CCFIT > Calendar & Minutes > 2004-05 Minutes > May 09, 2005

CAMPUS COUNCIL FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Monday, May 9, 2005
203 Mrak Hall

[PDF Version of these minutes]

Excused: David Bunch, James Chalfant, Bella Corbin, Jeff Gibeling, Karen Hull, Stan Nosek, Ning Pan, Celeste Rose, and Dick Walters.

Guests: Janet Brown-Simmons.

Staff: Babette Schmitt.

I. Approval of Minutes - Chair Bledsoe

Chair Bledsoe introduced Kathleen Moore, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Administration. Moore replaces Karen Hull on the Council. Chair Bledsoe then invited comments on the minutes from the April 11th meeting. The minutes were approved as submitted.

Mike Allred, Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance, provided a brief overview of several projects underway in Accounting and Financial Services.

• PCI security standards: Allred indicated that the campus is preparing for changes to the credit card security programs that Visa and MasterCard impose on all merchants. This Payment Card Industry (PCI) worldwide standard is intended to protect the security of information on credit cards and magnetic strips. It went into effect last year for Level 1 merchants (i.e., merchants processing over 6,000,000 transactions per year). UC Davis is a "level 3" merchant (each campus is looked at independently). The deadline for level 3 merchants (i.e., e-commerce merchants processing 20,000 to 150,000 Visa transactions per year) is June 30, 2005. This deadline will affect several campus units taking credit card information over the Web (i.e., credit card transactions via the Web, even if they are manual transactions). Everyone engaged in e-commerce activity needs to take a self-assessment questionnaire. Additionally, every unit will need to have their systems scanned every quarter by a third-party Certified Independent Scan Vendor (10K/year for the campus). UC Davis is working with UCOP and campus departments to meet the June 30 deadline. Allred indicated that to mitigate the costs and administrative burden to campus units, e-commerce at UC Davis will be channeled through a centralized payment gateway and sensitive cardholder data will be stored in a single protected database. Accounting and Financial Services is working to secure an application that will enhance the existing TouchNet Payment Gateway.
• UC Effort Reporting System (ERS): Allred reminded Council members that federal regulations require that the University certify effort devoted to sponsored projects, including committed cost-sharing effort. For the last 20+ years, the University has used a paper-based Personnel Activity Reporting (PAR) system to satisfy this requirement. PAR, however, has become outdated from a technology perspective and lacks the ability to meet changing regulations. UC Davis is part of a UC initiative, along with the Office of the President, UCB, UCLA, UCSD, and UCSF, to improve campuses' ability to track and report activities from grants and contracts. A new Effort Reporting System, now under development, is expected to be operational at UC Davis in February 2006. A pilot will be conducted this Fall.
• UC Davis new Effort Commitment and Cost Share Tracking System:
• Web commerce software:
• Travel & Entertainment: This project proposes to streamline the travel and entertainment expense reimbursement and reporting process. The new Web-based system will incorporate existing business rules and approvals and will be integrated with DaFIS and meet other campus IT standards. Allred will provide additional information at the June meeting.

• Report from AdMan. Brenda Ruth, AdMan representative on the Council, reported on the technology-related priorities the AdMan Board recently identified for academic department managers and staff. Those priorities cover five areas:
  1. PeopleAdmin. The campus is preparing for the implementation of the PeopleAdmin human resources Web-based application. This system will enable online application submittal, tracking, screening and status notification, as well as tracking of all employment and compensation actions beginning at the position description. AdMAN has a representative on the implementation committee and a representative that serves on the advisory committee.
  2. Online course evaluations. AdMan is interested in making online course evaluations available but recommended that such a system, when available for the campus, should be linked directly to the online Faculty Merit and Promotion application that Academic Personnel and IET are developing. In addition, the system will need to be flexible and allow for course customization (see Ray Tai's development work in the School of Medicine).
  3. Online graduate recruitment/admissions system. Jeff Gibeling, interim dean for Graduate Studies, confirmed that his office plans to develop new information technology tools to assist graduate program staff and faculty. Such as system would also help keep UC Davis competitive with other institutions, and would help accommodate increasing enrollments.
  4. Improved connections between, and integration of, Banner/Graduate Tracs and DaFIS.
  5. Online faculty recruitment. Ruth inquired whether the campus was still planning to make it possible to process faculty recruitment over the Web, and if so, where those efforts stand. Ruth indicated that some campus units are already using some form of online system, which Marine Quinzii confirmed, noting that the department of Economics already processes faculty recruitment via the Web. The AdMan Board expressed strong interest in expanding the availability of such a system to the entire campus. A training and support program would need to be provided as well.
• Update on Faculty Technology Needs Assessment Survey. Andy Jones, Chair of the Educational Technology Subcommittee, provided a brief summary of preliminary findings from the survey. He reported that approximately 300 instructors filled out the survey via the Web page. Highlights:
  • The majority of respondents were members of the Academic Senate.
  • 4% described themselves as novices, which seems low.
  • The majority of respondents reported using online Library resources on a weekly or daily basis. Most found the Harvest and Melvyl catalogs useful or very useful.
  • Class mailing lists were found to be very useful by over half the respondents. MyUCDavis GradeBook also received high marks.
  • Major impediments to technology adoption: lack of technical knowledge and lack of time.
  • In-person help in faculty's own offices or in their own departments was preferred.
• Update from the Course Management Tools Working Group. On Ann Orel's behalf, Caroline Bledsoe provided an update on the Course Management Working Group's activities. Referring to the handout in Council members' packets, Bledsoe reviewed the charge to the group and summarized the approach the group is taking in its evaluation of course management tools, both current and future. She pointed out that the group has been reviewing the tools in MyUCDavis and has been consulting with the Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine who are preparing to launch pilot projects during the 2005-06 academic year. Both pilots will be based on open-source course management framework and tools developed by Sakai, a consortium of institutions of higher education which UC Davis joined last year when IET-Mediaworks became a member of the Sakai Educational Partnership Program. In the next couple of weeks, the group will hold video-conferences with other universities, including the University of Indiana, Stanford and Berkeley, who are also preparing to implement Sakai modules. The workgroup's report will be presented at the June 13th CCFIT meeting.

