Re-purposing a Student Tech Service Group? 185
discards writes "I help run a student group at a Canadian University. For almost 15 years we've provided students with services such as web space, email, wireless internet on campus, cvs/svn, database access, mailing lists, etc., all using Linux and FOSS. In recent years, however, we have faced becoming obsolete. The university now provides wireless access, people get their email from other places such as Google, which also provides free svn access, web space, and so forth. Since we have a large amount of decent, usable hardware, as well as space, funding and a very fast internet connection, we are looking to possibly reform instead of just withering away and dying. We would like to ask Slashdot for ideas as to what we could do; preferably something that cultivates student research or provides an otherwise useful service to students, though all ideas are welcome."
Entertainment (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like all you have left then is to provide entertainment.
Re:Entertainment (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe the game could focus on a school campus, and everyone goes to class via avatar.
The violent clash of ideas could get down to virtual fisticuffs.
Professors could do grevious bodily harm to annoying students.
Endless possibilities.
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This => @
Is a bullet coming out of the screen at you.
Play along, or I'll let go.
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Sounds like all you have left then is to provide entertainment.
You could try something like creating your own Pandora.com radio station and encourage students to make their own and share them.
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I think that local college groups are going the way of Electronic BBSes. When the ISPs came on the market and started offering free email, webspace, et cetera, it eliminated the need for local BBSes. Mine died a quick death.
I suspect the same is true for local college services, although they still might be needed to do "Customer Support" for the in-dorm connections.
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Until the RIAA puts you out of business with either lawsuits or insane Internet radio fees.
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Music (Score:3, Funny)
Pirated music. :-)
Student start-up hosting (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Student start-up hosting (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe that students wouldn't rather have hosting locally rather then in some place in the USA.
Make it cheap, make it usable, make it useful.
Run tech courses, educating students about different technology.
Run LAN parties.
Do things that require face to face communication, and that people can't get some other place.
Do tech support and trouble shooting for people's websites (which they won't get else where).
Try and integrate into different departments, especially science related ones, and host data, run resource intensive programs etc.
Expand your eligibility criteria, open it up to arts students.
Also check out other student groups around the world, for example: http://www.tucs.org.au/ [tucs.org.au]
Most of all, enjoy.
Incubator (Score:4, Interesting)
Start a business incubator. Help tech students learn the basics of accounting, business law, incorporation, etc. and hopefully have some good ideas come to fruition. Provide hosting and support for student businesses. Provide CRM instances for students to track their contacts.
They will pay it back big time if they make it big.
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I think parent hit most of the things that I feel are missing as a university student. Good list
I will add one thing though. Some universities have tools for online collaboration (such as Sakai [sakaiproject.org] or other courseware tools) that allows students to create project sites and work with other students to share resources. If your university doesn't have something like this, I think it's something many students would embrace - especially students running other campus organizations.
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Sorry, can't think of anything that fits that description.
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Cheap prostitute services? Oh wait, university. Oh wait, geeks (no free sex for many).
I actually meant that to be two things:
Things that require face to face communication.
Things that they can't get elsewhere on line.
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College campuses are the one places LAN parties aren't needed (computers in dorm rooms are much more convenient). A local source for game servers, however, could be quite useful. I don't know how many of the popular games it's possible for these days, but when I was in college, properly implemented Quake 1, 2, and 3 servers would have been much appreciated.
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i think you're probably right, but maybe there's something along those lines that would be acceptable for academic networks/donated hardware.
this might not appeal to most students, but perhaps they could help members develop/host/manage free web services & applications. instead of just offering a straight-forward web hosting service where students can only upload static files, you could form an organization geared towards developing free online services for the campus community. members can then learn h
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meatspace... (Score:2)
You could focus on local projects, find an on-campus place for OSS projects involving just the school(and encouraging students to cooperate) build school spirit or something. Even better start one or two, get them involved and evangelize.
I doubt the web hosting is going to be able to compete with google, byte for byte, but having one that's relevant isn't always about size...
A few basic needs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech support would be number one on my list of helpful services.
The other thing that would be helpful is basic computer education. Yes, I know that most people in college already know how to work on the computers, however some, possibly older students, might be embarrassed to admit they don't know everything they feel that they should know. Confidential, one on one tutoring can eliminate the fear of admitting they aren't fully up to speed.
