Computer & Information Networking Center, NTU

Established in September 1970, the Computer and Information Networking Center (C&INC) of National Taiwan University (NTU) aims to provide the faculty, staffs, and students with a good computing environment specifically tailored to teaching, research, and administration.

From 1986 on, the Center was placed under direct supervision of the University President, and was later renamed in November 1995 according to NTU Regulations of Organization Amendment as the present Computer and Information Networking Center (C&INC).

Since its establishment, the Center has been enhancing its facilities and services. In order to upgrade the computing network, 1984 saw the installation of campus terminal network and the connection between mainframes and microcomputers. In 1987 the campus fiber optics network was completed, connecting all University buildings via a high-speed 100 Mb/s network, while the network backbone was also upgraded to Giga Ethernet. Wireless network was launched in summer 2001 with the goal of achieving ubiquitous network access by the end of 2004. This enables all faculty and students at home or in the office easily to connect via Internet to the rich academic resources online. Moreover, the installation of a CRAY X-MP EA/14se supercomputer in 1997 has ushered in a new era of high-performance computation in Taiwan.

To support teaching and learning, the Center also developed a web-based course management system—“Ceiba,” which was built based on the theory of instructional design. The Ceiba system helps faculty and instructors develop and manage instructional materials and activities online. It has been greatly utilized to enhance student learning. To date, over a thousand courses were established and the number is continuously increasing.

With the Internet's reach and a combination of computational and communicative prowess in hand, almost any bit of information we desire is merely a mouse-click away. Today, the dream of humanity united is closer than ever to its realization. The Computer and Information Networking Center (C&INC) of National Taiwan University (NTU) was established in September of 1970, and has been under the direct supervision of the University President since 1986. In addition to the office of Director, four divisions comprise C&INC; their responsibilities are:

Division of System Design - design advanced systems for data management and other purposes.

Division of E-Learning - enhance educational services.

Division of Network Management - ensure that servers and computer labs are fully operational.

Division of Information Management - integrate campus-wide Internet and telecommunication systems; provide technical support for the university's staff and students.

Aside from extending the campus-wide network's reach, C&INC is the center of northern Taiwan's academic network-providing Internet connection to more than 50 schools ranging from elementary schools to universities. We also participate in the construction of Taiwan's national broadband network and Cisco networking academies.

C&INC provides comprehensive services for personal computers, servers, computer hardware, and even super computers. We also support educational, research, and administrative computing needs.

To promote teaching and learning, we build a videoconference classroom to support distance learning and a variety of videoconferences. We also upgraded network and videoconference equipment constantly to guarantee the quality of broadcasting, thus improving learning efficiency. So far, we have broadcasted 49 courses, and received 53 courses.

In addition, we provide NTU faculty and students with all sorts of computer training, guiding them on how to use computers to improve work efficiency, and improve the quality of life, getting into digital era. The courses we offered include educational technology, official dispatch, programming, database management, operating systems, multimedia animations, image processing, webpage design, film editing and rearrangement, network, hardware, and statistical application, with a total of 240 courses, and more than 6000 trainees attended.

In the area of research, besides purchasing high-performance Grid Computing equipment to fulfill computational demands, C&INC has been expanding Taiwan's Internet. C&INC assists Taiwan Advanced Research and Education Network (TWAREN) in managing the planning and construction of advanced technologies.

C&INC's goal for the university's administrative business is to increase efficiency in all divisions with the help of computers. We create computerized systems for any unit that is in need of one, and a unified administrative information network for the university.

For information services, C&INC purchased cutting-edge high-speed workstation servers and high-capacity RAID (redundant arrays of inexpensive disks), increased hard-drive usage to provide users with more storage space. More importantly, with the concept of a data center, we provide collation for all units in NTU. Also, we provide wireless internet services; connect with Hinet, ET, KGT, and Taiwan Fixed Network to accelerate our internet access; and use ADSL technologies to extend campus network into homes. Last but not least, we set up a nation-wide toll-free dial-up service with the number 4125678.

C&INC was certified by ISO 9001:2000 in May of 2003. With the power of efficiency, technology, and a human touch, we will work towards a more complete and integrated computer, telecommunication, and Internet system, and provide NTU's staff and students with the best information environment.

Director: Hsin-hsi Chen
Tel: +886-2-33665000
Fax: +886-2-23637204
Website: http://www.cc.ntu.edu.tw
E-mail: cchelp@ntu.edu.tw