UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE
COMPUTING LABORATORY
Structure of the Computing Laboratory and the Role
of the Computing Service within the University
The Crombie Committee made recommendations on the structure of the Computing Laboratory and on the committee structure for computing within the University. The proposal, Crombie Committee 8 (g), on the structure of the Laboratory aims to clarify the position of the Computing Service to make it more visible and so more responsive to the users in the University. The proposal, 8 (m), on the structure, aims at a strong committee inter alia ‘initiating … policy … on Information Technology’.
The aims of both proposals have our strong support but the means of them, in one case (Laboratory structure), appear to go too far, and in the other case (committee structure) do not go far enough. Both these proposals and indeed the other recommendations of the Crombie Committee must be considered in the light of the rapidly changing IT environment; even during the time the Committee has been deliberating there has been a major initiative from the UGC (UFC) on management information which has already changed the perception of IT within the University.
Laboratory Structure
Changes within the laboratory during the past year have implemented most of the detailed recommendations concerning the structure of the Laboratory. Appendix I, attached, shows the current position; only one member of clerical staff has significant duties on both sides of the Laboratory.
The most important of the recommendations on Laboratory structure is Item (i), relieving the Director’s workload. This calls for a different organisation within the Laboratory with the administrative part of the Head of Department’s load being carried by other staff. The most obvious arrangement, for which examples exist elsewhere in the University, would be to organise the Laboratory in a similar fashion to a School. The implications for the Computing Laboratory are as follows:
A “School” Arrangement
The Computing Laboratory would contain two departments: the Department of Computing Science and the Computing Service. Each department would have a Head, but there would also be the Director of the Computing Laboratory who would act like a Head of School.
The Head of the Computing Service would have the responsibility of Head of Department as in any other academic service, e.g. the Library and Audio Visual Centre, and would be treated by the University as such a Head. The title of this person would be Director of the Computing Service.
The Director of the Computing Laboratory would have a rather different role from the Head of a School of teaching and research departments because of the different nature of the two departments making up the Laboratory. He would be responsible for the harmonious sharing of the joint building and services, and for the co-ordination of joint technical policy. In particular, this would involve transfer of technology between Computing Science and the Computing Service. It would be expected that the Director of the Computing, having been relieved of day-to-day responsibility by the two Heads of Department would be able to concentrate on the provision of strategic technical advice to the University on Information Technology.
Committee Structure
The Crombie Committee recommended that there should be a strong committee for the Computing Service which should act, among other things, as “a strategic planning body for computing needs across the University”. For any committee to achieve such a strategic role it must have a wider responsibility than just the Computing Service. The network provided for computing purposes can serve many more functions than just computing; for example it is already being used extensively to gain access to the Library Catalogue and users of microcomputers are able to communicate with each other without any involvement of computing resources in the central service. Increasingly we will see academic services, the Audio Visual Centre and Language Centre as well as the Library and Hancock Museum, use the network in the provision of their service, and, in the future, many other information providers will transmit that information to all parts of the University across the network.
The most widely used information within the University flows to and from the administrative offices (Registrar, Finance, Bursar) and in the future this too will be carried on the network. To ensure the co-ordination and the efficient and effective handling of all these new types of information it is essential that one high level committee is involved in the planning. Such a committee should have a remit for Information Technology, not just computing, and should have responsibility for all three levels of service: the infrastructure provided by the Computing Service, the information handling tools provided by the Library and the provision of the actual information coming in the main from the administrative departments in the University.
The Computing Service should clearly report to such a committee but that is not the whole picture. In addition the committee will need to integrate the relevant activities of the data processing office, the Library and the major information holders in the administrative departments. Without this co-ordination there will be no coherent information strategy within the University and individual departments will have to become familiar with an increasing range of information formats. It is going to be difficult for many departments to come to terms with the technology, the least we can do for them is to provide a single coherent view of all the data sources.
A possible committee structure is shown in Appendix III, a more detailed discussion should await comments from the Crombie Committee on the overall organisation of the Academic Services.
HARRY WHITFIELD
ELIZABETH D. BARRACLOUGH
27th June, 1989
APPENDIX I
COMPUTING LABORATORY
Relationship Between Computing Science and Computing Service
BACKGROUND
The Crombie Carmittee, in their report to Senate, Paper K, May 30th 1989, recommended that the Computing Service should be a completely separate department from Computing Science. We understand from Senate minutes and reports of the discussion at Senate that this proposal has been referred to Academic Policy Committee and it would seem appropriate to try and clarify the position of the two sides of the Laboratory as there appears to be considerable confusion about the present situation.
Almost without exception, the staff in the Laboratory believe that there are real benefits to the University in keeping the two sides of the Laboratory together. We also believe that it is possible to achieve the aims outlined by the Crombie Committee without splitting the Laboratory.
