9412238 Owen Auburn University requests support from NSF for connection of five universities and colleges including: Birmingham-Southern College, Judson College, Huntingdon College, Stillman College, and Talledega College to the NSFNET. This connection is a basic part of an overall teaching improvement project described below. The accessibility of the network to all the schools is critical for the coordination of that project and accomplishment of its goals, such as development of shared teaching resources and improvement of the quality of teaching. In addition, those schools to be connected expect to see significant benefit from the wider access to information to both faculty and students. Auburn University is providing the project direction for the network connection portion of the overall project. Each of the universities has written a description of its organization and a statement of the benefits of Internet access that it expects including: greater functionality and network speed to be able to access supercomputers, libraries, and make file transfers along with being able to implement a more reliable mail system. Students and faculty research will benefit from the links. This is also a unique opportunity for the schools to explore innovative educational resources.
