ITPG Meeting Notes May 18, 2009

Present: Jeffrey Barteet, David Bosso, Polly Bustillos, Ken Dean, Saturnino Doctor, Doug Drury, Ann Dundon, Kirk Grier, Chuck Haines, Karl Heins, Richard Kip, Tom Marazita, Elise Meyer, Steve Miley, Bruce Miller, Alan Moses, Larry Murdock, Vince Nievares, Tom Putnam, Glenn Schiferl, Deborah Scott, Jan Smith, Chris Sneathen, Jamie Sonsini, Heidi Straub, Colin Thompson, Jim Woods.

ITPG Leadership Group Draft Recommendations
Presenter: Alan Moses

The working group met twice to develop the following groundwork for a discussion on ITPG leadership. They identified three functions:

• Representative Function: Representing the ITPG to the ITB.
• Executive Function: Sets the agenda and does project management with the subcommittees.
• Communication: Either have OIST provide staff to the committee, or ask for an FTE.

The first two roles would be accomplished by having a rotating chair and vice-chair with two-year terms. The chair would assign specific roles based on the skillset of the chair and vice chair.

The open issues remaining were the required/desired characteristics of the chair and vice-chair, and who has voting rights.

Discussion ensued on the following topics.

Representation of the ITPG to the ITB

• Should only one person attend the ITB meetings, i.e. be the Liason? No, both should attend. Currently both ITPG co-chairs attend the ITB meetings.
• It is important for both to become familiar with the other ITB members and vice versa.
• There should be a standing ITPG agenda item of reporting back from the ITB meeting. In addition there should be reports from the subcommittees.

Required/Desired Characteristics of Chair and Vice-Chair

• Should an existing chair remain for continuity? No.
• The chairs should not be part of the same organization, i.e., they should have different control points. The group felt that the Dean level was different enough.
• Should not be a direct report to an ITB member.
• This eliminates the three direct reports to the CIO.
• When asked whether the reporting relationship impacted interactions at the ITB the response was no, but this has been a concern of the group and it will be respected.
• If the liaison had to wear two hats--operational, and ITPG representational -- at the ITB meeting, ITB members might be confused about what point of view was being presented.
• Approval/commitment from supervisor.
• Should there be a minimum tenure on campus?
• Should there be a minimum knowledge of UCSB’s IT organization? No.
• Should be a member of ITPG.
• This is an opportunity for staff who are not part of hierarchical IT units to develop leadership skills.
• Should have integrity. Should be able to well represent A, even if they believe B.
• Should have enthusiasm for the job.

It is hard to find people with the time to take on these roles, so it is helpful to have a nominating committee seek out volunteers. The nominating committee should come back with a list of candidates, detailing their skills and why they are good candidates. There should also be provisions for people adding themselves to the candidate list. Traditionally a nominating committee brings a slate of officers back to the group, but the ITPG wants the nominating committee to bring back multiple candidates for each position.

ITPG Voting Rights

Unlike the EISPG, ATPG, and RCIPG, the ITPG has open membership. In the past we have voted on the priorities of proposals, and the requirement for being able to vote was participation at the meetings where the proposals were discussed or, in another case, attending three meetings in the current year. Should the ITPG continue to reward participation with voting rights (and if so, what are the participation criteria), or should voting rights be distributed based on campus representation?

• Does online participation count as participation toward voting rights? Should there be online membership registration at a wiki?
• The active ITPG roster and the requirements to be active should be posted on the web.
• The WSG requires attendance at 25% of the meetings during the past year for voter eligibility.
• Can voting rights rest with the position rather than the person, i.e., the incumbent in a small IT unit earns voting rights, and then leaves the position, the new person would retain those voting rights.
• Attendance lists should be posted in the minutes.
• Secret ballots are easier in person.

Conclusions

• A nominating committee, consisting of volunteers Jeffrey Barteet, Alan Moses, Elise Meyer, and Deborah Scott will bring back a list of candidates for each position to the 6/15/09 ITPG meeting.
• There should be a list of desirable characteristics, not strict rules. The mean objectives are:
• Ability to perform the job as described
• Diverse representation from campus
• Address any conflict of interest issues
• There was no conclusion on voter eligibilty, but the group seemed to be heading in the direction of participation-based voting rights.
• The goal is to have new leadership in place by September.

Use of Technology to Record and Archive Critical Campus Communications
Presenters: Elise Meyer, Larry Murdock

This topic arose when the Budget Public Forum was originally scheduled late on a Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend, and there was an expectation that not many people would be able to attend. Another public meeting that not everyone could attend was the MSP meeting. The idea would be to recommend the use of technology to make the content available to those who are unable to attend the event.

In response to the request to make the Budget Public Forum information available via the web, the EVC’s office was going to take care of that.

Questions/issues that came up during the discussion:

• Is there an organization that can provide this service? Instructional development can do it, but what would it cost?
• Are the speakers/presenters willing to have it recorded?
• If video is used, it requires a camera operator.
• There needs to be a mechanism for podcasts for academic use. ID had an Apple-sponsored pilot project to do the UCCSC podcasting.
• Is there a UCSB YouTube or iTunes University channel to provide a single location for such content?
• Is there streaming technology at www.ucsb.edu? Commencement has been streamed on an ad hoc basis for 10 years.
• There are several servers that do this on campus, but there is no service. If this becomes successful, ad hoc would not be sufficient.
• Is there a service for institutional information?
• How would we address the situation when a speaker says they have made a mistake? Editing is a huge cost.
• Should the content be available to only authenticated access? What can we record and make public? What are the policy questions for outsourcing the hosting of such content?

We can make recommendations, but it might be more constructive to identify who can do what and where. Should we form a group to assemble clearing house and post video conference facilities? The ITPG can state that the technology is available and should be used for meetings of general campus importance. ITPG can make such a statement, but the Academic Senate would have more standing. Perhaps CSAC and ABOG can endorse our statement.

Karl will report back.

Request for UCCSC Poster Content
Presenter: Elise Meyer

Only one person responded to the CSF call for content for this year’s poster for UCCSC. If we don’t get more content, we aren’t going to do a poster. Three people volunteered content, and one volunteered staff expertise to put the poster together.

Report from Security Working Group
Presenters: Karl Heins, Kevin Schmidt

The SEC-WG has had two meetings. Their meetings are now the last Thursday of the month.

In its first meeting, the group identified the following challenges.

• Training needs, including how do you let visitors know about SB1386.
• Statistics and data needed, such as how many breaches are due to stolen laptops.
• Tools needed, for example, antivirus and patch level tools.
• Guidance, policy, standards, and exchange of best practices, e.g., HIPAA for policy. One idea for best practices was to do peer review of firewalls and ACLs. This arose out of new PCI compliance levels that SIS&T was facing for their Arts & Lectures credit card application. In the end they decided to outsource the credit card processing.
• Other:
• Single mail gateway is desired
• Wireless spectrum coordination issues

Issues that the ITPG should be aware of:

• Review processes for termination of accounts.
• The SEC-WG is investigating traffic filtering for DNS and SMTP.
• Andy Bowers will be starting as the ISA on May 26th.

Other Business

There has been a significant security breach at UC Berkeley.

As noted in the email that went to the ITPG last week, this fiscal year’s RUAC bill was at the old rate of $11/IP.