Steen says this development reflects the growing number of laptop users. In the recently released results of a 1998 survey of campus computer use conducted by HASCS, nearly 45 percent of undergraduates report that they use laptops. Five years ago, about 15 percent of undergraduates said they owned laptops.

"Over the past five years, laptop users have multiplied," Steen says. "To meet their needs, we are exploring many options."

With a staff comprised of almost 80 undergraduate user assistants and staff to provide technology support, Harvard's computing services personnel say they can stay well informed of important and growing sentiments within the University community.

"More and more, it is not the computer services personnel that drives the development of computing at Harvard. Rather, it is the users," Osterberg says.

My Harvard

A second, highly touted initiative to be unveiled soon is the "My Harvard" portal project. Similar to Pointcast, though without the advertisements, My Harvard pages will function as glorified personal Web sites.

"[The] portal pages will increase efficiency and speediness of the network tremendously," Steen says.

Portal pages may be configured to include students' complete class and extracurricular schedules, information from the registrar's office, their daily routines, personal announcements and links to outside Web sites.

Using the portal device, students may access e-mail in a lightning-quick fashion and view course announcements from professors. Professors or students' employers can consult portals to receive the latest information and leave messages.

If students choose to do so, they can also list unofficial transcripts and other personal information in PIN-protected areas of the portal.

My Harvard pages may even help to address Harvard's latent advising hurlyburly. With a portal, advisers can have a more frequent and more reliable method of communicating with their advisees.

"When advisers better track advisee's schedules, they are in a position to know the specific needs of each advisee," Steen says.

Out with the Old

Although portals and roaming Ethernet are two major advances planned in 1999, implementation depends heavily on system resources and appropriate funding. According to Steen, bits and pieces of new technology may be released throughout 1999 and in the next few years.

"By the time we finish one good project, though, we'll be responding to a new one," Steen says.