Present: George Gregg, Phil Handley, Alan Moses, Joan Murdoch, Larry Murdock, Kevin Schmidt, Vince Sefcik, Jamie Sonsini, Bob Sugar, Pamela Webb, Elise Meyer (co-chair), Glenn Davis (co-chair)
Not Present: Debbie Anglin, Kevin Barron, Art Battson, Ken Bowers, Bill Doering, Bill Koseluk, Pam Lombardo, Tom Marazita, Bill McTague, Ed Mehlschau, John Vasi
We noted that we were one person short of a quorum. (Co-chair Davis forgot to send a reminder to the committee on the day of the meeting). Consequently, no votes were taken. The lack of a quorum prevented us from acting on several suggestions that are noted here for future reference. Nevertheless, those present were able to reach consensus on several issues.
It was suggested that we further refine the issues requiring a face-to-face vote to include only those that consume resources or set priorities.
We began with a discussion of how we want to approach the ten items on our initial list of issues. Some were concerned that processing the issues sequentially in order of priority would cause important items at the bottom of the list to go unaddressed for several months. Others were concerned that attempting to process the issues in parallel would overtax individuals who need to participate in several CNC subcommittees at once. It was noted that these concerns result from having to rely on too few people to study too many issues related to IT planning.
It was suggested that we present CNC with our initial list of issues so that they know what we are considering and have a context for future submissions that might be focused on single topics. Further, we should also make the CNC aware of the lack of planning resources available to the campus.
Coordinating the activities of several related but separate subcommittees was discussed. Methods included requiring chairs to be ITPG members, or at least being sure that an ITPG member was included on every committee to bring information back. It was suggested that the new committees give us an opportunity to involve different people in the IT planning process. That provides an additional reason to have experienced ITPG representation on these committees since they could bring knowledge of campus-wide concerns that must be considered when trying to resolve campus-wide problems.
The question of whether committees would all be CNC subcommittees or whether some of them could be ITPG "work groups" was raised. Further discussion indicated a need to review the charge to the group. Reference to the Bob Sugar's letter inviting participation indicated that ITPG was formed because ,"…more effort should be applied to planning and to the identification of areas which require greater attention", and that ITPG, "…may make specific recommendations for action to the Campus Network Committee, or it may suggest that the areas it has identified be referred to a new or existing subcommitee of the Campus Network Committee."
Bob Sugar, chair of CNC, expressed hope that the ITPG report to the full CNC on Thursday would:
- identify the range of issues being discussed
- hand off some of the issues to CNC subcommittees
It was noted that it is easier to review a proposal than to generate one and this led to a discussion of what we meant by "planning". We defined planning from the ITPG perspective as looking ahead to identify approaching IT issues, doing research necessary to articulate the issues, reviewing what other campuses are doing and presenting alternatives. The tasks of deciding among the alternatives and allocating the necessary resources are then left to the CNC (or ITB) and those in the regular line organizations.
The discussion then turned toward the question of whether we should recommend forming new committees to deal with some of our issues. Some asked whether we first needed a report. The idea of having an "issue champion" from ITPG perform this task was discussed. In response to the question of how to tell if an issue should go directly to a subcommittee or be researched by the ITPG it was noted that the ITPG should do enough to know whether additional research might change the recommended membership on committees that are set up.
After Bob noted that it was the CNC-chair who currently has the authority to establish new subcommittees, the group agreed that since it "almost" had a quorum, it could "almost" recommend that CNC establish subcommittees to study Security (with respect to network intrusions) and Directories & Authentication. Volunteers and desired volunteers are as follows:
Security
- Kevin Schmidt
- Jason Poley
- Ted Smith
- David Alix
- Shea Lovan
- Ed Melschau (or ORU rep)
- John Haskins (CS rep)
- GSE rep
- L&S rep
- Sean Souther (or SA rep)
- Institutional Advancement rep
Directories & Authentication
- Lee Tien
- Arlene Allen
- Kevin Schmidt
- Tom Marazita
- Jamie Sonsini
- Patrick McNulty (or SA rep)
- Bruce Miller (CS rep)
- Library rep
- L&S rep
- HR rep
- Glenn Davis
Next the group reached consensus that "growing CalREN-2 into the future" and "planning the next generation network" are both BEG issues and should be referred to that existing CNC subcommittee.
The group then turned briefly to the split NOC issue, noting that while there isn't much more ITPG can do about it at the moment, we should be sure to keep it in front of CNC until it is resolved.
Having thus dispatched five of the more focused issues on the list, the group began to grapple with the issue of Student Access. Notable comments included:
- Pressure for Student Affairs to set up its own modem pools for access to GOLD
- The objective of integrating IT into instructional process requires access for all students – a high-level policy issue.
- Suggestion to frame our advice as: "What are the missing elements that must be in place before an instructor can fairly make a reading assignment based on material available on the web?"
- Questions of which of these elements are departmental and which are campus wide?
- What is already going on? (e.g., Library and Residential Services access)
- Observation that requiring students to have a computer makes its acquisition eligible for Financial Aid
- Parallel with requiring textbook purchases or providing the Reserve Book Room and Library.
All agreed that the Student Access issue would be a good topic for further discussion of the committee as a whole.
The next ITPG meeting will be held on Friday, October 30 at 10:00 a.m. in North Hall 1131.
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