• Report on ERA Project.Doug Hartline reported on the project headed by the Office of Research to implement an Electronic Research Administration system. This project was the focus of various discussions with the Council last year. Once fully implemented, this system will enable electronic submission, review, approval, and tracking of research grant proposals. A contract has been signed with InfoEd International Inc. Hartline reminded Council members that this project has been broken into several phases, with systems and processes being implemented at intervals based upon the three InfoEd Contract & Grant modules.
  • Implementation of the first module, Proposal Tracking, is underway. This module will replace the existing Office of Research Contracts and Grants database. Completion of this phase is scheduled for January 2006. This first phase will affect four major groups: Office of Research Sponsored Programs Group, deans offices with existing proposal tracking shadow systems, offices that provide reporting to UCOP (Tech Transfer, Graduate Studies, UNEX, Health Systems Contracting, Material Management), and remaining deans' offices and Organized Research Units (ORUs) that request reports. Each dean's/vice chancellor's office will be invited to identify a representative to participate in key stakeholder workgroups to ensure that the system implementation addresses the functional requirements of the aforementioned groups.
  • The second module, Proposal Development, will enable Principal Investigators (PIs) to create and manage proposals online and route them electronically for approval. Expected implementation: 2007.
  • The third module, Project Management, will allow information stored in the InfoEd system to be linked to various campus systems (e.g. DaFIS, Faculty Merit & Promotion system, Cost Sharing and Effort Reporting systems, etc.). This module is scheduled to be implemented in 2008.
  In addition, Hartline reported that interest in the InfoEd platform is expanding, both on campus and within the UC system. The School of Medicine is exploring the potential of integrating the InfoEd Clinical Trials module with a proposed E-Velos eResearch Data Management system to support clinical trials administration. In addition, a demo of the InfoEd Animal and BioSafety modules has been scheduled by the Office of Administration, Safety Services. On the UC-wide front, InfoEd has responded to an RFP from the UC Office of the President regarding their Technology Transfer module. The intent would be for each of the UC campuses to implement the module locally with an interface to the central UCOP database. In addition, the UC Davis team is leveraging the work done at UCLA as they prepare to roll out the Proposal Tracking Module by June 30, 2005. Contacts are also being made with other universities that have successfully completed the installation of the Proposal Tracking module.
• Upcoming enhancements to the UC Davis Anti-Spam Program. Bob Ono, IT Security Coordinator, announced that IET is preparing to launch a number of improvements to the ways in which the campus email servers identify and filter unsolicited commercial spam. Referring to the handout in Council members' packets, Ono briefly reviewed the anti-spam services already available to all members of the campus community and explained the enhancements planned for June and July (see UC Davis Anti-Spam Program Overview handout). Announcements will be made in campus print publications, some will be posted on the Web, and targeted communications will be sent to various campus groups, including all faculty, in early June. Ono noted that more information about this program is available on the Security Web site at http://security.ucdavis.edu/spam.cfm.
• UC Davis Cyber-Safety Program. Bob Ono indicated that a campus directive, co-signed by Provost Hinshaw and Peter Yellowlees, Interim Vice Provost for IET, will be sent in the coming days to senior campus administrators. The draft directive, handed out by Ono, announces the adoption by the campus of a comprehensive security policy that defines both key security practices and responsibilities for their implementation. The program establishes a timeframe for campuswide security compliance and requires annual reporting from each of the deans, vice chancellors and vice provosts. IET, in collaboration with Internal Audit, developed the timetable outlining the three phases for campuswide compliance. Both units are also collaborating to develop a pool of technical resources to assist deans, vice provosts, and vice chancellors who might need additional resources to complete their security assessments or correct security deficiencies. Rick Catalano, Director of Internal Audit, thanked IET for developing this security framework and implementing these important measures. The Cyber-Safety Program, including the policy, standards, as well as resources and tools, can be accessed from the Security Web site (see http://security.ucdavis.edu/cybersafety.cfm).