Present: Eric Brody, Larry Carver, Chris Dempsey, Saturnino Doctor, Bill Doering, Doug Drury, Kirk Grier, Bill Koseluk, Mark McGilvray, Elise Meyer, George Michaels, Alan Moses, Linda Moskovits, Joan Murdoch, Larry Murdock, Stan Nicholson, Michael Oliva, Fuzzy Rogers, Glenn Schiferl, Deborah Scott, Jan Smith, Chris Sneathen, Paul Weakliem, Craig Welsh
Administrative Professional Staff Election
Elections for the unionization of Administrative Professional Staff will be taking place during the period of February 11 through March 3. Please encourage your staff to be aware of the issues and vote. The need for discussion forums was expressed. Feedback and comments should be directed to Farfalla Borah in H/R.
ITPG PROJECT PROPOSALS
Copies of summaries of the proposed projects were distributed, and discussion continued from last meeting.
Licensing Support – Matt Dunham
Project Summary
The Software Depot service provides the campus with a one-stop shop for software available at educational and/or volume discounts. Since its inception four years ago it has been run by Instructional Computing (IC) with donated staffing. For a number of reasons IC can no longer support this service with internal funding and donated FTE. In recognition of this, ITPG formed a Software Licensing Subcommittee two years ago to formulate a recommendation for a sustainable "Office of Software Licensing." This proposal encompasses the recommendations made by that committee.
Discussion
IC has been hosting the service on a voluntary basis. The service is understaffed, and faces possible legal issues with CNT I level employees signing contracts. Two years ago, the Software Licensing Subcommittee proposal addressed the needs in a three-tiered approach; a bare bones structure, maintenance of the status quo, and a program with all the bells and whistles. Savings on this campus amount to approx $75K/year, handling between 50 and 70 orders per week plus site licenses and coordinated purchases. Phase one funding would allow for the hire of a programmer to update the web application. Phase two would provide funding for servers and auditing procedures and issues. This proposal encompasses the recommendations made by that committee.
Unfunded IBW – Elise Meyer
Project Summary
Most people would consider an office to not be functional if it didn't have electricity. Given the pervasive use of Information Technology, the same could be true for an office without a connection to the campus network. There are still buildings that have space with either no data wiring, inadequate data wiring, or obsolete data wiring. The Intrabuilding Wiring Project was created to address this need. Since its inception in Fall 2000, over $2.4M has been spent on projects in 26 buildings. There is at least $1.5M funded to complete the existing projects. We estimate that our current projects and funding will be done by the end of December 2004. There are 31 additional projects that have been submitted for consideration for the next phase of funding. We have cost estimates for 22 of these 31 projects that add up to an unfunded amount of at least $1,021,929. We have not received any new proposals from our FY 2003/2004 call for additional IBW projects.
To submit the unfunded component of the IBW project to the ITPG proposal process, we will need to update the requested project list, i.e., remove any projects that are no longer required, and add any projects that result from the latest call. Then we will need to develop rough cost estimates for the remaining projects.
Discussion
The process for IBW projects consists of a call for proposals, submissions of prioritized lists by control points, cost estimates of the projects, consultation with control points for their final prioritization, merging of prioritized lists, and determination of funding/non-funding. Unfunded projects are included in the next year's list of proposals. A call was put out for new proposals in the fall; no new submissions have been received to date. Departments may have taken on some projects independently, and therefore the projects may be dropped from the list. Steady state needs are estimated at approximately $1M per year, which should be considered as a permanent funding issue. There was discussion whether cable plant maintenance should be folded in. Some felt that the IBW program could proceed with one-time funds and that cable plant maintenance and ongoing IBW funds were really issues for the network funding model process. Current work on the Network Funding Model includes determining costs for current services, costs for additional services, how much existing and additional core funds are available, and then revenue methods for filling the gap. Discussions regarding the Network Funding Model should be a separate topic from the IBW.