Re:A few basic needs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even advanced computer education would be useful. I'm a PhD computer science student, so I see the holes in undergraduates' knowledge of computer technologies, i.e. things that they're simply expected to know for a class and never taught. I also see how frustrating they find it to try to fill these holes in with self-study while maintaining a full course load.
Big examples that spring to mind include things like basic Linux commands, LaTeX, Maple, MATLAB, etc. Offer workshops for students where you teach them how to at least get started with these technologies and I'm sure that you'll have some interest.
additionally: you gain a lot of experience! (Score:3, Interesting)
If on the other hand you are religiously against using/teaching licensed software, why not take control over some orphaned but useful
Re:A few basic needs. (Score:5, Insightful)
.
If MATLAB is what is being used on campus then MATLAB is what you teach.
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Why not teach the teachers Octave? In many cases, the teacher inherits a MATLAB ciriculum, and really can't explain a whole lot of the scripts or syntax.
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What gets used on campus (Score:2)
I have found that what gets used on campus is what people want to use. In our research group people use Matlab, IDL, R, and Scipy.
People will use mostly what they want to use. Occasionally a close minded prof will require a particular language or package for an assignment, but fortunately all the packages are sufficiently similar, that it does not matter much.
Re:A few basic needs. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because MATLAB is still the best tool around in its field, by far.
Not that that stops the religious idiots.
Best tool for what? (Score:2)
I do parallel computing w/ R (mentioned by GP post). I run it as a compute server on 432 different cores at the same time. I can use all those nodes interactively in parallel.
Could I do that with Matlab without paying more than 1/2 the cost of the cluster?
No.
Re:A few basic needs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Computer hygiene, that's what I would call it. There needs to be a massive educational campaign performed across the United States. This needs to be approached like a major Public Health issue.
It's good that we have good systems administrators, but that basic knowledge is too centralized. In this new networked world, everybody needs to know how to maintain and clean their computers, just like everybody needs to know how to go the bathroom and properly wash their hands.
So what I'm suggesting, since you already have the infrastructure and the manpower is that you start an outreach program. Get them young, preferably before they start posting stuff on myspace. And target all the adults that are computer phobic, basically survey people in the corporate/working world, and target all the ones that check on their survey that they're "not good with computers".
Now, I'm not saying this is going to be easy, and I'm not saying that this is even glamorous work, but this needs to be done. An outreach program, a PR campaign, a manifesto, a think tank, etc. Start these efforts locally, and as you slowly gain success -- expand them outwards.
Push FOSS at client level, help them switch (Score:2)
Educate them on the benefits (and problems and risks) of FOSS. Help them switch. Even if they don't want to switch OSes, there's lots of things they can do, in terms of better mail clients, office clients, things like GIMP, etc. OTOH, if they switch to Linux or BSD, a lot of the nastiest dangers and problems go away.
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Run a series of classes like "Intro to Unix 1". Make sure they are only about an hour long, and that they go home with a very good cheat sheet.
Excellent Idea! (Score:3, Interesting)
Then my fortunes changed when I had the chance to buy a used Altos 8086 computer running Microsoft's version of AT&T Version 7 Unix called "Xenix" ( [wikimedia.org])
What was great about it, is that it had a program called "learn" ( [bell-labs.com]) which was a tutorial that taught both Unix and C.
It's a shame that "learn" is not included in modern Unix and Linux distros. That would be a valuable resource for students that would otherwise only b
Let there be more projects (Score:2)
I agree, tech support on campuses today can quickly become anachronistic; that is, if they are not have the requisite intellectual curiosity or do not have the cajones to spearhead new technologies like cloud computing [ucsb.edu] (for distributed mathematical modeling), online E2E voting [wikipedia.org] (for student elections), Educational MMORPGs [nasa.gov] and a list of other systems being developed now ready for deployment to the student population ASAP. You should have programmers on staff that can help contribute or partner with your CS d
Do something for inner-city youth (Score:5, Insightful)
Forget college students. Do something for inner-city youth. Gather old computer parts from your school or lbusiness, put them together, install linux and give them to schools with limited computing resources. Involve the students in this process as well. Teach them how to install linux. Then teach them how to administer their own system.
Re:Do something for inner-city youth (Score:5, Interesting)
I can second this.
I set-up a computer with Xubuntu for where my wife worked.
