Network users in CEE. Ways to identify their needs

1. Anne Märdimäe Estonian Educational and Research Network (EENet) Tartu, Estonia NATO ANW: The Fourth CEENet Workshop on Network Management Management Issues for Excellence in Research and Education Networking (MIXREN) Moldova 2004 Network users in CEE.Ways to identify their needs

2. Overview • User categories in CEE • Identifying the needs of the user community • User surveys by EENet

3. Categories of users (institutions) (1) • Universities • Research institutes • Libraries, Museums, National Archives • Secondary Schools • Institutes of higher/further education • Government departments (national, regional, local) • Primary Schools

4. Categories of users (institutions) (2) • University Sites • Hospitals (other than University hospitals) • All Others

5. HU HUNGARNET LT LITNET LV LATNET MD RENAM PL PIONIER RO RNC RU RBNet/RUNNet SI ARNES SK SANET UA URAN NREN-s whose data was extracted from TERENA Compendium data: AL ANA AT ACOnet BA BIHARNET BG IST Foundation BY BASNET CS AMREJ CZ CESNET EE EENet GR GRNET HR CARNet

6. Allowed user categories in CEE (1) Data source: TERENA Compendium 2004

7. Allowed user categories in CEE (2) Data source: TERENA Compendium 2004

8. Identifying the needs of the user community • How does the NREN in your country find out the actual needs of its different users (institutions)? • In your opinion, in what areas are the needs of researchers and educators different?

9. Ways to find out the actual needs: 9 - Our customers themselves contact us for expressing their needs [also: regular contacts with users] 8 - Our specialists estimate the needs of users according to current usage of services, use the experiences of other NREN-s 6 - The board consisting of representatives of users defines the needs of users

10. 4 - We organize user conferences where the users can express their needs • 3 - We run user surveys regularly (EE, GR, HU) • direct contacts with decision-makers or technicians in institutions • generalization of the information received from the main client and applying that on other end-users • participation in conferences which are organised for schools involved in IT projects

11. Areas with different needs of researchers and educators: Researchers need more: • Available bandwidth • More advanced services like VLAN, IP telephony, manageable bandwidth... Educators need more: • End-user support

12. Rather no difference in need for: • Reliability of service • Centrally offered services by NREN like electronic mailboxes in the NREN-s server, webhosting

13. Summary about needs “...all researchers, teachers and students require cost-effective, reliable, widespread and advanced network services, regardless of their geographical location or subject discipline.” SERENATE studies 31 December 2003

14. User surveys by EENet • Annually since 2000 • High response rate (58% of all user institutions in 2004) • Possibility to keep track on changes of needs • Respondees: one contact person per user (institution)

15. NREN can learn from answers: • Are all existing services familiar to the users? • How the users evaluate the current services? What they think should be changed in them? • Fields of usage of Internet connectivity • How the needs of users have changed? • Need for additional services

16. Importance of surveys for users: • Their opinion matters • A channel for suggesting changes, give new ideas, to transmit both critic and praise • Possibility to compare the answers to these of others as the report is publicly available • Getting information about newer services

17. More benefits: • Feedback to the board of NREN, to the ministry and other politicians • Reasoning of funding applications • PR • Positive feedback to NREN personnel

18. EENet’s user survey 2004 • Target group: Institutions (research, educational, cultural) using one or several services in the Estonian academic network • 781 questionnaires posted • Responding activity 58%

19. Aims • Find out the number of end-users of the academic network (permanent connection only) • Examine the contentment with different services, find out needed changes • Get information about how well the users know the existence different services (thereby also promoting the services which are less known)

20. Some results Permanent connections • About 210 000 end-users using EENet's permanent connectivity in 2003 • 65% satisfied with their present Internet connectivity via academic network

21. Satisfied with current permanent connection?

22. Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth (research)

23. Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth (universities, high education)

24. Current bandwidth and actually needed bandwidth (high schools, gymnasiums)

25. Evaluation of different services

26. Additional services/changes asked for: • more bandwidth • guaranteed bandwidth during the videoconference • GRID • information about all (incl.very short) connectivity breaks • central server for archive of video lectures • backup services via backbone

27. WiFi services in academic nework • VoIP • LANtoLAN • support for building of homepage of the smaller institutions • possibility to administer the e-mailboxes in EENet's server (create, delete) • courses (for system administrators, on security, data communication etc)

28. more HOWTO-s in Estonian • consultations about security, warnings about security holes etc • different databases (e.g. about art schools, music schools, software for teachers etc) • etc...

29. Actions after the User Survey • Full report in the Internet • Translation into English will be prepared and published later • All the organizations which asked specific information of complained about specific technical problems were contacted, informed, helped out

30. Links • http://www.terena.nl/compendium/2004/ • http://www.serenate.org/publications/d21-serenate.pdf • http://www.eenet.ee/englishEENet/usersurvey2003.html • http://www.eenet.ee/englishEENet/webstr.html

31. Thank you! Anne Märdimäe anne@eenet.ee