Minutes - January 12, 2001
1:30-3 pm - I.G. Greer Room 224
I. Welcome and announcements
The meeting was called to order and the membership greeted by Jeff Williams at 1:35 PM. Members absent were Jeff Craven, Patrick Echerd, Bill Griffin, Ed Pekarek, Kevin Howell, Gabe Fankhauser and Lynne Lysiak. Tom Leonard attended for Teresa Canton. Tom Culver, Mick Kreszock, Steve Hopper, Ray Pittman were present as visitors.
II. Review of Minutes � November 10, 2000
Minutes of the November 10 meeting were approved by the membership without discussion or change.
III. Update on Technology Directions and Planning
Jeff Williams discussed the recently developed Technology Directions Update and Unit Planning documents that were done as part of Information Technology Services planning. He noted that these documents were available on the web on the newly designed Technology page and were there in both HTML and PDF format.He pointed out some major component areas and said that the department was now in the process of establishing priorities for the planning items. A brief discussion by the group followed. Williams suggested that these documents could become the core of a campus plan.
Williams mentioned that ASU will receive over $4 million in Information Technology infrastructure from the UNC Bond funding.UNC Office of the President and campus network planning groups will be participating in sorting out what all this means in the near future.The scope of the original network deployment has changed due to new technology and network usage patterns and the groups will be discussing appropriate uses of the funding without changing the intent. We are hoping that this funding will be available to address bandwidth concerns (both on and off campus), monitoring and protection of the network, wireless and long term equipment replacement. These discussions will probably take place over the next several months.
IV. Update on Portals (Faculty, Campus Pipeline)
Jeff Williams gave an update on activities related to Campus Pipeline (CP) and the PSP (Prospective Student Portal).Williams shared with the group that all known issues related to CP have been resolved. ASU is currently negotiating a contract with CP to license the product at reasonable cost. With this new model, all advertising would be removed with the exception of the Web Life section. Since CP is an authorized reseller of the iPlanet suite of software, as part of the contract ASU will be receiving enterprise use of this software. It will enable us to move forward with an enterprise solution to both IMAP based email and directory services. With these changes the reliability and efficiency should be improved. Although more than 50% of the students are using CP, we have made no further efforts to encourage its use until all the problems were resolved. Once we move to the enterprise email solution, the CP email will go away. This should make it more reliable, make it easier to support and eliminate the problem of forwarding mail.Instead of there being a cp.appstate.edu, all email will go to appstate.edu.Once in place, we will also encourage all users to not forward their email off campus.We want to advertise and encourage the use of appstate.edu as the only official mail address.
Williams also mentioned the progress related to the design phase of the PSP has been slow. In anticipation of this process being slower that we expected, we are moving forward with developing recommendations how ASU can move forward on our own. By following the same process and structure of the development efforts at Western Carolina University, we should be able to follow their successful approach to evaluate and position ASU to improve our web presence. Erika Hudspeth, ASU Webmaster, and Steve Hopper, head of ITS Applications Development, will head this effort. Once recommendations are developed, they will be presented to the Web Advisory group composed of Greg Blimmling (chair), VC Student Development, Bob Shaffer, Director ASU Public Relations, Joe Watts, Assoc. VC Enrollment Services and Jeff WiIliams, Dir. ITS. The emphasis of the effort will be to consider the ASU homepage and major subpages and not just the process of looking at the PSP. Once the direction has been established, a formal group will be selected to participate in this process. Other presentations for approval and awareness with be made to the Administrative Cabinet and ITAC.If and when Price, Waterhouse, Coopers is engaged in the effort, we will adjust the process to achieve an optimum solution.The goal is to make some major progress by Fall 2001.
Don Rankins noted that the faculty portal has worked well.Grade submission went very well and the future intent is to move totally in that direction.They hope to eliminate the grade scan sheets.One problem with the new portal was the inability to produce the photo class list with all levels of browsers, but those problems are being worked through. There is an effort underway to make sure all faculty know of this portal and how to use it to improve the various processes on the campus. There is a demo account that can be used to help facilitate this process.