She had 3 interns that used it to enter int information into a spreadsheet (updated info on local businesses), type some letters, and write an article for the local weekly paper.
A simple computer like that available outside of school was a huge plus. These kids were not even particularly inner-city (though definitely poor).
The ability to type things up outside of school was a matter of maintaining dignify and face amongst their peers (nobody wants to be the dorkus that stays late at school to type, aside from the safety of getting home after dark in some areas).
An oldish computer and a USB drive can make all the difference in someone who wants to accel, but is not driven.
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Gather old computer parts from your school or lbusiness (sic), put them together, install linux and give them to schools with limited computing resources.
Most people not involved don't know this, but trying to donate to public schools can be incredibly frustrating, at least in parts of the US and especially in urban areas. Public school bureaucracy can be stifling. I have some friends who have worked with Techserv at Drexel University in Philadelphia. I have seen poor inner-city schools with almost no co
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Call me! (Score:5, Funny)
-----------------
Stephen Pilgrim
Assistant Manager
RIAA campus solution recruitment
Re:Call me! OK! Ring ring, Hello? Hi! BEND OVER! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a Canadian college, so it's the CRIA [wikipedia.org] that they have to deal with... though it's not like there's much different between them.
I have an idea for a great project that the article submitter could do, it would be great at any college. Most especially any college in the US. In fact I would like to thank the RIAA for essentially proposing the idea, and in fact having it passed into law here in the US.
H.R. 4137: College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2008 [govtrack.us], signed into law on Aug 14 2008, and mentione [slashdot.org]
Re:Call me! OK! Ring ring, Hello? Hi! BEND OVER! (Score:4, Insightful)
While a clever way to comply with the law, this is wishful thinking. Most students will avoid the service because it doesn't have $RIAARTIST1 or $RIAAARTIST2.
To give some perspective: my college has a well-publicized campus radio station, but only a small percentage of students listen to it over ClearChannel stations.
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RIAARRRHHHHHRHRHRHRHRH
oh my bad, I thought we were growling in here :)
A help center (Score:2, Insightful)
Move toward becoming a help center, someplace for students to turn to for assistance.
Students need help in all areas from install software and setting up their machines for classes to virus removal and re-installation of their operating system.
Also, you could set up a paid tutorial service for applications used in some of the accounting (and other) courses.
There is a real need for something like this on all campuses and the University IT department just does not have the manpower to provide it.
Tom
RESTRUCTURE, BUT, AS A SECURITY HELP CENTER? (Score:1, Interesting)
Perhaps this type of guidance & aid to your fellow students may be of use (as a "new type of service" your group may offer others), ala points such as are noted in this guide online:
HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, & even VISTA, + make it "fun-to-do" via CIS Tool Guidance (& beyond that):
http://www.tcmagazine.com/forums/index.php?s=997120fdbd632fa871dc28209608c6a3&showtopic=2662 [tcmagazine.com]
* Simply changing your role, & the services you could offer others, is a start...
( ... & that is
How about... back to Education? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not take on a bigger challenge, and focus on teaching? Run small mini-classes on various topics, teach programming at all kinds of different levels, how to solve engineering problems numerically, etc. Since it is an engineering/design school, you can provide some kind of (real-life or online) forum helping people use technology to solve problems. I suppose this will somewhat depend on how your college's schedule works, but you will find that students will make time for you if you're providing a useful service. You've got the hardware -- now you just need to find a niche to add the value.
--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
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The online forum idea is a good one although it doesn't necessarily have to be restricted to education. Many faculties have their own forums these days to discuss departmental issues (or whatever the hell people want to) but I'm not aware of all that many campus-wide ones.
Then again, I'm not from Canada so this may be commonplace.
It also addresses the issue of putting the hardware to use.
The only problem with something like this is the internal political pressure that will arise when students are upset abou
What a similar group does (Score:5, Informative)
I have just joined a similar group, the Harvard Computing Society (http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/ [harvard.edu]). We try to provide more up to date web services to student organizations. We provide web hosting for student groups that is capable of running all the latest web goodies like Drupal, Mediawiki, sql, and the like. We also maintain mailing lists for student organizations, and advocate for better tech practices at Harvard. There are also lots of other cool projects in the pipeline that may or may not go anywhere but are fun to work on: IPtv, content aggregation from student org websites, internet phone, and other off the wall ideas. I am still new to the organization, but everything seems to work very well.
