CCFIT > Calendar & Minutes > 2006-07 Minutes > February 12, 2007 Minutes

Excused: Niels Jensen, Bill Lacy, Roger McDonald, Kathleen Moore, Bruno Nactergaele, Dennis Pendleton, Bob Sams, and John Stachowicz.

Absent: Karim Salem, and Keith Widaman.

Guests: Dale Hurt, and Josh Van Horn.

Support: Babette Schmitt.

I. Welcome & Approval of Minutes -- Chair Bledsoe

Chair Bledsoe invited comments on the minutes from the January meeting. The minutes were approved as submitted. Caroline Bledsoe then invited Council members to share updates and announcements.

• Dave Shelby, Assistant Vice-Provost for Information and Educational Technology (IET), thanked Council members for their attention to the draft administrative computing policy that was discussed at the December and January meetings. The feedback received from CCFIT and through the informal campus community consultation process is reflected in the latest draft available from the CCFIT Web site. Shelby encouraged Council members to review this latest draft. He noted that the official campus review process will be initiated within the next few weeks. (Note: A description of the rationale, a list of groups being consulted, and the latest draft of the policy are available at http://vpiet.ucdavis.edu/adminpolicy.cfm.)
• Tor Cross, Chair of the CCFIT Educational Technologies Subcommittee, reported that the subcommittee has been discussing the need to develop a portal from which faculty would be able to access the various resources they need in support of their classes -- Bookstore, library, electronic reserves, clicker, TRC (assessment), classroom technology, audio-visual equipment, readers, etc. Several of these resources are already available online but from disparate and disconnected sites. The portal would provide a single point of entry into those resources, and it would allow faculty and administrative support staff in departments to handle administrative class-related tasks online, potentially more quickly and more easily. A small workgroup will be formed to pursue this idea.  Cross will report the workgroup’s findings at the June CCFIT meeting. If anyone has suggestions or ideas related to this portal, please contact Cross directly.

Esther Pun and Julia Silvis, representatives of the Graduate Student Association, presented a report summarizing feedback they collected from their peers regarding campus computing and technology services and resources. Two methods were used to collect this feedback: a) they sent a list of questions to the graduate student listserves in the School of Education and the English department (responses were received from ~25 people); and b) they held conversations at the November and February gatherings of graduate students (“Bagel-Donut days”).

Pun and Silvis reported that by in large graduate students are ‘happy with computing and IT’. They provided positive feedback, and didn’t have many concerns. Comments dealt with topics ranging from SmartSite (the new online collaboration and course management system being introduced to campus), outsourcing student email, MyUCDavis and Geckomail, email storage, the campus spam filters, music download services, wireless networking, plagiarism software, and printing in the campus computer labs. Highlights:

• Half the students surveyed have not used SmartSite yet. Those who have used it or have taken a training class were generally satisfied. Suggestions were provided for additional types of features, functionality, and workshops.
• Two thirds of the students surveyed expressed general support for outsourcing student email services. Some concerns related to academic freedom, corporate involvement, individual privacy, and intellectual property rights were identified.
• More than two thirds of the students surveyed were reasonably happy with the spam filtering measures implemented in November. Some students were not aware of the ability to adjust spam filtering and to establish individual allow/deny lists.
• Many students expressed a desire for increased email storage quotas. Some appreciated the availability of MySpace to store and share files online.
• Two thirds of the students surveyed were not aware of the Ctrax legal online music service introduced last Fall. The service is free of charge to students. 

Jon Wagner, Director of the Teaching Resources Center, asked whether a similar report was available for undergraduate students. Ravi Deepak, ASUCD representative, expects to be able to report on behalf of undergraduate students at the March meeting. 

There was some discussion of technology grants for students, laptop loan services, portability of materials (e.g., through the establishment of e-portfolios), plagiarism software (is the Senate looking into this?), and whether a computer expectation should be considered for graduate students. Pete Siegel, Vice Provost for Information and Educational Technology, thanked Pun and Esther for surveying their peers. He indicated that a response to their comments and suggestions will be provided in the coming weeks. Caroline Bledsoe thanked Pun and Silvis for their informative report.

Josh Van Horn, from the campus data center, provided a brief overview of two email-related projects:

• Upcoming improvements to email storage infrastructure -- Van Horn noted that UC Davis provides email services to over 50,000 users, and delivers 2.5+ million email messages daily. The existing campus email architecture is aging and needs to be enhanced to provide the scalability and functionality necessary to meet the growing demand for the next several years. IET has launched a project to use a new product (‘Cyrus’) to improve "behind the scenes" email storage and routing. 

Van Horn explained that Cyrus is a mail system that was designed for large environments. It was developed at Carnegie-Mellon and was first used there about nine years ago. It has been implemented at many of our peer institutions (e.g., UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, Stanford, Columbia University, Indiana University, and the University of Texas). When implemented, Cyrus will allow campus members to access their mail with almost any standards-compliant mail program (e.g., Outlook, Thunderbird, Pine, or Apple Mail). It is also expected to improve email performance, enable faster access to mailboxes by Web-based email programs, and make it possible to increase email storage quotas for campus members. Several campus groups have been consulted over the last couple of months, testing is underway, and implementation is expected to start in April.
During the transition phase, POP users (e.g., Eudora users) will experience a one-time double download of messages stored on the server at the time of conversion. The project team is looking at the possibility of using patches to prevent or alleviate this double download. Van Horn mentioned that a communications plan is being developed and that there is a Web page that outlines the project and provides status updates (see http://vpiet.ucdavis.edu/email.storage.cfm). Caroline Bledsoe mentioned that email quotas were increased recently for the principal investigators who are working on an NIH grant (the submission deadline was in early February). Being able to extend a similar offer to everyone through this email storage project will be a great service.

