Present: Art Battson, Glenn Davis, Bill Doering, Phil Handley, Rick Johnson, Elise Meyer, Alan Moses, Joan Murdoch (not a quorum)
Not Present: Debbie Anglin, Kevin Barron, Ken Bowers, George Gregg, Sonia Johnston, Bill Koseluk, Tom Lawton, Pam Lombardo, Tom Marazita, Bill McTague, Ed Mehlschau, Larry Murdock, Kevin Schmidt, Vince Sefcik, Jamie Sonsini, John Vasi
The group noted three emerging issues on the IT horizon at UCSB:
- How to address the issue in intra-building wiring in L&S. The problem is becoming acute in some units and Alan wonders how to get it on the ITB agenda. Alan will do some preliminary research for a future discussion.
- WASC Accreditation issues: a subcommittee of the group preparing for the next accreditation review is looking into IT in graduate education. Issues such as training and tools available to graduate students as they prepare to be future teachers and scholars and how our programs compare to others in the area of preparation to support distance learning are under review. It was suggested that we make the ITB aware of the potential impact of new programs in this area on the IT infrastructure and also of the need to coordinate the IT aspects of the accreditation subcommittees with each other and with the ITPG and ITB. It was suggested that ITPG contact professors Applebaum and Church, who chair the subcommittee looking into graduate students and IT, and offer our assistance in coordination.
- MSI and Chemistry demonstrated G.U.S., a departmental financial shadow system being written in 4D. This is one of several efforts currently underway to create new departmental financial systems. Other efforts are underway in Biology and Engineering. ICESS and Bren are also interested. Whether there might be economies of scale in coordination of these efforts was discussed. L&S, who originally created ARCS, has little interest in making a new investment in this area although the college is supporting a project to make ARCS Y2K compliant. Department needs are diverse and scalability is an issue – if the limits of 4D are surpassed, database administration may be required. The 4D product is also vulnerable to competition from Microsoft Access if that product is ported to Macintosh.
Moving to reports from ITPG subcommittees, Elise summarized the Security Working Group's report. The group is continuing to focus on the "open relay" issue and is preparing a document with suggestions on how sysadmins can cope with this problem (e.g., by implementing "POP-before-SMTP" or by eliminating SMTP relay activity altogether).
On the CalREN2 front, the GSR is talking to North Hall and the link to Engineering is "imminent." HEP, Music, Alexandria and ICESS are acquiring the HP Procurve while ITP is using a Cisco 6500 to connect to the backbone. How to connect Art Studio remains an open issue.
Changes in the ITPG recommendations on student access were reviewed and it was suggested that we change "workstation" to "computer," which is more general, in several places. The new draft will be distributed by email to ITPG and, if there are no further changes by Tuesday at 5:00 p.m., to ITB.
Folded into the discussion on recommendations was a general discussion on how to distribute the recommendations and other similar items to faculty. Paper notes to unit heads and publication on web pages is traditional. How one locates the ITPG (and ITB) web pages and the other computing resource pages from the new UCSB home page was discussed (i.e., "Library & Computing Resources" is now listed under "All Things Administrative"). It was suggested that we convey our desire to have pointers to the IT planning groups appear on a top-level web page via members of the Web Working Group who are also ITPG members or who report to ITPG members.
The draft Student Access Survey was also reviewed at the ITB meeting and several suggestions were noted and implemented. The most recent draft was reviewed by ITPG and a few additional changes were suggested. When these changes have been made the new draft will be circulated to ITPG electronically. Please make comments by Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. so that a final draft may posted in time to announce to ITB on Thursday.
Those present voted unanimously to approve the proposed change of time limits on the 2400 bps modem pool (x8400) from 30 minutes to two hours. Although we lacked a quorum at the meeting, several other ITPG members had voted previously by email. Counting both electronic and in-person "yes" votes indicated that more than a quorum had voted and that all were in support of the change. Communications Services has been notified to proceed with the change.
Software site-licenses and bulk purchase agreements were the main discussion topic of the day. We noted first that the anti-virus acquisition is time-critical because our past agreement has expired and all copies of Dr. Solomon are to be destroyed by May 15. The dilemma is that our best hope with the technique of passing the hat for contributions from interested units is to make a bulk purchase of 5000 copies of Symantec's anti-virus package at $5.11 per copy. Under a bulk-purchase such as this the coordinating unit, Software Depot, is obligated to track the distribution of copies and report to the vendor. Whether this tracking can be delegated to other units is an issue. Also, this deal would leave a substantial number of campus and personal computers either unprotected or operating with "uncounted" copies. In comparison, participation in a UCOP negotiated site-license might cost about the same ($27k vs. $25k). However, a true site-license would cover all computers associated with the campus and would remove the administrative burdens of tracking distribution and counting copies. The staff cost of tracking is not counted in the proposed campus acquisition, but would make the campus deal considerably more expensive over time. Whether the UCOP deal will go through and what UCSB is to do in the meantime are open questions. Joan volunteered to ask Laurice if we can extend the deadline on the Symantec deal and to inquire about the cost of a true site license for the campus.
It was also noted that Software Depot does not have a budget to purchase extra copies to meet potential needs. If they add a markup, their prices might exceed those available at the Bookstore (e.g., Adobe). Also, Purchasing often finds the best price on hardware acquisitions but has not been active in coordinating software licenses. Several of those present believe funding should be provided "from the top" to cover licenses that are needed for nearly every computer on campus. Other examples that might make sense to fund centrally are the Secure-CRT programs and the common products from Microsoft.
The use of the free anti-virus programs available from Norton and from CA was discussed. The problem is that the free versions do not offer "push" distribution which is the only viable way for departmental computing support staff to keep the virus tables up to date on laboratory machines. It was noted that UCOP should retain "push" technology in any attempt to reduce the price of a UC-wide site license.
In a related item, it was noted that UCOP recently negotiated a UC-wide agreement with SPSS for their "Science Products." This agreement requires an initial $2000 fee for each campus wishing to participate. Where to find the initial $2000 is an issue.
In still another related item, it was noted that IS&C coordinates a contract with Gartner Group to provide a variety of consulting services and IT research materials. Glenn will send a separate note to the list with details.
The meeting closed with discussions of two procedural issues:
- On the topic of how to conduct ITPG votes electronically, it was decided that a motion that is proposed for an electronic vote should be sent to the ITPG co-chairs. The co-chairs will present the motion to the ITPG discussion list along with a time period for discussion (e.g., 48 hours). If, at the end of the discussion period, it appears that the issue is ready for a vote, the co-chairs will query the list, again including a time limit (e.g., 48 hours). After the time limit has expired, the votes will be tallied. Motions on which a quorum has voted and which receive a simple-majority will be passed. A quorum has been defined as twelve members. The definition of a quorum will be reviewed at the first ITPG meeting following the beginning of the quarter each fall.
- On the topic of how one becomes a voting member of ITPG, the consensus was that participation is to be favored over formality. Thus, when someone attends three consecutive ITPG meetings, their name will be added to the discussion list. When a person leaves the campus (e.g., Pamela Webb) their unit (Office of Research) will be invited to send a replacement. Once per year, in preparation for the first ITPG meeting each fall, we will ask those on the list to confirm their continuing interest and update the list accordingly.
End Note (pun intended:) In hallway (before and after the meeting) it was determined that Bren School, GSE, and HSSCF all have an interest in a UC-wide contract for Endnote. Glenn will convey this to Jane Schoenfeld at UCOP.
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