HEAD OF DEPARIMENT FUNCTIONS
The two sides of the department work almost independently on all day-to-day administrative matters. In particular:
1. Personnel
Miss Barraclough deals with all Computing Service staffing appointments, promotions, regrading, etc. The one exception is key appointments of academically related staff (not a common occurrence) when both Professor Whitfield and Miss Barraclough would be involved in the selection committee.
2 . Finance
Miss Barraclough takes full responsibility for all expenditure in the Computing Service. There are a complete set of ledger codes administered by the Finance Officer and there is no overlap with Computing Science. Professor Whitfield has a similar set of ledger codes for Computing Science and each research project is handled separately.
The only transfers of funds that takes place between Computing Service and Computing Science are for:
a) Library facilities where the Departmental Library, of course, is shared;
b) Use of the common printroom where all printing costs are now charged on the basis of usage to the appropriate section, i.e. Computing Service, Computing Science or a research group.
3. Equipment
(a) There is close liaison between the two sides on equipment bids, particularly to ensure compatibility and common development policy wherever appropriate. In general this does not involve shared finance; the one exception at the moment is the classroom of microcomputers where the costs of establishing the classroom were shared and the room is used for both Computing Science teaching and by the Computing Service for courses and for other undergraduate teaching.
(b) Network cabling is often shared as we occupy the same building.
(c) All equipment specifically for Computing Science teaching is the sole responsibility of Professor Whitfield.
4. Academic Matters
All undergraduate Computing teaching is the responsibility of Professor Whitfield. Some staff in the Computing Service undertake small amounts of undergraduate teaching if they have particular expertise in an area. The amount undertaken in Newcastle is probably less than in many other universities. The Board of Studies is attended by Miss Barraclough in order that she may be kept informed and be aware of any resource problems.
STAFF
The position of every member of staff in the Computing Laboratory is completely clear, both to them and within the department, and also in the formal University record. Each person is either wholly in the Computing Service or in Computing Science; the only exceptions are Professor Whitfield and Miss Laybourn.
The functions of staff members are also quite clear, particularly since the reorganisation and resiting of clerical staff that has taken place during the past 12 months.
Though the position of each individual is quite clear, some functions are shared. A complete separation in many cases would require a duplication of staff and possibly equipment. The shared functions in detail are:
1. Building support services, e.g. telephones, space, repairs, decoration, these are all handled by one person for the whole Laboratory.
2. Printroom
We have one large, fast Xerox machine manned by one-and-a-half people which does all the printing and duplicating for the whole Laboratory. Costs for this are charged to the appropriate section.
3. [Maintenance]
Computing Science, like other departments, pays for and receives a maintenance and repair service for network and microcomputers from Computing Service technicians in precisely the same way as other departments. The small air-conditioning plants in Computing Science are looked after by technicians undertaking air-conditioning maintenance for the main computer. The time involved is minimal. Technicians on both sides of the department give help in an emergency wherever it is needed; again the time involved is minimal.
4. Computer Operators undertake the backing up of Computing Science and research machines. At present this service is only used by Computing Science but we would hope to extend it to other departments as they get larger machines.
5. Clerical Staff with the Exception of Miss Laybourn
There is now very little overlap. However, two members of clerical staff, one on each side, act as a backup for each other in the allocation of computing resources. A split would be an additional load on the clerical staff on both sides in learning the fairly complex procedures.
6. Safety Officers
The responsibility for the safety aspects of the whole department is shared between the Safety Officer and a Deputy Safety Officer, one from each side of the department. The duties have to be taken very seriously as we have a vulnerable building and a lot of continuously running equipment. Any split in the department would inevitably mean duplicating these functions.
7. Academic (Related) Staff
In addition to the teaching undertaken by Computing Service staff already mentioned, Computing Science staff over the years have acted as advisers to users in other departments. The time spent on this is generally very small though if a user has a problem where the expertise of a member of the Computing Science can be used the time expended can be considerable.
SPACE
Space within the Laboratory is obviously a shared facility, though at any point in time a particular roam belongs to one side or the other. The exceptions to this are the Cormon Room and rooms containing common user facilities.
NUMAC
We hold regular meetings at a management level with Durham. These are essentially meetings of the Computing Services from each institution. Professor Whitfield acts as a fairly neutral chairman leaving the main working relationship between Miss Barraclough and Mr. Lindley.
PLANNING
The activity where there is the closest co-operation between the two sides is planning new developments. The Computing Service has to plan many years ahead, and it also has to be relatively conservative in its approach, i.e. the equipment and software must be proven. Computing Science on the other hand, particularly on the research side, must use equipment at the forefront of current technology. Having a joint department allows the Computing Service to see equipment early in its life and thus make a mature judgement when planning ahead.
Service staff also have the advantage of meeting visiting Professors from the USA or Europe and hearing about developments in their computing services, for example Professor Saltzer from MIT recently gave an inspiring talk on Project Athena which is concerned with the provision of a computing service using workstations over a network.
H. WHITFIELD
ELIZABETH D. BARRACLOUGH
27th June, 1989