A small university allocates resources

Abstract

The Feldberg Computer Center which houses a Decsystem-10 timesharing computer opened in 1972 with the purpose of serving the research community at Brandeis University. Since its opening the user community has grown to include students in academic courses, a few users from the administrative community, and some non-profit agencies.One of the problems facing a center with a heterogeneous user base is the equitable allocation of resources. We must decide when users can access the machine, how much disk storage space each may have, etc. Tlne problem has been complicated by the shifts in the types of users from each of these communities. Professors have become more sophisticated about the value of using computers in conjunction with courses. Students are requesting more courses in Computer Science. A growing percentage of our researchers are social scientists. And, of course, professors as well as students have discovered that computer editors and text processing programs make producing papers, theses, and books easier. Further complications are the federal regulations relating to the way overhead is calculated for grants.We have developed a policy which we believe is humane and equitable. We have found that most people are satisfied. This paper will describe that resource allocation policy.