ESRI site license. This listserv (arcinfo@mail.orst.edu)
is used to share information about updates, scheduling of new
orders, for the sharing of user questions, and as a way to
find out if others want to order products at the same time. For
example, if 5 users across campus find out via the listserv that they all
need to order Unix Arc/INFO keycodes, they can submit a single order
directly to the campus purchasing agency, and decide among themselves how
they are going to split the $250 transaction fee. In this case they
would probably submit 5 accounting index numbers to the purchasing agent
so that each of 5 grants would be charged $50. General keycode and hardware
key guidelines are outlined on the OSU ESRI Site License Web Site at www.geo.orst.edu/keycode.html.
User order additional CD-ROM copies of software through our campus purchasing agent. They can order additional copies of documentation or tutorials (at 40% off list price) by calling the ESRI desktop center directly and specifying the OSU site license customer number. Guidelines to these effects are outlined on the OSU ESRI Site License Web Site at www.geo.orst.edu/site2.html#prices.
In terms of seminars and the like, OSU is also sorely in need of a campus forum once or twice a year where users can meet face-to-face, share ideas, and keep colleagues abreast of their GIS activities. Also needed are workshops designed for specific purposes, such as quick training or addressing of particular topics, e.g., serving software over a local network or using the more advanced features of software (e.g., a survey of ESRI-derived and public domain extensions for ArcView).
The representatives from Forestry and Crop and Soil Science are listed in the contract as temporary. They have not committed to such an undertaking due to their current workloads. As one can surmise, technical support roles can quickly balloon to Superman proportions. Forestry and Geosciences are currently the biggest users of ESRI software on the OSU campus so it makes sense that someone from those departments plays a role. It has been expected that, as with other widely-used software on campus, questions to these three individuals should not come randomly from anyone or everyone, but should go through a channel where each department or unit has a person to deal with local questions, and only those people call the three "specialists". Under the terms of our site license agreement, software support and maintenance services are provided by ESRI on an annual basis. This includes technical support by telephone, regular software updates and new releases, documentation changes and updates, electronic mail service, quarterly newspapers, and the opportunity to participate in ESRI's annual User Conference, as well as regional user group meetings.
We also inform the campus community of other alternatives that may lighten the burden of the three technical support specialists. Oftentimes users may bypass ESRI technical support altogether and post queries themselves to one of ESRI's listservers:
ESRI-L esri-l@esri.com
ARCVIEW-L arcview-l@esri.com
Thorough answers sometimes return more quickly via this route and may sometimes be as helpful as official advice from ESRI technical support. Information on ESRI-L and ARCVIEW-L as well as various technical notes, links to an online discussion forum, and an Internet Relay Chat can be found at nt1.esri.com/community/community.cfm.
Oregon State's experience with the ESRI site license agreement has
overall been very positive. The campus has saved several tens
of thousands of dollars in maintenance costs and acquired hundreds
of thousands of dollars-worth of software. Many units on campus
that could never have dreamed of purchasing GIS software now
have access for several of their students and faculty.
Our major task in the next year is to improve channels of communication
so that we
We would like to thank Sherm Bloomer, Sheldon Ladd, Fred Horne,
George Brown, Thayne Dutson, Jim Moore, and Joy Hughes
for providing timely financial support for our site license.
Earlene Ferris, Mark Nash, George Lienkaemper, and Greg Gaston have
been indispensible in helping to administer the license on campus.
ESRI personnel Mike Phoenix, Lee Ross, Rebecca Dorsey, Matt Sculuca are
thanked for their continual support which has always always been offered
with the highest degree of pleasantness and professionalism.
Hawks, M. M., and Wissler, C., 1997. Development of an institutional approach
for university site license management and distributed user support,
Proceedings of 17th Annual ESRI User Conference, San Diego, CA, Paper
293.
Patterson, T. and Shirley, W. L., 1994. Establishing and maintaining
an Arc/INFO support network for university site license clients,
Proceedings of the 14th Annual ESRI User Conference, Palm Springs,
CA.
Conclusion
The University of Oregon, Western Oregon University, and several
community colleges are interested in partnering with us in the site
license, which may give rise to a statewide site license agreement
with ESRI. And so our adventures are likely to continue!
Acknowledgments
References
Dawn J. Wright
Assistant Professor
Department of Geosciences
104 Wilkinson Hall
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-5506
Telephone: 541-737-1229
FAX: 541-737-1200
Email: dawn@dusk.geo.orst.edu
Marcia Brett
Senior Faculty Research Assistant
Department of Crop and Soil Science
3057 Agriculture & Life Science Building
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331
Telephone: 541-737-0870
Fax: 541-737-5725
Email:Marcia.Brett@orst.edu