BU - ACS FLYER

Office of Information Technology

ACS

ACADEMIC COMPUTING

INTERNET ACCESS

Academic Computing and Internet Access

Students, faculty, and staff at Boston University have access to a wide variety of computing resources for communication, coursework, instruction, and research. The Office of Information Technology provides general-access facilities for the entire University community, including:

ACS (Academic Computing System), a general-access UNIX cluster you can use for e-mail, World Wide Web browsing, word processing, programming, research, and more;
public computing facilities equipped with workstations, terminals, and laser printers; and
a high-speed Campus Network inter-connecting these resources and linking them to the Internet. Additional computing facilities may be available to you through your college, department, or residence hall. See Other Computing Resources on page 3.

ACS (Academic Computing System)

The primary shared academic system is a cluster of large, multiuser IBM RS/6000 computers. This system supports a wide range of applications under the UNIX operating system.

Application software

A variety of application software packages and computer languages are available on ACS:

Elm and UNIX mail -- electronic mail programs;
Netscape, Mosaic, and Lynx -- web browsers;
C, FORTRAN, LISP, and Pascal -- programming languages;
SAS, SPSS, Minitab, IMSL, and NAG -- statistical packages and subroutine libraries used in research and instruction;
Interleaf, FrameMaker, and IslandWrite -- text processors appropriate for any project from a paper to a technical dissertation;
IslandDraw and IslandPaint -- graphics packages used for the creation of diagrams and illustrations;
MATLAB and Mathematica -- packages for performing symbolic and numerical calculations and graphically presenting the results; and
Wingz -- a spreadsheet package.

Help and training

Information Technology's Consulting Services group provides support in most areas of computing, including ACS, personal computing, and some departmental systems. Consulting Services maintains Help Desks at the public clusters located in the basement of 111 Cummington Street and on the third floor of Mugar Memorial Library. Information Technology staff present a comprehensive series of free training sessions each semester. Topics range from general "getting started" sessions for the computing novice to in-depth sessions on specific application software packages.

How to get an account

To open an account on ACS, visit Information Technology's Input/Output Services window in the basement of 111 Cummington Street and ask for the handout on the "new" program. Run this program to choose a login name and password, then present your current Boston University ID to complete your application. Your account should be available within twenty-four hours.

Public computing facilities

Centrally located clusters of terminals provide the Boston University community access to ACS and other computing systems, to the Campus Network, and to the Internet. The primary cluster is located in the basement of Information Technology at 111 Cummington Street. A second cluster is located on the third floor of Mugar Memorial Library. High-speed laser printing is available at the primary public cluster.

The campus network

The Campus Network provides direct access to the Internet, electronic mail, the Web, and many other resources, offering students, faculty, and staff high-speed access to people and facilities throughout the world. Tens of thousands of ports supporting communications rates up to 100 million bits per second are interconnected via optical fiber and high-speed routers and switches. Direct access to the Campus Network is available throughout campus, including public terminal clusters, academic departments and offices, residence hall Computer Resource Labs, and a growing number of classrooms and residence hall rooms. Nearly a thousand telephone lines and modems provide remote access to the Campus Network and the Internet at speeds comparable to those available from commercial Internet service providers.

Other computing resources

Many colleges, departments, and residences provide computing facilities of their own. These facilities include personal computing laboratories, workstations, and servers. Usually, access to these facilities is restricted: in the case of departmental resources, to students and faculty associated with that department; in the case of residence hall resources, to residents only. Students should check with their faculty or resident advisors to learn what resources are available.

The Office of Information Technology's Personal Computing Support Center (PCSC), in Room B19 at 111 Cummington Street, is dedicated tohelping Boston University students, faculty, and academic staff usetheir Macintosh and IBM-compatible computers effectively. The PCSC provides consulting, self-paced training for a number of popular applications, technical support, file recovery, text and graphics scanning, and file translation. The PCSC is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Wednesday 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. (hours may vary during the summer). Telephone 353-PCSC (353-7272).

Information Technology's Scientific Computing and Visualization group (SCV) provides specialized computing and communication resources in support of computational science, engineering, and other disciplines that have high-performance computing and graphics requirements. SCV is located on the second floor of 111 Cummington Street.

Supported software on ACS

Text editors, word processors

Spreadsheet

Wingz Web browsers, electronic mail, news

Statistical

Scientific

Programming languages

How to get more information

Details on the many facilities and services provided by the Office of Information Technology are in the following documents:

These documents are available from the main office and other Information Technology locations. Copies are also available online in the Office of Information Technology's World Wide Web home page.

Office of Information Technology
617/353-2780

Main Office

it@bu.edu

http://www.bu.edu/IT/

ACS

help@acs.bu.edu

Terminal cluster (basement)

Mugar Library Terminal Cluster (3rd floor)

Consulting services (both locations)

http://www.bu.edu/CC/

Computer Graphics Laboratory (2nd floor)

scv@bu.edu