Ever since the concept of western formal education was introduced, the core of education has always been the transfer of information from the teacher to the student. From word of mouth, to written books, and to structured teaching methods, the efficiency of this transfer of information has evolved greatly since its inception with the help of modern technology.

Nowadays, all major universities in the world rely heavily on the most powerful tool of information transfer today, the Internet. Only recently however, has the role of a computer network played a very intrusive role with regards to actual teaching methods in education. Perhaps this can be most effectively illustrated with an example.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) has an almost one-to-one student to computer notebook ratio. The entire 1.5 square kilometer campus is virtually covered by a wireless computer network. On a typical day, a student sitting on an outdoor bench would download a lecture video presentation made by the professor of his next class and play it. When the class actually starts, each student would have studied the recorded lecture and would then proceed to ask intelligent and well-thought questions. Students in other classrooms may participate in the discussion as well using video-conferencing and other networking technologies.

In the case mentioned above, the efficient transfer of information from teacher to student strengthens the learning process through the aid of computer networking. It is incontestable that a campus-wide network plays an immense role in an educational institution. Implementing such a network however, is an expensive and time-consuming project that requires the cooperation of many units and individuals. It is particularly expensive because it is impractical to cut costs in ordering equipment. This is because in addition to dubious reliability, low cost equipment tends to require more maintenance. Regardless, the benefits are great as a full-scale network upgrade provides improvements to nearly every service a university provides.

One particular benefit an efficient computer network may provide to the campus is VoIP, (Voice over IP technology). This would enable us to use telecommunications using our own campus network. An obvious advantage of this is cutting the recurring costs of six hundred or so telephone bills spewed monthly by the PLDT phones located in the campus.

Perhaps the most exciting application of an efficient computer network may be what the Interactive Learning Center (ILC) has already started under the initiative of its director, Dr. Lynie B. Dimasuay. The ILC has wisely invested in video conferencing equipment that will undoubtedly realize its full potential once the campus network has been upgraded. Because one can easily be involved in video-conferencing by purchasing a cheap webcam, it’s not hard to imagine a campus communicating internally through classrooms and lecture halls via video-conferencing within a year.

What will it cost us to implement campus-wide VoIP and video conferencing? A mere 1,400 pesos (the approximate cost of an affordable headset and webcam) for any computer that wants to participate. This is because almost all of the campus units are already physically connected to one big local area network -- the main objective of the original UPLB Network Project headed by Prof. Elfredy V. Cadapan.

For several reasons still, the campus has a long way to go in order to achieve full-scale efficiency and to be able interact with the outside world. Hence, the most pressing issue is of course the speed of the campus internet connection. Due to the recent addition of numerous computer units to the campus network, the internet bandwidth was unable to cater to the growth of users. As a result, we have a very sluggish internet connection. Another problem is the lack of budget to replace old and inferior networking hardware scattered throughout the campus. There is also the frustrating issue of power failures that affect the campus consistently. These power failures harm sensitive (and expensive!) equipment while disrupting operations. Finally, there is a lack of communication and coordination concerning IT projects between the units and personnel in UPLB (partly due to the lack of an efficient network itself to provide communications). Also, unlike other universities of a much smaller size, no formal and dedicated IT group for UPLB networking and system administration exists. The current network upgrade project of the Institute of Computer Science (ICS) aims to address most these issues before the end of this year.

Last February 2005, ICS with the approval of Chancellor Wilfredo David, initiated a bid to upgrade the campus 128 Kbps (kilobits per second) internet connection to one that is thirty-two times faster (4 Mbps). An upgraded connection such as this would mean huge improvements to the web browsing experience for each user in the UPLB campus. ICS is optimistic that the network upgrade will be finally be completed by the beginning of October. In addition to connection upgrade, campus units are now taking steps to upgrade existing network equipment. Specifically, this involves replacing old “network hubs” with the more modern “network switches” which will further improve network performance within UPLB.

Recently, around 5 Million pesos worth of networking and computer equipment has been allocated by ICS to the computer networking room of UPLB. This was made possible through the initiative of ICS Director, Prof. Concepcion L. Khan. The networking room will serve as the primary datacenter to house the future IT projects of UPLB. So far, the server room has been fully refurnished with new paint, glass coverings, raised flooring and server cabinets. New enterprise performance equipment such as Sun servers, high-end 3Com switches, APC Uninterruptible Power Supplies and Cisco routers have already been ordered, while most have already arrived. These are ready to be deployed once the internet connection is upgraded and a Campus-wide IT strategy is discussed and finalized. The latter is very important, as it ensures a unified strategy among all units to build a comprehensive IT infrastructure.

The university composes of numerous people all over who envision an efficient, speedy and self-sustaining computer network. This would be a network that is ubiquitous and would be the foundation of campus operations (e.g. student registration, campus administration), novel learning tools (e.g. video-conferencing), cheap communications (e.g. VoIP) and research accessibility (e.g. wireless networking in dormitories and buildings). ICS is very optimistic that this can be realized within a year through unified effort.