Taking this successful example, I would suggest taking advantage of the fact that you can be less bureaucratic than the school's general IT staff to provide more modern web tools to student organizations.
Back up service (Score:4, Informative)
How about offering a back-up service for students work? Sure, you currently offer services that could be used as such but your average student has no idea how to do it. Offer a nice simple web interface that allows them to upload files that they really wouldn't want to lose.
As other posters have pointed out, you could also move into entertainment services and help for recent graduates.
I wouldn't ditch things like the svn/cvs, webspace and database access though. My CS department used to run their own services and having them on campus was great since I could go ask our helpdesk people if something went wrong or I needed extra space etc.
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No. If you can't imagine a way to avoid that scenario you need some extra schooling.
Beowulf (Score:1, Offtopic)
Since we have a large amount of decent, usable hardware, as well as space, funding and a very fast internet connection
Imagine a Beowulf cluster?
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So you're saying to dedicate part of it to English Literature?
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What Doesn't Google Offer? (Score:5, Insightful)
...like private email (Score:4, Informative)
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Gmail offers email addresses with *no advertising* to Universities and their students for free. If there is still scanning going on, it's prob
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Gmail offers email addresses with *no advertising* to Universities and their students for free. If there is still scanning going on, it's probably for spam filtering, and I'll bet that most email providers will scan for viruses and spam anyway -- not just google.
Who knows? Perhaps they generate demographics but don't use it via GMail? Apparently all the agreement saysis that you agree to let them scan your mail - the purpose is not specified nor what information they keep.
If they're worried about privacy, may be they shouldn't be using email period (unless it's encrypted).
They are not worried about someone hacking into the system and stealing personal, private information (that can happen to files in an office) which is all encryption prevents. What they are worried about is that the US government will obtain access and use that to pursue a student - an under US
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Is there really? Even if I want to email an attachment of 40 MB? Most email systems I've seen don't handle very large attachment very well. I k
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And by the way, assuming that the student is using PGP encryption, the student in question would have to be located in (or visiting) the US in order for the US government to have this kind leverage on him. They can't force people outside their jurisdiction (special brown-skin individuals kidnapped by the CIA excepted of course).
But usually speaking, it's the country where one is
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maybe they should look into encryption ? email is wide open, google or not.
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maybe they should look into encryption ?
What is the point of encryption if the country you store your email in has laws to enforce you to reveal the keys?
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Off topic, but when did everyone on Slashdot start saying 'IP' when they meant 'data'? It seems to only be about a month ago. Weird.
Back on topic, offering truly private storage in a computer society network is tricky. The people with root will be other students, who aren't paid. If you start claiming really private (rather than 'we don't think you're interesting enough to bother spying on your mail') storage then you open yourself up to all sorts of liability issues.
We noticed over the past few years
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Interesting. On your off topic point, I can't speak for everyone here, but when I say IP I mean patentable or copyrightable material, both of which are a subset of "data".
On your other point about private storage, well, that's exactly the discussion that needs to take place, IMO. You're very correct that it's a thorny issue in which all of the "trust" issues come into play. Perfect discussion for a University! And a great purpose for a becoming-obsolete-data-center-at-a-Uni to put itself to.
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there's all sorts of interesting things you could do in this area, given a population like a university. token-based authentication becomes at least a lot more reasonable to consider when everyone already has a token issued by the institution. or they're more likely to already own a USB stick, or
Free/Libre Content Production (Score:4, Interesting)
The key is that your users need to have a motivation beyond saving money. If someone is with you to simply save money they will be easily lured away by a cheaper competitor. You need to get people involved because they are passionate about what you do.
Maybe start up a content production cooperative (movies, music, stories, ...) with a policy of releasing everything under a Free license? Your student group can provide all the production facilities and branch out into buying microphones, cameras and so on. Make it even more interesting by having an open "bazaar style" production process too, instead of just presenting finished projects.
Get a bunch of people together who are passionate about freedom for arts and technology. These people will stick with you for the long term.
There is plenty of infrastructure now for the Libre movement (svn servers, web, email providers, source forge...). Don't compete with that which is is well established. What is needed now is plenty of fantastic content under Free licenses, with which we can run the mafiaa out of town.
