E-Class Tools

Keith Clay
October 2001

In the early 1990s, it became apparent to professors at the college where I work that collecting, tracking, and successfully returning 40 floppies to a class was an untenable task. A Mac server was then put in place, which allowed professors to distribute information to students and for students to turn in assignments. This was later transferred to a Windows NT server to allow both PC and Mac users access to the system. All work was done manually on both systems -- accounts were added, directories created, and permissions set by hand. This is the system I inherited.

Because I'm a UNIX convert, I decided to move the system to our Solaris box. This required software to allow Macs and PCs to use the same filesystem and share these files (i.e., a Mac user could save a file and go to a PC and open it without problems). We chose the Totalnet Access Server (TAS) from Syntax, Inc. This provided file access from both types of machines and allowed access to Solaris for scripting and ACLs.

We are using TAS rather than Samba and Netatalk. TAS allows us to move or copy Mac files on the command line and preserve the resource forks. From the client perspective, there is no additional software that reduces the time to implement and support. The client can create a file on a Mac and then manipulate it on a PC without loss of the resource fork. This allows students and professors to use different types of computers and access the same files. The cost for TAS when we bought it in 1999 was $40/client; we paid $40,000 for 1000 clients.

The current classfolder and dropbox system provides a way for students to turn in assignments, and for faculty to grade and return assignments and to electronically disseminate information to classes.

What Users See

Every night we receive a number of data feeds from the Administrative Computing Department.