[AFRINIC-rpd] Academic IPv4 Allocation Policy Second Draft (AFPUB-2013-GEN-001-DRAFT-02)

[Guy Antony Halse]

On Wed 2013-01-16 (22:29), Andrew Alston wrote:
>    3.1) To qualify for address space, Academic institutions will need to
>    apply as end users and provide the following documentation:
> 
>                    3.1.1) Proof of Institution's
>    registration/accreditation
> 
>                    3.1.2) Proof of the number of registered students
> 
>                    3.1.3) Proof of staff head count.
> 
>    3.2) This policy applies a ratio to a head count of campus users, where
>    the number of campus users is calculated using a formula of full time
>    students + full time employees + (part time students * 0.5)

Your policy provides a formula for calculating full time equivelency, and in
the process it makes some tacit assumptions about how HE works.  I don't
believe that these assumptions are in any way correct or universal.

We need to stop talking about "full-time" and "part-time" students, since
these terms have no direct bearing on IP resource utilisation.  Instead, I
think the policy should be referring to "contact" (i.e. on campus) verses
"distance" (i.e. not on campus) students.  Resources should be reserved for
contact students irrespective of whether they are registered on a full- or
part-time basis.  (Which I think addresses Seun's concern.)

In reality part-time students are often simply students who have a reduced
number of contact days.  In the same way, we have full-time distance
students who will *never* use an IP address on our network.

IMHO, a better way of getting the student number is:

  3.1.2) Number of full time equivelent students, calculated by any one of
         the following methods:

         3.1.2.1) in accordance with national HE policy or accepted norms in
                  the institution's country

         3.1.2.2) according to the formula:

                  STU = number of registered students (full- and part-time)
                  SCD = average number of contact (in attendence, on-campus)
                        days per student per year
                  TDY = number of teaching days in a year
                  FTE = STU * (SCD / TDY)

         3.1.2.3) by any other statistically valid means, provided
                  documentation of the method can be produced.
  
Which then leads to a revision of 3.2 to remove references to full- and
part-time students (and the unjustifiable constant of 0.5).

3.1 should then be reworded slightly from:

   ... provide the following documentation:

to

   ... provide reasonable evidence of the following:

thus allowing flexibility in the type of evidence (it could be a reference
to a national policy, or numbers calculated by a third party).


- Guy
-- 
Manager: Systems, IT Division, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa
Email: G.Halse at ru.ac.za   Web: http://mombe.org/   IRC: rm-rf at irc.atrum.org
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