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Mod parent up!
A Wikipedia club, to use the academic resources and databases available to a university to make the free encyclopedia better. (Or a Citizendium club, if you hate Wikipedia - CZ are working hard to recruit in academia.)
ask the students? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sounds like you're a solution in need of a problem. Try asking the students what you can do for them. I'd probably start with the postgrads since they tend to actually need things, and know they need it.
I know at my uni people found it hassle when needing to crunch data - server slots were a scarce resource and there was a lot of people scheduling things so they could crunch on their workstation over the weekend (often dropping in to see if it got stuck).
I'll bet there's a large number of other groups crying out for decent hardware, space, funding and maybe even the fast internet connection. If your group's services are no longer required it's time to hand the resources over.
Start a Chess Playing Site (Score:2)
The ICC is a good net chess club at about $30. per year. There is room for another. That would be more than true if you can create software to spot people who cheat by using PCs to find their moves before posting them. By the way the ICC model may be the best on the net.
be something else... (Score:1)
Online backup (Score:2, Interesting)
Telecoomunications (Score:2, Informative)
Time to die... sorry. (Score:2)
Underprivileged kids? (Score:1)
~/ less (Score:2)
On the first attempt I pulled my cousins name & realized I forgot to empty the hat after Christmas last year. Then again, I suppose you could consider him one of the worlds problems.
Anyway, on my second draw I pulled Virtualization Technology from the new stuff hat and Homeless People from the problem ha
What every college needs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Start your own dating service for the students.
Sounds a little bland, of course, but since you have the hardware, bandwidth, and funding, you can spice it up a little: Either find some type of FOSS social MMO, or start your own.
Ask yourself this; What does every college student that hardly ever leaves his dorm need? Another way to procrastinate online!
Student research... (Score:4, Informative)
Knowledge botique (Score:2, Insightful)
Roskilde University in Denmark could maybe be an inspiration for you in that respect:
From their site:
QUOTE:
Welcome to the Science Shop
Roskilde University wants to bridge the gap between enterprises, NGOs, public institutions (externals) and students. By participating in the Science Shop students and enterprises/NGOs/public institutions contribute to the sharing of knowledge and know-how between universities and the world outside. And the university becomes better at targeting our programmes towards the labo
Security Education (Score:2)
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How about actually HELPING students & instructors (+, even possibly network techs/engineers/admins also), on the topic of security itself, ala this guide's points:
HOW TO SECURE Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003 & even VISTA, + make it "fun-to-do", via CIS Tool Guidance (& beyond):
http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=970939&cid=25092677 [slashdot.org]
Offering a "learn to secure your own PC" type service, in addition to possibly also offering a "virus/spyware/trojan/rootkit/malware removal service" to students,
become a non tech service group (Score:1)
Engsoc with business acumen? Hmm. (Score:2)
Maybe y'all could hook up with the engineers down at Queen's, and help them get Clark Hall Pub re-opened?
That place was awesome.
Identity Management (Score:2)
With all the ids, personal info and bad practices of student users these days, maybe you can offer some form of identity management to them. Set up a web SSO solution (OpenID and a portal?) they can use as a portal for everything else, educate along the way as to why they should use this and let them see where their information goes. It could be useful and educational.
Useful website resources for teachers. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm currently a student (after being an admin for 10 years) working on a history degree. The one thing every class wants is lively out of class discussion but you never get it with the "blackboard" clones. Make available a PHPBB workalike to instructors with easy to remember URLs (eg, HIS3660.youdomain.com).
With that simple tool an instructor can post videos, syllabus, and class material that can be seen from any browser.
You could probably even offer this to student groups including the, gasp, non-school sponsored ones that don't get resources (like the history club I'm in).
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If Moodle or another Course Management System isn't fostering debate, that's not the fault of the software... they provide exactly the same functionality as PHPBB, and then some.
If you're lacking out of class internet debate, it's because the class didn't buy into the concept. (This happened in a class I took several years ago where we tried to use a PHPBB board, and it flopped.) I think the problem is that bulletin boards are not particularly conducive to collaborative learning.
Pr0n? No, really. (Score:2, Insightful)
http://ipv6experiment.com/ [ipv6experiment.com]
From their site:
Teaching about Virtual Servers & Server Securi (Score:3, Interesting)
How about using it to teach students about virtuali[s|z]ation? That seems to be a growing trend among businesses and could certainly prove to be useful, as well as giving them experience with a range of virtualisation offerings.
