A computer geek's guide to networking at Yale

SHAWN CHENG/YH

The Internet. You've heard of it; odds are you've even used it. But you won't quite have lived it until you get here. From e-mail and newsgroups to webpages and file sharing, all at the blazing 150 kilobytes per second of Ethernet, the Internet has become a pervasive part of the Yale experience.

Some of the popularity of computers is due to the role they play in the social scene--Instant Messages (IMs) and ICQs (an instant chat program) to the guys next door, e-mails announcing meetings and events, and Quake games on the intranet. But as entertaining as computers might be in that context, they are even more essential when it comes to academics (though the ability to send messages to friends from home and at Yale to temper the pains of paper writing cannot be lauded sufficiently).

The educational role of the network starts with picking classes; the Yale College Courses of Study (the Blue Book) is online, as is the supplement listing where classes meet. Searching for classes based on particular criteria electronically is often far more effective than paging through the paper version. During shopping period, the Internet also comes in handy by providing course syllabi and webpages, which give you some idea of what's in store even before you step into the lecture hall or classroom.

But this is just the beginning of a beautiful relationship between coursework and the network. With increasing frequency, professors are creating webpages with assignments, reference materials, homework solutions, sample tests, and links to additional information. Recently, Yale created classes.yale.edu in an effort to consolidate course webpages. Some language courses have sound clips online (saving students the grueling hike from Old Campus to the language lab in Rosenfeld Hall), and some history of art classes even have their slides digitized (saving students a trip to photo study). Discussions take place in Internet newsgroups, professors respond to questions via e-mail, and TAs send e-mails with pressing information or entertaining asides.

The fun doesn't stop there. A resourceful student can find information on his own to supplement inadequate lectures or insufficient reading time. For example, a group of Directed Studies students have a web page providing homemade Cliff's Notes for all of the D.S. books.

The ability to transfer files comes in handy, too. Teachers sometimes accept papers as e-mail attachments, and students zip files to their buddies for proofreading or printing. When documents have to be shared for group editing or collective studying, the electronic transmission option is often preferable to a visit to the distant copier.

Those little glowing screens are also key when it comes to research. One of the nice things about the Yale network is that Yale computers have access to Britannica Online, Lexis-Nexis, and a host of other incredible online information sources. Lexis-Nexis is a researcher's best friend, offering archives from various major publications. It can be found on the library's page, which also links to various other catalogs, including Yale's internal catalog, called ORBIS.

Even keeping up with the latest news has become integrated with technology. Home pages like cnn.com and nytimes.com are popular with students who want to know what is going on in the world without paying for subscriptions to publications they will barely have time to read.

The network also provides software to help with homework. Not only are there a variety of programs in the computer labs, but students can also obtain time-limited versions of programs like Mathematica. On Pantheon, Yale's student account server, there are development tools for programmers as well as Webster, an on-line dictionary. Fun-loving programmers have left some hidden tricks, too: At the prompt, typing "webster Yale" brings up a list of cities named Yale. Typing "chef" brings up an English-Swedish Chef translator.

Sometimes the academic computing scene becomes social. For example, Directed Studies students are known for hanging out in Connecticut Hall, the computer cluster on Old Campus, to finish their papers on Thursday nights. They also send deranged messages out over the Directed Studies e-mail list. Computer Science students, on the other hand, have raging computer science parties at their lab in Watson, called the Zoo because all of the computers have animal names (by contrast, the Connecticut Hall computers are named after Simpsons characters). Engineers hang out at the Garage in Dunham, while for artists there is the new Digital Media Center for the Arts.

Once you've actually finished taking a course, you may find your final scores emailed to you or accessible online. A few weeks later, grades are made available on the Student Information System website.

Sadly, Yale was recently ranked 38th in Yahoo! Internet Life's listing of the nation's most wired colleges. The problem can be summed up by pointing out that, as popular as computers are here, there is still an affinity for paper in many sectors, including course registration and class lectures. Even with digital projection technology, chalkboards and overheads win out over PowerPoint.

Despite certain problems, the relationship between Yale and computers, now and historically, is generally good. Yale is home to the Center for Advanced Instructional Media, which produces a world-renowned webpage style guide. Yale also was a founder of an Internet precursor, BitNet. The creator of the hacking tool AOL4Free is a Yalie.

Just remember, the undergraduate regulations explicitly prohibit declaring "computer trouble" as an excuse for late or missing work. For the average student, Computing Assistants are readily available in each college to help with the inevitable difficulties.

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