Re: 2011/11/24 - 20th Anniversary of Internet in South Africa

Zane Wilson wrote
> On 19/11/2011 22:54, Graham Leggett wrote:
>> On 19 Nov 2011, at 9:58 PM, Henry Watermeyer wrote:
>>
>>>   Our undergraduates learned well and a group of them went off to start
>>>   Internet Solutions.   Far sighted indeed.
>>
>> In the early nineties Wits undergraduates were not allowed access to the 
>> internet at all, and nothing motivates like the forbidden.
> I still remember the time in 1992 I was called into Henry's office to be 
> chastised for accessing a Usenet newsgroup and sending email to a fellow

There were different approaches to Internet usage at the different 
universities. At
Rhodes, I took the approach that no student was going to be able to say "I 
was not
allowed to use the network." The computer labs were opened 24/7, many 
students
were in nearby residences, and the network performed better in the small 
hours of
the morning. The labs were fairly busy. Also, the PCs would be obsolete 
before
they were worn out, and the network costs did not increase with usage.

Make no mistake, this approach led to headaches, but for sure it generated
a set of computer-competent graduates (and dropouts). I recall being asked 
by some
academic staff to limit student access. Those staff were concerned (with 
some
justification) that the network was too much of a distraction for the 
students and that
their studies were being adversely affected. I resisted this.

I also had to find ways to live with the students who pushed out the 
envelope. I don't
doubt this was a major contribution in keeping Rhodes at the forefront. 
There were
very few cases of abuse -- maybe because our detection was not good enough, 
but I
prefer to think otherwise. The majority of the students appeared to 
recognise that there
was far more value to having a working system than a hacked one, so I 
suspect that
self-policing played a major role.

It was a fantastic time.

Mike Lawrie
Former IT Director, Rhodes University 


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