It would also (at least on certain virtual server products) allow them to work with a variety of different operating systems, without risking messing up critical servers, and possibly learning about snapshot and roll-back options using virtual servers.
In addition, they could learn how to secure different operating systems, and be shown an example of how a server might be hacked, and what to do to lock out the attacker, perform forensics, and repair the damage done (admittedly reputation is harder to repair than an OS/app), and when it's best to wipe everything and start again (or roll-back to a known good server image).
On a completely different track, you could try to start up a University-wide social networking site, and allow the Alumni to join it too. Use it for sharing events, knowledge, ideas, fun, jokes, etc, maybe even have an API so students can extend it like with Facebook.
Obviously this would require some management to ensure that students don't use it to break University rules, intimidate other students, allow copying of others coursework, sharing of copyright materials, etc, but it some of this could be delegated to responsible students, and give them experience and hopefully make them feel valued.
Suggestions from another student group (Score:5, Interesting)
Take some notes from the originals (Score:2)
http://stuff.mit.edu/sipb/ [mit.edu]
The Student Information Processing Board at MIT really has what you're looking for. All sorts of advanced services for students and lots of education from Haskell to hacking to LaTeX. They do a lot and do a pretty damn good job at it too.
A word of warning though, if you ever needed to fulfill a stereotype about nerds look no further than their ample Linux Beards. These guys mean business.
Student cluster in a similar situation (Score:2, Interesting)
A local torrent seeder (Score:2)
Setup the computers to seed popular torrents. It'll take a lot of load off the school's regular Internet access while providing the students with a valuable service.
User Group (Score:2)
Become a local user group. You could have special interest groups (SIGs), such as a Linux User Group (LUG), programming SIGs (possibly for different languages), etc.
User groups provide educational opportunities, similar to ones discussed in other posts here. They also provide social opportunities, allowing people with similar interests to meet each other. In addition, you'll be helping people solve problems, and provide technical support.
Provide virtual machines (Score:2)
You could possibly provide a virtual environment for students. If they want to experiment with various operating systems, code, or whatever - you could provide them with a number of virtual machines for their projects.
You could use VMware, which would probably be the best solution at this point, but it's more expensive than the alternatives. There's also VirtualIron, based on Xen, or free Xen systems to use.
I think it could be a service to your student base.
Net can't replace meatspace. (Score:2)
Voice services (Score:2)
Surely there's some way to licence a sort of collaborative radio channel where students could play their own music or discuss lectures etc.
How about makin
Computing resources! (Score:2)
Move on... (Score:2)
If services are useless given the freely available access perhaps it is a good time to close up shop. Seriously, go spend the resources (time, money) on something else.
Outcompeted by the University IT Dept? (Score:2)
Talk with them about the services that they can't provide to their users because they don't have the budget. Or ask them what services your group could take over to free up their people for other things.
The risk is that if you're seen as taking people's jobs away in the IT department, they'll just clam up.
Online Journals (Score:2)
Host online open access journals. Start a series of journals that apply to the schools in your university, have said schools participate by having professors serve as reviewers/senior editors, enlist journalism students to serve as editors and summary writers, and put student research into the journals. Each journal would become a 'community' or subset of your original design, which was student access. Once operating open them to students at other universities. If it works out, open those journals to profes
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Your problem isn't any of the ones you listed. You need to be writing your own back-end applications so you can roll simple (SIMPLE!!!) shit like a guestbook on your own. If you have a year of CS under your belt, you are MORE than qualified to write a guest book.
Doesn't matter what the backend language is, asp.. php... UNIX shell, perl... Control the backend apps, you control the site. Let the hosting provider provider your guestbook? Puh-lease. You'll always be at their mercy because you'd might as well b
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Then you need to change hosting providers, once more, and finally.
Not providing shell access to a web hosting account is, in my opinion, a crime.
This is why I always deal with mom-n-pop ISPs. "Hey, can I get a shell account on that box?"
Well, plus then I can always say, "If you give me X I'll consult for you on Y"
Even if shell is a little hard to get, there's plenty of places that will let you run PHP programs.
30 seconds of googling turned up phpwebhosting.com, which offers php, mysql, shell, perl, python,