Present: Art Battson, Glenn Davis, George Gregg, Phil Handley, Tom Lawton, Tom Marazita, Elise Meyer, Alan Moses, Joan Murdoch, Larry Murdock, Deborah Scott, Vince Sefcik, Bob Sugar, John Vasi
Not Present: Debbie Anglin, Kevin Barron, Ken Bowers, Bill Doering, Sonia Johnston, Bill Koseluk, Pam Lombardo, Bill McTague, Ed Mehlschau, Kevin Schmidt, Jamie Sonsini
The meeting opened with the introduction of Deborah Scott, new Director of Student Affairs Information Systems and Technologies.
We then moved to the ITPG "Urgent Issues" list. The original ten items from our meeting of October 6, 1998 were augmented with ten additional items that have been suggested at ITPG meetings in the interim. The expanded list was posted on the white board and has been placed on the ITPG website for posterity.
Prior to reviewing the items on the list, some committee members asked if the "tail would be wagging the dog" if ITPG were to comment on the organizational issues currently under discussion at ITB. Others replied that ITB needs to know what items should be included in planning and that ITPG has a role in surfacing those items and in providing a ballpark estimate of their costs. ITB would then be in a better position to organize around the tasks that need to be done and to recommend priorities. If a new OIT is created, it will need a list of responsibilities and tasks that are not now getting done. In suggesting these, ITPG might also comment on organization. Also, indicating tasks that should not be taken on by an OIT would be helpful. Ultimately, ITPG needs to decide where best to spend its time. The organizational discussion is currently going on in ITB and drafts of their recommendations will be circulated to ITPG for coordination.
It was also suggested that the "L&S Intrabuilding Wiring" issue be changed to "Intrabuilding Wiring" because the issue will arise in many units across campus in the future.
Elise then made a quick run through the list on the whiteboard. She first noted those issues that have been referred to working subcommittees (#1 - Security, #2 -Directory Services, #8 - Participation in the UC Common Authentication Project, and #9 - New Backbone Planning) and those that have been referred to ITB (#4 - Unified Data Networking Group and #5 - Student Access).
It was suggested that other items (#7 - Umbrella Organization for Admin Systems and #18 - Departmental Shadow Systems) might indicate a need for a new ITPG subcommittee on Administrative Systems Integration. Similarly, Item #11- Restrictions on Open Access Workstations and Item #13 - Interdisciplinary Competition for Resources in the Labs, suggested the need for an ITPG subcommittee on Laboratory Operations. The committee agreed to these propositions.
At this point, it appeared that many of the remaining issues could be grouped under Item #3, Planning and Funding. Specifically, Item #10 - Fragmentation of Campus IT Support, Item #14 - Software License Agreements, Item #16 - Intrabuilding Wiring, Item # 19 - Fund for the Common Good, and Item #20 - RUAC Method of Charging for IP addresses, are all aspects of planning and/or funding that need to be considered together.
The new groupings and the remaining items were then discussed with several people supporting Planning & Funding as the next major topic for ITPG and suggesting formats in which information might best be conveyed to ITB (macro-look, one-page overview, how funding works now, who has responsibilities now, what is missing, etc.). It was noted that UCSB is currently spending at least $17M/year and has at least 185 staff members working in IT, so there is a lot already happening and it might be easier to focus on what is "falling through the cracks".
Discussion of other items included speculation regarding COX's plans for cable modems and mention of GTE's rollout of ADSL (this discussion has since been overtaken by events reported in the Santa Barbara News Press).
Plans for authentication of off-campus users desiring access to licensed content were questioned and it was noted that three separate projects (digital certificates, a proxy server, and research into an ISP provider who could assign a block of known IP address) are currently underway at UCOP and in IS&C.
Pros and cons of using the Data Warehouse to supplant departmental shadow financial systems were also noted.
Copyright issues were also discussed briefly with Housing reporting that they handle rogue MP3 distributions out of ResNet without difficulty. Some thought copyright is an issue larger than IT and should, therefore, be deleted from our list. Others thought the Digital Millennium Copyright Act might require review with the idea of seeing what other campuses have done to avoid liability.
The WASC Accreditation item was resolved by the proposal to send a note to Professor Applebaum alerting his group to the existence of ITPG and offering to assist with gathering data regarding IT in support of the accreditation study. Glenn volunteered to do this.
For the record, it was noted that RUAC stands for "Remote User Access Center" and that the current charge is $11 per IP address per year. This brings in an amount roughly equal to the core funding provided by the EVC and amounts to about 1/4 of the amount provided by the $9 per telephone line per month surcharge. All of these funding sources support (among other things) the operation of the campus backbone data network.
Following the discussion the group voted unanimously to make Planning & Funding the next topic of ITPG discussion. The group began by stating the goal of providing ITB with a one-page outline (plus narrative in appendices) that provides the overall context of items which must be addressed to have a functioning campus wide IT infrastructure.
To avoid presenting a long, fragmented list of funding needs to ITB, the group decided on the following structured set of categories in which to sort line items:
- Infrastructure & Connectivity
- Campus-wide Services
- Desktops and Support
- System Integration, Data Warehouse and Applications
- Department-Specific Applications
A goal is to highlight those items that currently lack a funding model and include a ballpark estimate for each line item that OIT might need to consider.
It was noted that the scope of the planned services is important and should be decided first. If, for example, the scope of the backbone network ends at the building wall, then the departmental network component will compete with other departmental items and that should be known before setting departmental funding priorities.
Elise volunteered to make the first pass, creating a few sentences to describe each item, sorting them into the agreed upon categories and pulling initial funding estimates out of notes and handouts from previous meetings.
The group agreed to meet every other week, at least while the Planning & Funding topic was under discussion. The next ITPG meeting will be at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, September 1, in North Hall 1131.
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