Multiple-Campus Licensing Brings Mathematica to MACHBA
 The Israel Inter-University Computation Center, or MACHBA, is an
association formed by eight of the most prominent universities in Israel.
Working with the Israeli reseller Tashtit Scientific
Consultants, MACHBA recently signed an Academic
Unlimited Agreement to distribute Mathematica on six of its
campuses, becoming one of the first organizations to take advantage of
multiple-campus Mathematica licensing.
Multiple-campus licensing is one of the newest approaches in distributing
Mathematica to academic institutions that are part of a single
system. This licensing structure allows multiple campuses to be covered by
one agreement and is ideal for systems that are governed by a single
administrative
unit. Each campus, however, is given the option of receiving its own set
of media and documentation to facilitate distribution.
This new Mathematica license will provide six of the MACHBA
universities--Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, The
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Weizmann Institute of Science,
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the University of Haifa--with
campuswide access to Mathematica, automatic upgrades, and
technical support over the next three years.
According to Haim Ricas, a member of the Tashtit Scientific Consultants
team, most Mathematica users within the MACHBA association use
Mathematica for their research. Zvi Wiener, a financial consultant
and professor in the Business School at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
has been using Mathematica as
his main tool for financial engineering to hedge financial transactions,
measure risk of investments, and map major financial risks of financial
portfolios. "It is a very high-level language, powerful and flexible."
Professor Yair Zarmi, a member of the Department of Energy and
Environmental Physics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, uses
Mathematica for research in nonlinear dynamics and ecological
modeling. "My work involves
gigantic algebraic manipulations, the implementation of which would not be
feasible in a reasonable amount of time without the help of Mathematica,"
explains Professor Zarmi. "Mathematica relieves me of the need to
perform
these cumbersome manipulations, and [I can] concentrate on the
structure of the results."
The agreement with MACHBA has allowed each of the universities to expand
its use of Mathematica by installing it so all faculty, staff, and
students can take advantage of Mathematica's capabilities in labs
across
campus. According to Sidney Lang, a professor in the Department of
Chemical Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Mathematica has been
available for a number of years on the mainframe Unix system. Although
students were able to use Mathematica effectively for their work,
they often encountered problems with the Unix operating system itself,
complaining of its lack of user friendliness. Thanks to the new Unlimited
Agreement, Mathematica will be installed on all of the personal
computers in
the student laboratory and many of the student research labs. This will
give students the freedom to access Mathematica in a variety of
locations
and on the platform of their choice. So far the response has been very
positive.
This expanded access will open the doors for many who have thought about
using Mathematica as an educational tool. "Initially, my usage was
purely for research, but I quickly realized how valuable it would be in teaching
as well," says Professor Lang. "It enables me to carry out calculations
that would be simply impossible without it."
Professor Zarmi has also found Mathematica useful as a teaching tool
and uses Mathematica's
computational and publishing capabilities to prepare examples and problems
for his mathematics and physics students. "Mathematica is capable
of [fulfilling] the needs of students at all levels, from the most elementary
undergraduate level to the most sophisticated graduate research work."
Many universities, including those that are part of the MACHBA
association, have found the Mathematica Academic Purchase Programs
to be a
cost effective way of bringing Mathematica to their campuses.
Wolfram Research and its resellers, including Tashtit Scientific Consultants,
offer many different licensing options to academic institutions, ranging
from a single copy to campuswide access for multiple locations.
For more information on making Mathematica available at your
organization, send email to info@wolfram.com or
contact the
reseller nearest you.
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