Abstract

The development of Metropolitan Area Networks has provided universities with a unique opportunity to collaborate amongst themselves and with commercial and industrial partners. This talk will provide a description of developments in this area within the United Kingdom, describing the national strategy that has been adopted and how that has been applied to one particular region, the North West of England, in which there are sixteen universities. This talk will describe the trend towards Regional Area Networks and outline the many opportunities for collaboration which now exist following the installation of such a network.

The United Kingdom Academic Scene

In the UK there are 105 universities and about another 70 general colleges of higher education. The total number of students attending these higher education institutions is approximately 1.2 million full-time and 650 part-time students. The universities vary in size from the largest with about 19,000 students, but more typically an average university in the UK will have about 8-10,000 students. The nature of the universities vary very considerably. For example, universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and Manchester, and about another 12 universities have a very high research element within their activities whereas others such as the Universities of Brighton, Westminster and Greenwich are largely teaching universities with only small amounts of research carried out. Over the last ten years there has been a significant increase in the number of students attending British universities and the age participation rate of 18 year olds is about 35%. The Government froze this figure at this level about four years ago. However, in 1997 the new Government, under Prime Minister Tony Blair, was elected with a commitment to an agenda of ‘education, education, education’. As part of this it is indicated that it sees a further increase in the number of students over the next five years.

The University of Manchester

Manchester University is one of the oldest universities in the UK and has 18,000 students on courses in all subjects. It has a strong international research reputation – for example, the splitting of the atom was achieved here by Ernest Rutherford as Professor of Physics in 1919, and in 1948 Tom Kilburn and Freddie Williams invented the first stored program computer. This reputation continues to this day since it is the home of Europe’s premier university computing facility supporting world class research and teaching in all disciplines.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Funding of UK Universities

Funding of the universities in the UK has been devolved to four national bodies representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These four funding bodies together with other central Government funding provide about £6 billion per year to support this system. If you look at the four funding bodies you will see immediately they are not equal in size with the English body many times larger than the other three. Since the 1997 election, government policy is moving towards regionalisation and devolution. During 1999, new regional governments will be established in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. There is now a trend in England to look towards some form of regionalisation. One of these regions will be the North West of England centred round Manchester and Liverpool. This trend has been a factor in the evolution of networking in the North West of England.

Computer Networks in UK Universities

The responsibility for providing all networking within each university rests with the university itself. However, a national network called SuperJanet has evolved which links all universities together in a private high speed back-boned network. This is funded centrally and provides the communication between universities and international links to the rest of Europe as well as transatlantic links. SuperJanet was a follow on from Janet which had existed for 15 years. Currently 180 universities, 40 research centres, 200 further education sites and 100 schools have been connected to SuperJanet.

As the network has evolved there has been a recent development of Metropolitan Area Networks (MANs) which provide a high speed networking capability within a metropolitan area of which Manchester with its large population is clearly one example.

MANs have a key role to play in the development of network technology for universities. They can:

- provide higher bandwidth locally

- support local and regional roles

- aid collaborative working

- provide organisational freedom.

This last point is important as it provides a potential for the institutions within the Metropolitan Area Network to move in different ways not possible because of funding models and resultant constraints. The national backbone onto which the MAN is connected is publicly funded and brings with it restrictions on usage. One of the advantages of a Metropolitan Area Network is that ownership of it rests with the local institutions and this provides opportunities to develop industrial links and links with other partners, for example, hospitals, further education i.e. technical colleges, and schools. This was one reason to encourage people to think about the development of Metropolitan Area Networks.

G-MING

G-MING is a consortium of the five universities in Greater Manchester and has established a high speed network linking these five institutions and 40 of their remote sites. These sites include four hospitals, 15 university halls of residence, the libraries of the individual universities and other remote parts of the universities. In addition, there are links to various industrial parks in Greater Manchester.

The universities are all connected at speeds of 155 Megabits / second as are the individual halls of residence, libraries and hospitals. The speed of this network has allowed many applications to run for the first time and the following have now been shared amongst all the universities:

access to all library collections

video conferencing

remote lecturing

high performance graphics

teaching software

tele-medicine.

Of particular interest is the extent to which G-MING has made a contribution to the economic regeneration of the region. The development of the MAN has received funding from the EU through its European Regional Development Fund and the result is that G-MING has played a part in building a city infrastructure linking business applications, multi-media applications, and a community network which stretches right throughout the Greater Manchester area.

Extension to the North West Region

It soon became apparent that what had been successfully achieved in Greater Manchester could extend to the whole of the North West of England which covered sixteen universities, three counties and a population of about 6 million.

The extension to this wider region was attractive due to the provision of higher bandwidth and lower costs between these institutions. It would also provide greater opportunities for collaboration amongst all sixteen universities. However, these were not the only motivating factors. There was a growing appreciation of the national political agenda for regionalisation and of the potential for obtaining funding from various sources working at a regional level. It was 1997 and at that time the extension of this network to become a Regional Area Network was a pro-active move in advance of political and educational moves towards a regional framework. This Regional Area Network is called Net North West.

Net North West was established in 1998. Sixteen universities are connected all at 155 Megabits / second except that Liverpool is connected to Manchester at 622 Megabits / second. Forty-eight other sites are connected to the network including four hospitals, fifteen halls of residence, five libraries / museums, six remote campuses, three public authority sites and three science parks. Five new sites are about to be added to the network including the world famous radio telescope at Jodrell Bank. A number of further education colleges are also connected by 2 Megabits / second.

In 1999, the Government policy of regionalisation in England led to the establishment of a form of regional government in North West England which covered the same geographical region as the Net North West Regional Area Network which had been established in 1998. The North West regional government body soon recognised the value of the Net North West which had been established for higher education. It has accepted that this will form the basis for the high speed infrastructure for the region as a whole - not just for higher education but for industry, commerce, schools, etc. As a result, this has already brought benefits to the network and £2.8 million has been allocated from local development funding to establish at the various universities learning for life gateways and an advanced telematics centre. With the Government’s national commitment to invest heavily in the regions and in education we see great opportunities for further collaboration both amongst the universities themselves, with universities and other parts of the educational sector, such as schools, and between the universities and industry.

Before summing up, it is important to put this Regional Area Network in a national context. Although the development of Net North West in this part of England is the most advanced Regional Area Network, the national strategy is to gradually evolve into a national network linking a whole series of regional networks together. Many of the other Regional Area Networks are starting to form and when they do they will be connected through a national very high speed backbone which will gradually replace the current more dispersed system.

Summary

The creation of a Metropolitan Area Network linking perhaps a small number of universities in a metropolitan area has proved beneficial in terms of the opportunities for collaboration which have been presented as a result. These collaborations have been in research, in teaching, and in technology transfer between academia and industry. However, by extending this concept to a much larger area to create a Regional Area Network, the North West of England has an opportunity to realise significant benefits whereby a single network of very high bandwidth will be used to provide the backbone for all communications in the region, whether industrial, educational, government, etc. Such an integrated approach can be thought of as making a major contribution not just to the educational development of the North West of England, but also to the economic regeneration of the area.

Address

Professor W Robin McDonough

Director of Information Systems

University of Manchester

Oxford Road

Manchester M13 9PL

United Kingdom

Tel: + 44 161 275 6023

Email: R.McDonough@man.ac.uk