Transcript Network users in CEE. Ways to identify their needs

Estonian Educational and Research Network
Network users in CEE.
Ways to identify their needs
Anne Märdimäe
Estonian Educational and Research Network (EENet)
Tartu, Estonia
NATO ANW: The Fourth CEENet Workshop on Network Management
Management Issues for Excellence in Research and Education Networking (MIXREN)
Moldova 2004
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
Overview

User categories in CEE

Identifying the needs of the user community

User surveys by EENet
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
Categories of users (institutions)
(1)
1.Universities
2.Research institutes
3.Libraries, Museums, National Archives
4.Secondary Schools
5.Institutes of higher/further education
6.Government departments (national, regional, local)
7.Primary Schools
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Categories of users (institutions)
(2)
8.University Sites
9.Hospitals (other than University hospitals)
10.All Others
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
NREN-s whose data was extracted from
TERENA Compendium data:
AL
AT
BA
BG
BY
CS
CZ
EE
GR
HR
ANA
ACOnet
BIHARNET
IST Foundation
BASNET
AMREJ
CESNET
EENet
GRNET
CARNet
Network Users in CEE
HU
LT
LV
MD
PL
RO
RU
SI
SK
UA
HUNGARNET
LITNET
LATNET
RENAM
PIONIER
RNC
RBNet/RUNNet
ARNES
SANET
URAN
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Allowed user categories in CEE
(1)
Universities
Research institutes
Libraries, Museums, Nat.Archives
Secondary Schools
Institutes of higher/further education
Government departments
Primary Schools
University Sites
Hospitals (excl.University hospitals)
All Others
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%100%
Data source: TERENA Compendium 2004
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Allowed user categories in CEE
(2)
Number of allowed user categories
HR, LV, LT, MD
AT, SI, CZ, EE, PL, UA
GR, HU, RO, SK
BY
CS, BA, BG, RU
AL
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Data source: TERENA Compendium 2004
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Identifying the needs of the user
community
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How does the NREN in your country find out
the actual needs of its different users
(institutions)?
In your opinion, in what areas are the needs of
researchers and educators different?
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Ways to find out the actual needs:
9 - Our customers themselves contact us for
expressing their needs [also: regular contacts with users]
8 - Our specialists estimate the needs of users
according to current usage of services, use the
experiences of other NREN-s
6 - The board consisting of representatives of
users defines the needs of users
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
4 - We organize user conferences where the
users can express their needs
3 - We run user surveys regularly (EE, GR, HU)



direct contacts with decision-makers or
technicians in institutions
generalization of the information received from
the main client and applying that on other endusers
participation in conferences which are
organised for schools involved in IT projects
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
Areas with different needs of
researchers and educators:
Researchers need more:


Available bandwidth
More advanced services like VLAN, IP
telephony, manageable bandwidth...
Educators need more:

End-user support
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Rather no difference in need for:


Reliability of service
Centrally offered services by NREN like
electronic mailboxes in the NREN-s server,
webhosting
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Summary about needs
“...all researchers, teachers and students require
cost-effective, reliable, widespread and
advanced network services, regardless of their
geographical location or subject discipline.”
SERENATE studies
31 December 2003
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
User surveys by EENet


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Annually since 2000
High response rate (58% of all user institutions
in 2004)
Possibility to keep track on changes of needs
Respondees: one contact person per user
(institution)
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NREN can learn from answers:


Are all existing services familiar to the users?
How the users evaluate the current services?
What they think should be changed in them?

Fields of usage of Internet connectivity
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How the needs of users have changed?

Need for additional services
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Importance of surveys for users:
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Their opinion matters
A channel for suggesting changes, give new
ideas, to transmit both critic and praise
Possibility to compare the answers to these of
others as the report is publicly available
Getting information about newer services
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More benefits:

Feedback to the board of NREN, to the ministry
and other politicians
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Reasoning of funding applications

PR

Positive feedback to NREN personnel
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
EENet’s user survey 2004

Target group: Institutions (research, educational,
cultural) using one or several services in the Estonian
academic network
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781 questionnaires posted

Responding activity 58%
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Aims

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Find out the number of end-users of the
academic network (permanent connection only)
Examine the contentment with different
services, find out needed changes
Get information about how well the users know
the existence different services (thereby also
promoting the services which are less known)
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Some results
Permanent connections

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About 210 000 end-users using EENet's
permanent connectivity in 2003
65% satisfied with their present Internet
connectivity via academic network
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Satisfied with current permanent connection?
Not satisf ied, because
the connection is too
slow
... there are
connectivity breaks
... too expensive
Satisf ied
... other reasons
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Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth
(research)
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
less than
200 kbps
200 kbps to more than 1 10 Mbps to
1 Mbps
Mbps, less
100 Mbps
than 10Mbps
Current
Network Users in CEE
Actually needed
more than
100 Mbps
Needed in 2007
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth
(universities, high education)
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
less than
200 kbps
200 kbps to more than 1 10 Mbps to
1 Mbps
Mbps, less
100 Mbps
than 10Mbps
Current
Network Users in CEE
Actually needed
more than
100 Mbps
Needed in 2007
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Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth
(high schools, gymnasiums)
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
less than
200 kbps
200 kbps to more than 1 10 Mbps to
1 Mbps
Mbps, less
100 Mbps
than 10Mbps
Current
Network Users in CEE
Actually needed
more than
100 Mbps
Needed in 2007
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
Evaluation of different services
NTP Stratum1 server
Webhosting
Mailing lists
Consultations
How-To-s in Estonian
Mailboxes
Database of Estonian Schools
Web-interface for mailboxes
Permanent connection
0%
excellent
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10%
good
20%
30%
40%
satisfactory
50%
60%
70%
unsatisfactory
80%
90%
100%
poor
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Estonian Educational and Research Network
Additional services/changes asked for:

more bandwidth

guaranteed bandwidth during the videoconference
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GRID
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information about all (incl. very short) connectivity
breaks
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central server for archive of video lectures
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backup services via backbone
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
WiFi services in academic nework
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VoIP
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LANtoLAN
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support for building of homepage of the smaller
institutions
possibility to administer the e-mailboxes in EENet's
server (create, delete)
courses (for system administrators, on security,
data communication etc)
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
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more HOWTO-s in Estonian
consultations about security, warnings about
security holes etc
different databases (e.g. about art schools, music
schools, software for teachers etc)
etc...
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Actions after the User Survey
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Full report in the Internet
Translation into English will be prepared and
published later
All the organizations which asked specific
information of complained about specific
technical problems were contacted, informed,
helped out
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Links

http://www.terena.nl/compendium/2004/
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http://www.serenate.org/publications/d21-serenate.pdf
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http://www.eenet.ee/englishEENet/usersurvey2003.html
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http://www.eenet.ee/englishEENet/webstr.html
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Thank you!
Anne Märdimäe
[email protected]
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