V. Discussion of Standardizing Computer Workstations
Doug May gave an update on efforts to adopt a more common platform for computer workstations. He said that the use of the word �standard� might be too restrictive.By reducing the choices without limiting options, we should be able to enhance our support offerings.Through the consultants meeting on Friday morning, the group has discussed specifications for acceptable models.May distributed a document that describes hardware levels with recommended minimums. .It was not intended to blacklist certain brands, but our experience varies with some vendors. It is recommended that we stay with the top tier vendors. A separate discussion needs to take place for laptops and network devices. This information will be made available on the web and used as recommendation during student orientation. He noted that Windows 2000 requires more memory to operate efficiently than earlier Windows operating systems. He is seeing the migration to Windows 2000 happening more quickly. The support group has noticed it being more reliable than Windows 95/98.May stated that the centrally supported student labs will be migrated to Windows 2000 over the summer. Since most of the computers have 128mb of memory, they will need to be upgraded to 256mb to meet the recommended level. There will be an attempt to map software and operating system levels to the appropriate hardware configuration. If we can agree to some standard models, department should be able to save money due to bulk purchases and the availability be more timely.
It was also noted that ITS would like to be very involved with the purchase of servers.ITS has recently worked with Student Development to discuss purchase and support options.
VII. Other Business
Williams asked if there were any other items to be discussed and there were none.That being the case, he polled the attendees for items.
Mick Kreszock, Instructional Technology Center, noted that the Pharos system (print management) is being implemented on the campus. They are working with Academic Computing Services, Sociology, Family and Consumer Sciences, Technology and College of Education. The services offer free black and white printing, but there are value added services available at a cost that include color printing and plotters.
Dave Sampson mentioned that planning was underway to upgrade all residence halls to Ethernet.In some of the residence halls they installed a product called Etherloop that uses existing phone wire to move both voice and data. This was done due to asbestos problems that prevented the normal installation of wiring. Response has been positive. They are working on some web development tools to assist with web content.
Tom Culver mentioned that a group from ASU visited Cisco Systems in RTP to be briefed on their products. At the time we need to replace our existing network equipment, we will consider Cisco products. Williams noted that we will attempt to make the case that wireless in certain areas of campus should be considered as a baseline service.Cisco could clearly play a role in that arena. Culver also mentioned that his staff is spending more time dealing with network security and investigation of abuse by our users.
Steve Hopper mentioned that we are moving forward with the enhancements to PANS (Personal Announcements and Notification Systems and to make it useable for all groups of users.To-date, it is only being used for students through Campus Pipeline.The primary reason for that is it is the only place students authenticate. Since faculty are beginning to use the portal, we will now be able to use that delivery vehicle.We plan on expanding the roles and selection categories to make it more useable.
Dick Riedl mentioned that there is still confusion about student email accounts, especially with graduate students.They evidently don�t look in their ASU mailbox to receive the information about their accounts. He worked with a student to assist them in finding their account when he figured she probably had an administrative account as well as a student account.He worked with her in signing into the account and forwarding email from the other account.
Doug May noted that we are now scanning email attachments for viruses. This protects all users that go through our email system and not just the State owned equipment that is licensed for the McAfee virus protection. He noted that there is a two step process for upgrading the McAfee information and offered to provide that to anyone who didn�t know about it.
Al Harris brought up the issue of accounts for faculty that had been gone for many years. Even though the accounts have be inactivated, they still show up on some of the lists.It was suggested that we delete the accounts after a reasonable period of time.It was noted that student accounts are easily maintained because the data is good and there is an automatic process to create, update and delete the accounts.There is optimism that the new iPlanet directory services may provide the best vehicle for dealing with account access.
Doug May asked for comments and suggestions for feedback on things we can do within ITS to improve our services. He asked the group for any feedback, but no one offered any at that point.It was noted that we shouldn�t assume the silence reflected all things were well, but we will continue to ask for suggestions.
VIII. Adjournment
With no other business noted, the meeting adjourned at 2:45 PM.
