Academic Computing promotes and enables educational improvement at MIT through the use of computers and other information technologies.
Project Athena's mandate was to explore diverse uses of computing and to build the base of knowledge needed for a longer term strategic decision about how computers fit into the MIT curriculum. In January of 1988, Project Athena was granted a three year extension to the original five year program, and on June 30, 1991, Project Athena came to an end. But the fruit of Project Athena--the Athena system itself--was adopted as MIT's academic computing infrastructure, with plans to extend it beyond the educational sphere, into the research and administrative activities of the Institute. Ten years later Project Athena has developed a successful distributed environment for academic computing at MIT. Virtually all undergraduates use the system, as do a majority of graduate students and many faculty. (Hopper, 1993)
on the web
Current Athena Page
http://web.mit.edu/ist/topics/athena/
Artlicle on Project Athena
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N19/history_of_athe.19f.html
Project Athena History Page
http://web.mit.edu/acs/athena.html