CCFIT > Calendar & Minutes > 2006-07 Minutes > December 11, 2006 Minutes

Excused: Mike Allred, Rick Catalano, Jan Ilkiw, Kathleen Moore, and Keith Widaman.

Absent: Nancy Benavente, Ravi Deepak, Michael Hogarth, Karim Salem, and John Stachowicz.

Guests: Matt Bishop, Nancy Hang, Morna Mellor, and Sarah Kakwani

Staff: Babette Schmitt.

Sarah Kakwani and Nancy Hang, two UC Davis students hired by Cdigix Company, returned to demonstrate ‘Ctrax’, the online music subscription service that was introduced on campus earlier this fall.  The demo was rescheduled from November due to technical difficulties. Kakwani reminded Council members that every UC Davis student now has access to a free one-year subscription to Ctrax, part of the Cdigix media suite. The subscription includes unlimited downloads and streaming audio from a two-million-track music library. Offered through a partnership between Student Affairs and IET, this service allows the university to provide a legal mechanism for students to acquire music. Already, approximately 300 students are using the service. This service is also available to staff and faculty for $5.99 a month. For an overview of the music service, see the minutes from November 2006.  To access the online library and the informational site, visit http://getlegal.ucdavis.edu.

Chair Caroline Bledsoe invited comments on the minutes from the November meeting. Dave Shelby, Assistant Vice Provost for IET, requested that a reference be inserted in the minutes to more accurately capture one component of the student printing discussion. He noted that last year a partnership was established between IET and Associate Vice Chancellor Karen Hull, who oversees Office of Administration’s Business Services unit, to look into student printing services provided through IET’s Classroom Technology Services (CTS). Over the course of the summer, Karen Hull met with representatives from CTS, Repro Graphics, and ASUCD to discuss opportunities for enhanced printing services for students. In her analysis, Hull noted that CTS’ service delivery model is strong and that Repro Graphics would not be able to deliver the same integrated set of student printing services more effectively and at the same low price and quality standard as provided through CTS. This reference will be added to the discussion of student printing issues in the November 13th meeting minutes.
Caroline Bledsoe circulated a sign-up sheet for the upcoming tours of the campus data center. Two dates and times have been identified. These tours are optional. They are offered by special invitation from Morna Mellor, Director of the Data Center.

Caroline Bledsoe announced that, following the CCFIT Wireless Task Group’s recommendation last June and the CCFIT wireless expansion discussion last month, a letter outlining the charge to the CCFIT Wireless Expansion Working Group was developed. Bledsoe went over key elements of the charge (see Draft Wireless Expansion Working Group charge letter). The group is expected to submit recommendations for how to prioritize wireless expansion by Spring 2007. Matt Bishop, who has agreed to chair this working group, noted that the group is still missing key representatives. He invited anyone interested to contact him directly. The Wireless Expansion Working Group plans to start meeting in Winter 2007.

The charge letter to the Educational Technologies Working Group was also discussed. The group will be co-chaired by Tor Cross, member of the Academic Federation, and a faculty member from the Academic Senate (person not yet selected). There was some discussion of the need to get more faculty representatives, as well as undergraduate and graduate student representatives. Cross will follow up on this recommendation. The Educational Technologies Working Group is meeting regularly, and has discussed the draft charge letter.

Letters of appointment to both working groups will be issued by the Office of the Vice Provost-IET. Support for both groups is provided through IET.

Dave Shelby, Assistant Vice Provost for IET, provided an overview of the Draft Policy for Proposed Administrative Computing Systems. Once finalized, this document will replace the original policy adopted in 1999 (PPM 200-45).

The new abbreviated policy is intended to simplify and guide development of information technology solutions for administrative and certain academic needs throughout campus. The policy establishes a framework for a review of campus technology systems by the Vice Provost-IET, and for broad campus consultation. Campus consultation will focus on key areas, including discussion of the business needs the proposed system is intended to address; how to mitigate the impact the system might have on staff and faculty workloads; and the need for the system to integrate with the existing campus technology infrastructure.  Academic systems that are expected to have a widespread impact on the campus community and technology infrastructure may also be reviewed before they are developed, in order to ensure coordination with other systems.

