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

[Sunday Folayan]

On 17/01/2013 08:33, Guy Antony Halse wrote:
> 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


Guy,

Once we start referring to National laws, we will make it complex again. 
IMHO ... the allowance of 5 IPs per user more than compensates for the 
0.5 multiplier for part-time students. In most institutions, campus 
access for full/partime students are spaced by time of the day or 
academic season.  The closer we are to a scenario that works across 
Africa without hostmasters iterating and asking for more documentations 
that could be hard for people to get, the better we are.

Lets keep the math and definitions very simple.

Sunday.

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