Minutes of the Computing Advisory Committee Meeting

27 March 2000

 

Those attending: JP Dunn, Michael Wainer, Al Allen, Dennis Leitner, David Blakesley, Jim Duggan, Geoff Nathan (recorder), Carolyn Snyder.

Al Allen distributed a memo asking the committee to advise IT on revising campus e-mail policies. Issues that it raised include conducting surveys by e-mail (with or without permission from the Human Subjects Committee, mass mailings by student groups and mass mailings by university units such as the Graduate School and Admissions and records.

Current policies on e-mail say little about such issues. Some members suggested checking Board of Trustees policies on such things as personal and commercial use. Carolyn pointed out that mass mailings, especially with large attachments tax the capacity of the servers. Al stated that his office had received complaints from off-campus about 'spam' from such units as the Graduate School. It was decided to form a subcommittee to study this issue, including a look at what other schools do on this subject. Dennis, JP and Geoff will make up the committee, and Al will ask Pam Reed and/or Charlie Campbell to help with some of the technical issues.

The new IT director will be announced very shortly--final paperwork is just being completed. In addition, the university received a proposal from ATS, but any contract with them will need to be developed following regular bid procedures.

The student computer use survey data were presented by David, Dennis and Geoff. The numbers seem to be roughly comparable, and worked out as follows:

Number of respondents:	953
Percent that came with a computer:	48.5%
Percent that purchased one after arrival:	16.7%
Percent that own laptops:	20.5%
Percent that have access to the Internet:	60.9%
Percent that use e-mail:	75.3%*

*96% of international and graduate students report e-mail usage.

These facts, particularly the last one, on the prevalence of e-mail, raised some issues that were briefly discussed. It has been suggested, for example, that it might be a good idea to install e-mail kiosks around campus (kiosks can be made cheaply through the use of otherwise obsolete computers, but still put a demand on infrastructure).

Geoff mentioned that he had attended a meeting of university IT administrators sponsored by the ACM in St. Louis during March 19-21. He made extensive notes on a number of interesting and relevant issues, which he will convert to HTML and place on the website shortly.

The next meeting is scheduled for April 10 at 8:30 in the Library Dean's conference room. Olga Weidner, IT's person responsible for site licensing will attend and discuss policies (she was unable to come to this meeting due to a misunderstanding on dates).