• Outsourcing student email services -- Van Horn provided an overview of the project to investigate outsourcing of email services for students. The project is in its informal discovery and input phase.

The technical and service review is underway. The first exploratory open forum was held on campus in January. The session focused on Google’s GMail and Apps for Education and was attended by members of the UC Davis community (including several CCFIT members) as well as colleagues from other UC campuses. Pete Siegel indicated that the most critical phase will be the ‘campus values’ review (e.g., need to create a UC Davis email branding for life approach, dealing with privacy issues, etc.), which will require extensive consultation and discussion. A recommendation is expected to be vetted with the campus community later in the spring.
According to Van Horn, as of early February there were over 63,000 active personal email accounts at UC Davis.  Approximately 7,300 of those accounts are redirected off-campus –- 3% to GMail, 1% to Yahoo and 0.4% to Microsoft’s Hotmail. There was some discussion of the fact that many universities are re-thinking their email service model particularly in the context of the efficiency and speed with which Google and other commercial email providers are able to keep up with new technologies and develop new email features and enhancements (e.g., Arizona State University’s recent partnership with Google to provide email services to 65,000+ students). Next steps for this project include working with the campus community to develop a set of functional and ‘value’ requirements, and to identify and discuss possible outsourcing options. For more information, see http://vpiet.ucdavis.edu/student.email.cfm.

• Encryption policy and software (see Protecting Restricted Information handout)— Ono outlined two measures that are being taken to encourage proper encryption of sensitive data throughout campus: the development of a whole disk encryption policy, and the distribution of encryption software to campus departments. The policy was developed by a campuswide workgroup and has been vetted with the Technology Infrastructure Forum (TIF) and the Senior Advisors Group. Ono outlined some of the key terms of the policy and asked for CCFIT’s concurrence. Rick Catalano asked about the costs involved in making the software available. Ono indicated that funding for Pointsec encryption services is being provided through Information and Educational Technology in support of the campus cyber-safety program. Lynne Chronister asked if the Sacramento campus would be covered by the policy and whether it would benefit from the free software distribution. Ono replied that all campus units will be expected to comply with the policy, but the Medical Center has opted to use a different piece of software.

• UC Davis identity management architecture (see UC Davis Identity Management Architecture: Overview handout) – A workgroup chaired by Mike Allred and Bob Ono issued a report last November with detailed recommendations and strategies to guide the establishment of an identity management system for the campus. The report is based on the study the Burton Group, a research and advisory consulting service, conducted last year with thirty-five campus representatives. Ono indicated that the primary goal of the identity management system will be to facilitate access to critical institutional data while protecting restricted information from unauthorized access. Ono gave an overview of the key components of what is expected to be a multi-phase, multi-year process (see handout).

Mike Allred emphasized the need for the campus to develop an integrated identity management system to address many of the problems the current model poses for campus departments and support staff – from inefficiencies and delays to lack of security. Caroline Bledsoe pointed out the $2.6M estimated costs and asked how the project would be funded. Dave Shelby noted that this project needs to be discussed more broadly. If the need for an identity management system emerges as a top priority for the campus, a funding proposal will be developed and submitted to the provost. Brenda Ruth asked what types of applications the system would impact. Mike Allred indicated that all major campus data repositories would be impacted – data from the Payroll Personnel System, DaFIS, human resources, instructional databases, computing accounts, etc. Pete Siegel noted that identity management is fast becoming a ‘hot’ issue on the national scene as more and more universities realize they need a more sophisticated, less manual approach to institutional data management. Caroline Bledsoe asked Bob Ono and Mike Allred to share their recommendations with this group at the June meeting when the provost will be in attendance.

• UC Davis virtual private network (see Establishing a UC Davis Virtual Private Network: Overview handout) – Ono announced that IET and the University and Law libraries are entering into a partnership to pilot a new virtual private network service. The VPN will enable individuals to access UC Davis library resources, including licensed or restricted materials, securely from off campus, as if they were on campus (i.e., will eliminate the need for double logins). Right now, for remote users and travelers, access to some licensed online materials is limited to systems assigned a campus IP address. Marilyn Sharrow, University Librarian, noted that this is a huge issue for the Library. She expects the new service to benefit not only faculty but also students and staff. Ono indicated that the costs for the VPN pilot will be covered by IET (approx. $1K for hardware and software). Next steps include preparing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to identify solutions that will allow a phased implementation of a campus VPN. Following the pilot, the service will be expanded incrementally to allow remote access to other campus online resources.

V.  Tech Innovation: Using Google Earth as a Campus Planning Tool  – Sid England, Director of Environmental Planning, and Chris Didio, GIS Analyst
Sid England, Director of Environmental Planning in the Office of Resource Management and Planning, and Chris Didio, GIS Analyst, provided an overview of their use of Google Earth in support of campus planning projects. Google Earth is a software program that maps the earth by superimposing images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography, and GIS over a 3D globe.  Google Earth is available in a free version, and in licensed versions for commercial or enterprise use. The free version can be run from any personal computer with 3D graphics capabilities. Using Google Earth, you can do such things as view an image of your home, go on a tour of the world, get driving directions from one place to another (and follow the route), or view 3D terrain of a place, such as the Grand Canyon.

England and Didio demonstrated a view of the campus using Google Earth. The program makes it possible to import proposed or planned buildings as an overlay onto the campus map, and to examine the buildings from different perspectives (e.g., zooming in and out, adding texturing to the buildings, tilting the view, rotating around an object, following a path from a building to another, changing the elevation, examining options for the placement of bus stops or eating places, etc.).

The meeting adjourned at 4:40 p.m.