The CUNY Open Systems Center is a high-end research and training facility located in the Computer Information Services (CIS) offices at the University's central computing facility that is designed to serve as a testbed for the application of new technology to problems encountered by the University's professional staff in teaching, research and administration. With its Fall 1993 debut, the Open Systems Center became the first major outcome of the reorganization of CUNY's central computing operations announced by Vice Chancellor Richard Rothbard on July 1, 1993 as an implementation of the October 1992 report of the Advisory Committee on Computing and Systems (see "Reorganization of Computing at CUNY," FYeI, Spring 1994).

Viewing the Future at CUNY/CIS
(Photo by Aron Eisenpress)

The design of the Open Systems Center has been dictated by the key element of the University's technology agenda - i.e., building the CUNY infrastructure. Consequently, considerations such as cross platform development tools, transparent user access, and rapid network delivery have been formative factors in its development. A heterogeneous computing environment has been built, consisting of Apple Macintosh 840AVs and Power Macs, DEC Alphas, IBM Value Points and Pentiums, and Sun Sparcstations, networked together (in a Novell network over 10-base T) and gatewayed to the Internet through the central connection (which is scheduled to be upgraded from T1 to T3 speed during 1994-95). Network design and equipment acquisition were primary objectives in the first year. In 1994-95, the emphasis will be on extension of the complement of software resources that are available to Open System Center users.

Physically, the facility consists of three rooms: a 20-station training center, a multimedia development center available for individual use, and a DEC Alpha lab. The training center is intended for faculty and staff training programs, and is heavily booked. Individual faculty members and college decision-makers working on high-end technology projects related to teaching, research or instruction that cannot be completed with existing campus resources are invited to apply for access to the multimedia development center and to the Alpha resources. The Center is available to users by appointment only. (See "Access to the Open Systems Center" in this issue for details.)

Open Systems Center Programs

Programming for faculty in the Open Systems Center is strongly tied to the University's instructional technology agenda. One of the Center's main objectives is to provide an experimental environment for prototyping instructional software that can be used in the real world of teaching, learning and research at CUNY. In particular, close ties exist between the Office of Instructional Technology's Multimedia Courseware Development Initiative (which has funded the development of approximately 30 multimedia projects by CUNY faculty since its inception in 1990-91) and the faculty workshops that are offered.

In its first year of operation, the Open Systems Center quickly became the locus of the Office of Instructional Technology's Faculty and Staff training workshops. In addition to the scheduling advantage afforded by a training center dedicated to faculty and technical staff, the specialized equipment and high-speed network connections that were designed into the complex enabled cutting edge programming from the outset. In Spring 1994, the Open Systems Center provided the University's first workshops on navigating and authoring documents for the World Wide Web (i.e, the latest Internet resource development incorporating text, graphics and motion. See p. 7). As a consequence, this work spurred the development of CUNY's own home page on the World Wide Web (http://www.cuny.edu).

Additionally, short courses in CUNY site licensed programs such as Authorware Professional (a cross-platform multimedia authoring tool), Introduction to Data Analysis Using SAS for Windows, Introduction to Hypercard, and Intermediate Hypercard were featured offerings of the Open Systems Center program. Workshops for computing staffs (in MVS/JCL, Unix, and Schedule25, the University's new room and events scheduling software), in-service briefings (e.g., on the role of VM in a client-server environment, the future of IDMS and CUNY's database management strategy) and vendor-sponsored briefings (such as CUNY-only non-disclosure presentations) were also represented on the Open Systems Center's schedule in its first year of activity.

Small groups of faculty working on art and technology multimedia projects, and foreign language faculty also used the Open Systems Center to plan events or review new instructional software developments.

In 1994-95, the Open Systems Center welcomes four CUNY faculty members - Michael Fitzgerald, Michael Kress, Anthony Picciano and Dean Savage - as Visiting Faculty Fellows (see profiles on p. 12 and 13). This fall, they will be presenting eighteen workshops covering such topics as Multimedia Design Concepts, Multimedia Authoring, World Wide Web navigation, HTML Authoring for the World Wide Web, Introduction to Digital Video, QStats & QData (a suite of statistical tools developed at Queens College) and Easy Access to the General Social Survey, 1972-93. In addition to formal courses for faculty and instructional staff, one of the Open Systems Center's Visiting Faculty, Anthony Picciano, will be serving as a mentor to CUNY colleagues who are novice multimedia developers. Professor Picciano will be available by appointment to consult with developers about design issues as they relate to specific instructional projects.

On the technical side, computing staffs from across the University will be involved in specialized courses that extend their knowledge of Unix operating systems and client-server environments and that develop programming skills in administrative applications throughout the fall.

The CUNY/CIS Open Systems Center
(Photo by Aron Eisenpress)

Research Initiatives

Videoconferencing/distance learning technology and network delivery of information resources are the primary research initiatives of the Open Systems Center. As a follow-up to the University's Spring/Summer 1993 switched wideband trial with NYNEX, Northern Telecom and CLI as research partners (an activity which introduced point-to-point video-conferencing technology between and among administrative sites at 80th Street and 57th and instructional sites at City College and York College), the Open Systems Center has moved to explore other videoconferencing solutions.

Using CUNYNet (the University's proprietary T1 network) as its transmission medium, an experimental project based on PictureTel videoconferencing equipment has been installed in the Open Systems Center and at the Central Office (80th Street). This internal videoconference network is connected to other similarly equipped locations in the world at large through long distance circuits. To date, this experimental installation has been applied only to administrative activity, with the result that candidates in Australia and Hawaii for CUNY executive searches were included in the interview pool at minimal cost to the University. As these experiments continue, network latency (i.e., transmission delays), voice and image quality, appropriateness of the technological environment for effective exchange of communication, and cost of delivery and deployment through-out the University continue to be evaluated.

CU-See Me, a videoconferencing application developed and dis-tributed as freeware by Cornell University, is also under investigation. CU-See Me supports real-time, multi-party videoconferencing on the Internet utilizing a Macintosh computer with multi-media extensions, and microphone and video camera inputs. It provides a one-to-one connection, or by use of a reflector, a one-to-many, a several-to-several, or a several-to-many conference depending on user needs and hardware capabilities.

Videoconferencing technology, and its impact on the design of the network infrastructure, that is required to support the sharing of resources across CUNY will continue as the Open System Center's highest research priority.