Classroom Technologies – Bill Koseluk
Project Summary
"Classroom technology" (e.g., projection devices, computers, network connectivity, VCR's, DVD players, etc. used extensively by faculty) ought to be ubiquitous. Yet at UCSB, suitable equipment and related support is limited to a set number of specific spaces, and the process of scheduling can seem difficult, inconvenient, and, at times, costly. A recharge scheme further complicates matters. It appears that there is not sufficient funding to supply all classrooms with needed technology, nor is there adequate support for upkeep and replacement.
This project will address this issue by first codifying what is meant by "needed technologies" in the classroom. A baseline should be determined. Secondly, the various classroom and learning spaces will be clearly identified. By deducting what is presently funded for this purpose from the calculated total cost of this provision, a figure representing need can be obtained. This new figure will represent what funding is required in order to provide universal classroom access to technology. Clearly, there is widespread faculty support for this service provision.
Discussion
A definition of baseline technologies for classrooms is needed, and specific learning spaces should be identified. This information should be easily obtained from Art Battson in Instructional Resources. Once these aspects have been defined, it will be possible to calculate the required funding in order to provide universal classroom access to technology. Replacement cycles need to be considered as well as turn-around time and support in maintaining the equipment. A faculty survey has indicated that better technology (including audio) in the classrooms is needed and encouraged.
Centralized Credit Card Processing – Chris Dempsey
Project Summary
Most, if not all, of the other UC campuses currently allow for payment of certain fees or charges via credit card. Many of the other campuses have credit card processing handled by a single office, usually Business Services. Because Business Services was not able to develop such a service in the timeframe required, the Graduate Division has implemented credit card processing for use with its electronic application for admission. Since that time, a number of other organizations, including but not limited to Engineering, Student Affairs, Housing, Parking Services, and Arts and Lectures, have inquired about similar services. Because the majority of controls and accounting expertise is within Accounting/Business Services, it seems logical to maintain a single gateway or service provider for credit card processing. This sort of service provided by a central office with direct interests would scale very well as more departments require credit card services. Graduate Division is willing to assist such an office with development of requisite functionality.
Discussion
There are currently 8 or 9 departments trying out credit card processing, and although it is not working well there is a building momentum for this service, especially in the area of tuition and student fees. Donna Carpenter in the Accounting office should be the coordinating central point in this project. There is a security risk, and there are also per-transaction costs that cannot be passed on to the customer. These costs are estimated to be approx. $1M per year. Chris is currently working with Donna Carpenter on more details of this proposal.
Commodity Services (email, web, etc.) – Chris Dempsey
Project Summary
As has been done admirably by OIT with DNS, backbone, NNTP, and other services, a number of other network services can be efficiently provided by a central campus organization. For example, email service is provided generally by each department or college/school, but there are a number of providers such as ISC or IC/U-Mail who provide email services to departments and/or students. It seems logical that with the slow migration to @ucsb.edu email accounts, a single, central office such as IC/U-Mail or ISC could provide baseline email functionality cheaply and reliably. Further, commercial ISPs have reduced Linux/PHP or Windows/ASP web services to commodity prices. While some offices on campus currently provide these types of services already, they may be limited to a recharge model or cannot provide these services with reasonable prices. A medium capital investment could provide shared web hosting to departments, with reasonable guarantees on reliability, security, and backups. This can also include physical locations, as more and more organizations develop their own machine rooms requiring tens of thousands of dollars to build and maintain. Finally, future services could include web development, consultative, or graphic design services funded centrally or via recharge.
Discussion
The purpose of the proposal would be to determine methods of consolidating services; centralization of a single organization for faculty, staff, and students, such as was done with "@ucsb.edu" is preferable over departmentalization of services. A question was asked whether student and faculty/staff email should occur in the same place or not, one group replied that they had both students and staff on the same server. It is important to consider the support component of services and to avoid fragmentation of user support. This proposal could also include space issues; concentrating equipment into fewer rooms, saving space, construction and air conditioning costs, etc. Future services could include web development, consultative, or graphic design services funded centrally or via recharge. Determination of baseline services needs to be made; there was no indication of who would make that determination.
Next meeting: February 17, 2004, Chancellor’s Conference Room, Cheadle 5123, 9:30-11:00 am.
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