SIUC Computing Advisory Committee

 

Meeting Minutes of 24 July 2001

 

Those present: Phillip Chu, James Duggan (recorder), JP Dunn, James Fox, Susan Logue, Andrew Lumpe, Don Olson, ex-officio, Don Rice, Scott Bridges (for Larry Schilling), Kelly Thomas.

 

Don Olson reported 1) IT will be starting a newsletter this Fall that will carry a number of informational announcements. 2) He has been working with Human Resources to edit and reclassify job descriptions for civil service technology jobs, with hopes that the project will be completed by October. 3) The Internet 2 grant that Geoff Nathan helped coordinate has received preliminary approval from the National Science Foundation.The NSF has asked for some additional information, which Geoff and IT staff are providing, but prospects look good for full funding of the $150,000 over two years.The NSF indicated that our campus technology plan looked excellent. 4) Progress is ongoing to finish the installation of the gigabit backbone by December.IT has the necessary equipment, but is still working on installation. 5) a student intern in IT has completed a project of analyzing IT web pages to ensure ADA compliance.He will now be working on instructional manuals for the rest of the campus to follow, and training seminars will be offered by IT for campus webmasters during Fall, 2001. Articles will also appear in the new IT Newsletter (see above).6) The new vendor contract for the campus is with Dell. Information about pricing/available models will be available on a special Dell/SIU website shortly. 7) IT will again offer the Salukiware CD-ROM, and has upgraded the web pages advertising the project.

 

Don was asked about providing a website listing what university site-licensed software is available, and a list of where manuals are located and listservs that provide notice of updates and training.Don agreed to have IT prepare the website.Don was also asked by Jim Fox/Susan Logue about whether the site license for ESRI (a GIS software) has been renewed.Don indicated he would check with Olga Weidner and will get back to Susan.

 

Don suggested two items that the CAC may wish to begin discussing: 1) As IT migrates to a consolidated server for web e-mail, he suggested that it may be time to standardize e-mail addresses on campus (possibly first

initial-last name, or some other convention).He asked thatcommittee

members begin to discuss this with colleagues and report back. Some discussion followed on how this might affect long-time users under different e-mail aliases, and whether students could be assigned an e-mail address (rather than having to request one). 2) the future of wireless networking on campus indicates that students may in the future use cell-phones and palm pilot devices rather than laptop computers, and the CAC should begin to address standards and planning (possibly in the strategic plan).

 

Susan Logue announced that she had been meeting with David Wilson (Grad School) and UMI (University Microfilms) to implement a Faculty Senate resolution directing the University to accept electronic thesis and dissertations.Susan learned that UMI has been scanning SIU dissertations and thesis from SIU since 1997, and they are fully available from a UMI website.The Library is continuing to work on making them available through the Library catalog, and the Graduate School is determining what will work as an archival copy (eventually UMI needs a .pdf formatted file of each thesis or dissertation to place in their databank).

 

Don Rice mentioned that the Academic Computing Subcommittee hopes to meet beginning in the Fall to start work on a number of proposals put forward by Margaret Winters; Don indicated that Margaret has placed a priority on portal discussion.

 

Susan Logue also asked about the possibility of integrated access to student id's (etc.) for the new library system and WebCT.There was discussion on the possibility of full integration (rather than dumping of the data), and whether an upgraded (and pricier) module of WebCT was needed in order to take advantage of the integration.Susan will further discuss with someone from Oracle (AIS).

 

Don Rice also mentioned the prevalence of the red worm virus on some campus machines, and advised people to heed SIULAN postings about same.

 

The next meeting was set for Tuesday, September 4, 2001 at 8:30 am in the American Heritage Room (305) of Morris Library.