Minutes - March 9, 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, Beth Davison, Gabe Fankhauser, William Griffin, Al Harris, Kevin Howell, and Don Rankins. Present as proxies were Tom Leonard for Teresa Canton, Tamara Swedberg for Len Johnson, and Spagnolo for Dick Riedl. Steve Breiner (Instructional Computing Services), Erin Simmons and Erika Hudspeth (University Webmaster), Mary Reichel (Belk Library), and Steve Hopper (Applications Support Services) were present as guests.
II. Review of Minutes � February 9, 2001
Minutes of the February 9 meeting were approved by the membership without discussion.
III. Appalachian Website Review Process
Jeff Williams presented a review of the Appalachian Website Review Process (AWRP) and the mechanism being used to obtain feedback from the various stakeholder groups. He stated that there had so far been six meetings (five originally scheduled plus one additional meeting where students were specifically recruited to participate. The next step in the process will involve generating a series of proposals regarding categorizations of the types of links proposed during the stakeholder sessions. After preliminary proposals are developed, they will be distributed for review and for comment, prior to a round of refinements. Information and a presentation about the preliminary findings of the AWRP is available via the ITAC project web site via the user ID and password given to ITAC at the meeting.
Erika Hudspeth (Appalachian Webmaster) distributed a listing of the requests for web site information divided according to stakeholders. She noted that there were a number of requests common to virtually all stakeholders and that the stakeholder lists will be distributed for review to academic and administrative departments, with the common items highlighted. She requested also that ITAC members review the distributed lists and report any important or noteworthy omissions in the list to the webmaster’s office. Williams then mentioned that the intent of the AWRP is to fully distribute information collected with the goal of giving all stakeholder the opportunity to participate in the development of Appalachian’s future web presence. As part of the process Williams and Hudspeth mentioned that the Webmaster’s office, as part of its effort to solicit full campus participation, was open to attending ad-hoc meetings of various campus groups which might wish to participate in the review process.
The next step in the process will involve attempting to categorize the numerous received requests into common groups, possibly leading to appropriate top-level links to coherently grouped entries. Williams again mentioned that the AWRP is just beginning and that virtually nothing is “etched in stone,” and that all reasonable input would be considered in developing the eventual site design and construction.
Mary Reichel (Library) suggested that overtures should be made to attend meetings of groups such as the Faculty Senate (Mar. 19) and the Council of Chairs (Apr. 5) to assure participation by those constituencies.
David Sampson (Student Development) asked (a) what level of detail was being sought during this phase of the AWRP and (b) how deep into the web structure the results of the process would infiltrate. Hudspeth replied that this question would need to be answered when more information had been collected and responses had been received from various constituencies. Once the information was available, the process would be used to make the choices necessary to make the site appropriately useful. The process, to date, has intentionally generated greater detail than would be possible to incorporate into the final design, but that that was necessary at this point to assure that the choices would be made with consideration of as much information as possible. She further related that in the initial round of student interviews, students seemed to like the idea of functional categories, labeled with generic language (e.g., “Money matters”). Williams displayed a web site from the University of Maryland (http://www.umd.edu) incorporating both audience-targeted and functional categorizations of features.
Williams then mentioned that ITS will hold a “last chance” meeting to allow for additional input from persons or groups not yet represented in the list of requested web function, after which, the remaining structure of the design process will be formulated. After the input has been collected, said Williams, Appalachian will follow the model used at WCU for developing the Prospective Student Portal (PSP), and will customize as necessary the code and design generated by that process for use at Appalachian. He further mentioned that not a great deal has occurred since last August on the PSP. Williams then asked ITAC for any comments about how the AWRP has been conducted to date and whether there was anything appropriate to the process not now occurring. There were no suggestions or comments offered.
Peter Wachs (Student Dev.), in a related issue, asked where the responsibility for departmental web sites lay. He questioned who should be responsible for maintaining the “critical” parts of a site. Hudspeth responded that, for the foreseeable future at the departmental level, departments would maintain any parts of a site currently “owned” by them. Steve Breiner (Instruct. Comp.) suggested that for essential departmental information (e.g., contact numbers, degree requirements, etc.) the information should be migrated to a database and displayed via active pages to users. Such a model, according to breiner, would allow for more reliable maintenance of information, its display in a standardized format for all departments, and its availability to other campus areas for their use.
Williams then summarized a number of upcoming issues related to Appalachian’s web presence and web-based services. He mentioned current efforts to explore the possibilities for equipment redundancy and load balancing for the top level web servers, an important consideration considering our efforts to consolidate authentication and user information under LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), probably using the iPlanet enterprise software engine. This effort is part of a more pervasive endeavor to consolidate currently fragmented services (authentication, e-mail) into reliable and robust enterprise quality systems. He mentioned also that Campus Pipeline seems to be moving toward a more “open web” structure, with details about their upcoming open products soon forthcoming.
Reichel suggested that a “general call” for comments and suggestions, prior to any definitive decisions about such matters, would be appropriate and should occur.
Sampson asked about the projected time frame for implementation of the iPlanet solution, to which Williams replied that the software is currently undergoing preliminary testing at Appalachian. Williams stated further that, as the software proves itself, specific features would be made available on a limited basis until the software is proven “ready”, after which a general deployment would occur. The features mentioned specifically were the web-based e-mail services, enterprise-wide address books.
In reference to Appalachian’s current web site home page, Reichel suggested that the “visitors” link be changed to “friends and visitors” to more accurately reflect the non-university constituencies which might access the Appalachian site.
Williams (in a final effort to solicit commentary from ITAC) once again asked ITAC members if the AWRP process seemed to be progressing along the “right path” to address the needs of their constituencies. A general “nod of agreement” answered Williams’ query. Spagnolo asked for clarification as to what type of feedback would eventually be sought from stakeholders as regards the Appalachian web presence. A discussion ensued, with general suggestions that the process (AWRP) be fully open and well publicized, with somewhat clearer definitions as to the types of information desired.
IV. Other Business
Williams reported that, apparently as a result of “last minute” use of Napster servers on RESNET, Appalachian’s 35 megabit/second Internet pipe was essentially saturated, thereby choking other University-related traffic. Network Support Services responded to the threat by slowing Appalachian’s outbound data rate to around 14 megabit/second, which apparently rendered Appalachian a much less desirable location to outside users seeking music downloads.
Williams announced that network infrastructure moneys from the recent bond referendum will be used to reimburse Student Development for their funding of 1/3 the costs of implementing RESNET. The university will be required to submit a schedule, of which the RESNET reimbursement will be a part, for disbursement of the bond infrastructure funds, spread over the seven year duration of the program.
As part of the GA’s continuing “Phase II” allocation of network infrastructure funds, roughly one half million dollars will be used to bring Appalachian to the “90% of baseline services” mark. This level is important in that, once the 90% mark has been achieved, Appalachian can use remaining Phase II moneys to request permission to pursue projects exceeding the original (1998) baseline service expectations. Such “beyond-baseline” services as intrusion detection, infrastructure redundancy and others will be proposed to ITAC for consideration and the membership will be asked to preview and help set priorities for such proposals. Williams commented that the rising frequency of hacking attacks will lend increasing importance to some of these types of issues.
Ed Pakarek (Comp. Sci.) asked if the regular ITAC meeting time could be moved to 2:00 PM in order to reduce conflicts with class times. The membership agreed by consensus to try the newly proposed time.
V. Adjournment
With no other business noted, the meeting adjourned at about 3:00 PM.
