CCFIT > Calendar & Minutes > 1998-2003 Minutes > September 10, 2001 AdC3 Minutes

Agenda

1. Approval of Minutes
2. Announcements - John Bruno
3. Overview Report for Council Year
4. Tier System Designation Workgroup Status Report
5. Draft Wireless Communications Policy

Minutes

Excused: Carol Wall.

Absent: Caroline West.

Guests: Debbie Lauriano, Sandra Stewart.

Staff to the Council: Randy Moory, Julie Saylor, and Babette Schmitt.

I. Approval of Minutes - Chair Smiley

Chair Smiley asked the Council for approval of the June minutes. Council approved the minutes as submitted.

Vice Provost Bruno announced the semi retirement of Lana Moffitt. Vice Provost Bruno noted that, effective October 2, Moffitt would step down as Director of Information Resources in IET and work on special assignments for the Vice Provost and the Chief Operating Officer until her full retirement. Vice Provost Bruno and Chief Operating Officer Shelby will jointly manage the IR department for an estimated 6 to 12 months during which an assessment of the department's strengths and needs will be performed. A new director will be sought after this time. In the interim, Information Resources Direct Reports Debbie Lauriano (Application Development) and Morna Mellor (Data Center) will report directly to Dr. Bruno; Pat Kava (Client Services), Janet Dickens (Classroom Technology Services), as well as the administrative functions will report to COO Shelby.

Dr. Bruno also announced the Symposium on Enterprise Portals that UC Davis will host on September 17 and 18. The symposium attracted over 140 attendees. The scheduled presenters include: Howard Strauss, Manager of Academic Applications at Princeton University; Michael Gettes, Lead Application Systems Integrator at Georgetown University; Greg Barnes, Software Engineer at the University of Washington; and Brian Alexander, MyUCDavis Systems Architect at the University of California, Davis.

Randy Moory, IET Policy Analyst and Support Staff to the Council, provided a report identifying the accomplishments of the Council for the past year. Moory emphasized the items that the Council will need to revisit in the coming year. These include:

• A report on the Charter Communications negotiations
• The PriceWater Cooper audit and response
• Modifications of DaFIS to address the exchange of information between the campus billing systems and DaFIS decision support (alternatives to the DOCS proposal)
• E-recruitment pilot
• Document Management Systems
• MyUCDavis and the development of a campus enterprise portal
• Updates on the implementation of the Student Computer Ownership Expectation
• Campus Wireless Communications Policy
• Data Warehouse project
• Changes to Policy & Procedure 200-45 (Administrative Computing Systems) and the establishment of a process to review and prioritize administrative computing projects.

VPIET Chief Operating Officer Shelby reported on the progress made by the workgroup charged with identifying the characteristics of Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 administrative computing systems. Workgroup members included: Lana Moffitt, Chair; Mike Allred, Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance; Bob Loessberg-Zahl, Director, Planning and Resource Management; Jeff Barrett, Office of Administration; and Sandra Stewart, Debbie Lauriano, and Randy Moory, Information and Educational Technology.

• Review proposed administrative computing systems using 9 new characteristics (see slide presentation for a list of those proposed characteristics).
• New funding requests should not be the primary reason for review of administrative computing system proposals.
• Support staff to the Council (i.e., staff from Information and Educational Technology and Resource and Management Planning) should review all computing system proposals and evaluate them using agreed-upon campus administrative computing characteristics.

A draft flowchart outlining a proposed new process for reviewing computing system proposals was presented and discussed (see flowchart above). Shelby noted that the proposed process is intended to provide a better mechanism for project analyses and the appropriate context for AdC3 to make decisions on administrative computing system proposals.

• The scope of the plan to be developed - Some members noted that perhaps a 2-year plan would be more realistic and more manageable than a 3- or 5-year plan, given the dynamic nature of technological developments. The development of the initial plan will require a significant investment of time, but subsequent updates to the plan should be easier and faster.
• The campuswide strategic computing plan should include a set of guiding principles (e.g., regulatory requirements, New Business Architecture, essential to University operations, etc.) and planning assumptions (e.g., budget, timing, etc.). It should be reviewed on an annual basis so adjustments can be made as necessary. Vice Provost Bruno noted that much of the information for this plan will come from the development of the NBA implementation approach itself.
• The list of mission critical administrative functions might need to be refined, perhaps to include space issues and infrastructure standards. Vice Provost Bruno explained that, with the implementation of the New Business Architecture, many technology standards will be developed, including middleware, software, and infrastructure standards.
• Critical or urgent projects might need to be considered separately from the annual process and/or during the development of the campus computing plan. We need to ensure that campus units' needs are met in a timely manner. One example is the transitioning of DaFIS and PPS Decision Support components to the enterprise portal. Vice Provost Bruno and Associate Vice Chancellor Allred agreed with the notion that we may need to expedite the decision-making process in some instances, noting that some of these projects are already underway.
• One member suggested that a special members-only area be developed on the AdC3 Web site to allow for review and easy access to drafts.
• Next steps include a possible revision of the current 200-45 policy to reflect the new process for reviewing and evaluating computing system proposals. A draft UC Davis Strategic Computing Plan will also be developed. In addition, IET and RMP are working on responses to campus units regarding their Tier 1 and Tier 2 reports. Trends will then be identified and discussed.

Security Coordinator Ono provided an overview of the proposed Wireless Communications Policy and reported on the status of the review process. Ono summarized the main points of the proposed policy and provided a description of the current status of wireless networking on campus. He noted that many departments are interested in deploying wireless solutions for their constituents. One such department is the Graduate School of Management, which a year ago deployed a wireless network for their students, faculty, and staff. In addition, IET has conducted a pilot project that provided wireless cards to students and faculty in the School of Law, Shields Library, and the MU.

The policy was developed based on input from networking staff in IET-Communications Resources who conducted the IET pilot and from the recommendations in the Technology Infrastructure Forum workgroup report.

Ono described the various sections of the policy and the issues that each section addresses (see PowerPoint presentation). Policy sections are:

1. Policy goals and scope
2. Responsibility for wireless access points
3. Wireless security
4. Interference between wireless devices and how to prioritize the resolution of these conflicts
5. Suitable uses for wireless communications and interoperability between buildings.

Council commented on the priority given to research over teaching. Members suggested giving teaching a higher priority. Ono replied that the campus would always attempt to mitigate any interference issue so that all uses could be accommodated. Members also commented on the security implications of wireless networking. The need for applications to provide high levels of security was addressed because wireless networks expose network traffic more easily than wired networks.

The policy is undergoing informal review and is being discussed widely with the campus community. IET is seeking comments from a broad segment of the campus community. Once the policy is modified to reflect the comments, it will be submitted to the Provost Office for formal campus review.