U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE, Frederick B. Dent, Secretary
NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS, Richard W. Roberts, Director

Issued June 1973

National Bureau of Standards Technical Note 781
Nat. Bur. Stand. (U.S.), Tech. Note 781, 98 pages (June 1973)
CODEN: NBTNAE

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402 (Order by SD Catalog No. C13.46:781). Price $1.25 domestic postpaid or $1.00 G.P.O. Bookstore.

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Categorical Description Ohio State U.

E. Categorical Description U. of Pittsburgh

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F. Categorical Description Stanford U.

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A STUDY OF SIX

UNIVERSITY-BASED INFORMATION SYSTEMS

B. Marron, E. Fong, D. W. Fife and K. Rankin

A methodology for categorically describing computer-based information systems was developed and applied to six university-based, NSF-supported systems. The systems under study all operate as retail information centers primarily serving campus communities by accessing large commerciallyavailable data bases using 3rd generation computer configurations. The systems vary in design philosophy, mode of user service, transferability characteristics, and operational status. A summary matrix is included.

Key words:

Computer-based systems; information systems, university; university computer systems.

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UNIVERSITY-BASED, NSF-FUNDED, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

In December of 1971 an interagency agreement was estab-
lished between the National Bureau of Standards and the
National Science Foundation, Office of Science Informa-
tion Services, whereby the NBS Center for Computer
Sciences and Technology was charged to "assess the pres-
ent status of automated scientific and technological
information systems". A number of tasks were defined
and studies undertaken to help NSF meet its immediate
decision-making needs and to develop methodologies and
tools for evaluating and comparing science information
activities. This report documents such a study of six
university-based, NSF-supported, information systems.
The NSF university-centered effort involves funding to
6 universities: UCLA, U. of Georgia, Lehigh U., Ohio
State U., U. of Pittsburgh, and Stanford U. The immedi-
ate objectives of NSF support for university-centered
information systems are three-fold: (1) to meet the
information requirements of academic scientists and the
students they are training; (2) to establish "retail"
campus-based terminals to accept the "wholesale" ma-
chine-readable tapes from society-based, discipline-
oriented systems, as well as mission and problem-ori-
ented products from Federal and private sources; and
(3) to support the development of major nodes for the
emerging national science information system.