Computer lab restrictions common at U.

Wharton is just the latest school to limit access to its computer labs. and Phyllis Pei Despite criticism by students and administrators alike of the Wharton School's recent decision to restrict access to its computers to Wharton students, Wharton's policy differs little from the policies in other schools' labs. Among the School of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Nursing School -- the three other schools that enroll undergraduates -- nearly 75 percent of all computers are restricted to certain users. Both the SAS and SEAS departmental labs have about 22 restricted-access departmental labs, which continue to reserve a disproportionate number of each school's computers for students taking classes in that department. For example, the College has at least 162 computers which are restricted to certain majors and only about 65 computers with unrestricted access, while SEAS restricts at least 185 computers to Engineering students and has approximately 24 computers open to all students. Prior to Wharton's new restrictions, the school's 89 computers were available to all Penn undergraduate students. Wharton's computers constituted 15 percent of the open-access computers on campus and provided 26 percent of the total open access computing hours, according to an informal survey done by the school. The College, with more than four times Wharton's student enrollment, provides only one-seventh the number of open access computer student hours that the Wharton labs provided. Ira Winston, executive director of computing for SAS and SEAS, explained that maintaining a public lab is "a big deal," since computers and software must be secured to prevent theft and public labs require more staff. Only the Nursing School, with 32 computers, provides open access to all workstations. Carol Katzman, who handles computing for the school, said the school does not restrict lab space because the labs are not overcrowded and because she does not have enough technical staff to create a system to check logins. Indeed, restrictive practices on behalf of the other three schools stem mainly from the same basic issues -- computer shortages, department-specific programs and the inability to secure labs for public use. "We were full to the gills," Wharton Chief Information Officer Gerard McCartney said. "We felt that we were not able, as fully as we should, to support the instructional needs of our own students -- which is central to their education." Winston cited identical concerns in SEAS, since many computers have expensive software which Engineering students must be able to access. In SAS, several departments with restricted labs explained that the restrictions are necessary because departments use their own funds to purchase computers and consequently do not have enough machines to satisfy the needs of students taking their courses. Winston added that many SAS labs are intended for teaching assistants to prepare Web materials for their classes or to get undergraduates to spend more time around their respective departments. In other labs, space is simply too tight to justify the extra staff and security measures needed for a public lab, according to Kent Peterman, assistant dean for academic affairs of the College. SAS does run unrestricted labs, but none is open 24 hours a day like the Wharton and SEAS labs. A 24-hour residentially run lab opened in Harrison House, formerly known as High Rise South, this fall. Although all three schools agree that restrictions on lab access stem from overcrowding, Wharton officials also hoped the restrictions would address several other concerns. For Wharton, security issues -- which arose after federal marshals seized computers that had been used to download child pornography over the summer -- played a significant role in establishing their new regulations. In response to such concerns, Wharton set up an authentication system requiring login identification to keep track of people using their computers. Wharton has set up the login system for the approximately 5,000 students taking classes in the school and officials in the school said it would be prohibitively expensive to add the other 5,000 undergraduates to the system. Currently, Wharton is the only school within the University that has a computer authentication system. Although a University-wide authentication system is in the making, it is nowhere near fruition. "We haven't yet even begun to plan it," said Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing Jim O'Donnell said. "We just spoke about it." The central location of Wharton and its computer labs on campus have made the lab restrictions seem especially harsh for many non-Wharton students. "This is a fair point," McCartney said. "However, Wharton has made heavy investments in supporting instructional technology, which supports our curriculum. And the instructional needs of our students must come first." Katzman, who managed Wharton's computers for nine years, sympathized with the school's dilemma when she expressed concern about confirming that the Nursing labs are open. "You are in an interesting situation where if you advertise that [Nursing] has an open lab then you get a whole crowd of people and in two weeks we are going to have to turn around and do they same thing as Wharton," she said. "If we had the technology to restrict access [when I worked at Wharton] we would have done it then," Katzman added.