Dave Shelby noted that this draft policy is being discussed with various campus groups and is expected to undergo some adjustments over the next few weeks. Shelby invited comments on whether this version leaves off anything of critical importance. The discussion that followed focused on several key areas:

• The purpose of the policy. Council members were in agreement that the policy will be useful. Several members commented that the policy was short and clear.
• The scope of the policy. A word of caution was offered around the need for distinguishing between major and minor system development and enhancement. Vice Provost Pete Siegel emphasized the importance of ongoing and timely coordination between the central IT unit and local campus units. John Meyer noted that when local needs are brought for discussion at the campus policy level, it is much easier to address those needs centrally and to ensure that a broad range of units could benefit.
• The review process. There was some concern that there might be too many projects to review in any given year, thereby slowing down the ability to get things done. Pete Siegel noted that the primary goal for this policy is to establish a clear, well-understood, ‘lightweight’ and transparent process. One key value to the community will be to get a better handle on the interoperability between systems and data sources and to ultimately progress towards greater simplicity for those who have to use campus systems.

Council members also suggested adding a timeline, examples of systems that would fall under this policy, and a process flowchart. Bob Sams suggested that a more positive statement of purpose be drafted (e.g., to underscore the idea that systems need to interact more effectively). Wes Wallender commented that it would be helpful to have a document that summarizes the campus’ administrative needs. Such a document would help understand how this policy - and new system proposals - fit in the context of broader campus IT issues.

Pete Siegel invited everyone to submit revisions, clarifications and comments to Dave Shelby, IET. Pete Siegel also invited Council members who would like to discuss the policy and its implications to contact him directly. Dave Shelby said he would provide an update at the January meeting.

Morna Mellor, Director of IET’s Data Center & Client Services unit, provided an overview of the spam reduction measures that went into effect on November 29th. She thanked Council members for their participation in the consultation and testing process and especially for their support of the aggressive measures that were taken two weeks ago to decrease the amount of spam delivered to individual mailboxes.

Since the measures were implemented on November 29th, almost 950,000 email messages have been rejected at the campus border on a daily basis (i.e. close to 35% of the daily total number of messages). These are spam messages that users no longer see. Customer feedback has been generally very positive. In addition, the decreasing amount of spam processed through the campus email servers is easing the load on the email system. Mellor pointed to the graphs on the back of the Enhanced Spam Management Update handout and noted that the load on the campus email system has dropped on average by 40%. This means, among other things, that the servers can use this ‘recovered’ capacity to deliver legitimate email faster and more efficiently.

Pete Siegel mentioned a recent article in the New York Times which points out that spam volumes have doubled worldwide in the past year. The national community did not anticipate spam would be such a difficult issue; the community (companies and institutions) are struggling to keep up with the surge in spam and with increasingly sophisticated spammers. (Note: the NYT article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/technology/06spam.html?ex=1323061200&en=d2c6bcfd3354cbaf&ei=5088). Siegel commented that UC Davis did well addressing this problem and implementing aggressive measures. Spam, however, remains a challenge. Mellor noted that email traffic continues to increase, with 3M/day expected in Winter 2007 (up from 2.7M this quarter). She will return to discuss additional measures, including lowering scores for spam deletion, if the need arises.

Marilyn Sharrow congratulated Mellor and her staff for implementing those measures. Rob Kerner asked whether a diagram of the campus email architecture was available. Mellor replied that a version of the diagram is ready but needs a little fine tuning so it can be more easily understood by the campus community. An updated version will be distributed in the near future.

[Note: To access the spam filtering Web page, see http://email.ucdavis.edu/secure/spamfilter.php]

Bob Ono announced that the campus recently finalized a five-year licensing agreement with Sophos, an anti-virus software company. The anti-virus software is now available to all departments, faculty, staff and students at no charge. The software can be used on university- and personally-owned computers and devices whether they are located on campus or at home. The software provides protection for servers, desktops, and laptops (a solution for handheld devices is expected within a year). It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Red Hat Linux operating systems. The software can be downloaded from the Software Web site at https://my.ucdavis.edu/software. The Sophos anti-virus software will also be included on the next release of the Internet Tools CD, which is expected to be available in January. (See Sophos Anti-virus Software Agreement Overview.)

Fred Wood asked if anti-virus software would be required before students are allowed to connect to the campus network. Ono mentioned that IET is working on this. One of the measures already in place involves querying student computers remotely to determine if they are running current antivirus definitions. Students are then informed of the options available to them if they need to update their software. Other alternatives are being explored with vendors.

In addition, Ono announced that IET is working in partnership with the campus technical community on a roll-out approach for Microsoft’s newest operating system (Microsoft Vista). Testing for compatibility with all major campus applications, systems and online services will be performed over the next few weeks. The results of this compatibility testing will be published on a UC Davis informational Vista Web site, along with FAQs, software licensing and activation instructions, quick tips, and an overview of the system’s new security functions and features.

Topics for January include an update on the GradSMAART project, a report from the Graduate Students Association, and an update on the Administrative Computing Policy. Other suggestions may be emailed to Caroline Bledsoe at csbledsoe@ucdavis.edu.

The meeting adjourned at 4:30 p.m.