Technology Advisory Council (TAC) Notes

October 4, 2007 Meeting Notes

Members Present: Warren Ashley, Ron Bergmann, Carole Casten, Lisa Chavez, Kim Clark, Mohammed Eyadat, Farah Fisher, Raoul Freeman, Nathlyn Hirohama, Brenda Knepper, Kazimierz Kowalski, Marion Smith, Yvette Velarde

Guests: Jack Han, Shon Lee

The meeting was chaired by Dr. Ron Bergmann, CIO.

Computer Rollout Policy - Ron Bergmann

Ron distributed a draft Computer Replacement Roll-Out Policy. Provost Sam Wiley encouraged Ron to meet with Academic Affairs to develop this policy. An accompanying draft Recommended Computer Specifications would replace Procurement's current specs, written in 1995. Here are some of the issues:

Ron hopes we can control "hopping", where a new computer bumps an old one to a new owner, and that owner's old computer bumps down to someone else. This practice increases the number of software licenses we have to maintain, and it places a burden on IT Help Desk staff who also have to respond to a variety of other help desk tickets.
Right now Ron hopes to replace all computers that are more than five years old and also out of warranty.
Until three years ago, rollout money was in the university budget. Now Ron is buying machines with funds leftover in the Chancellor's Office Baseline Access, Training and Support (BATS) account at the end of the year.
Ron asks us to look at all inventory and decide if we want a 4-year or 5-year replacement cycle for future rollouts. Thereafter, we will maintain a central record of the inventory. The Chancellor's Office recommends a 5-year replacement cycle.
Raoul recommends performing rollouts at the end of January instead of the end of May in order to tie them to budget cycles.
Yvette says that rather than trying to perform even allocations to colleges, we should always be replacing the oldest machines, no matter where they are.
In a current inventory of 1,780 computers, including student computers, 300-500 are now out of warranty.
This whole discussion is in anticipation of a rollout to Vista. Students are buying new computers that are equipped with Vista and Office 2007, and it's imperative that we move to Vista as quickly as possible.
Regarding the accompanying draft Recommended Standard Loadset:
- Raoul asked why Office 2003, rather than Office 2007, is listed. Ron noted that files saved in 2007 cannot be opened in a 2003 computer [typical in our current inventory] without special handling. Also, Internet Explorer 2007 deployed from Vista has an incompatibility with Outlook Web Access (OWA). In fact, he recommends that Vista users rely on the Firefox browser for the time being. Nathlyn recommends a concurrent rollout of Office 2007 with Exchange 2007.
- Raoul also asked if Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional could be in the loadset. This is software that is not free, and departments buy it on an as needed basis. However, Ron plans to use a key server in computer labs, and it's likely he'll include Acrobat Professional on that server. This may be a software product for which we can get a good price via a Chancellor's Office contract.
- Ron asks that we give him prompt feedback on the loadset so that he can communicate it to Mary Ann Rodriguez.
Ron asked for volunteers to continue this discussion with him. Raoul volunteered, and Ron volunteered Marion.

Ron seeks an academic computer rollout policy that he can take to the President's Cabinet as well as the University Budget Committee. Ron asks that we send our comments about this to him in the next couple of days.

Acceptable Use Policy

This discussion is being tabled because David Bradfield is unable to attend today's meeting.

Blackboard - Warren Ashley

The Chancellor's office has asked each campus to do a self-study about technology in general and learning management systems in particular. We will make a survey, sending it out to some percentage of members of our various campus constituencies. Warren has a Blackboard Committee, and he will work with Ron on the survey. He hopes to have the results available for review at the next TAC meeting [November 1].

Funding for Blackboard has never been a line item in the university budget. However, Blackboard had 214K hits last month, and there are 15K current users. In fact, use is so heavy that we need to add a third band.

Blackboard expenses are coming up: (1) Expenses associated with integration with PeopleSoft; (2) increases in license and hosting fees.

WAM Status - Shon Lee

Shon, University Web Manager, is joining TAC. At this first meeting, he was asked to define Web Access Management, WAM. It is actually two committees:

WAM Steering Committee, that sets Web policy and promotes accessibility of the Web site, meets on an as needed basis;
WAM Tech Committee, comprised of Web developers from around the campus, meets monthly to provide input regarding the new campus template and to develop Web development skills, particularly as related to Web site accessibility.

Shon serves on a systemwide Assistive Technology Initiative (ATI) committee.

A new university template will be available in about a month, following beta testing by a few campus Web developers. The rollout will include a new work flow process. It is hoped that knowledge gained by members of the WAM Tech Committee will trickle down to their constituencies. Training and best practices will be offered. And Ron is evaluating Web content management software to assist with accuracy, accessibility, and timeliness of Web content.

Issues:

Lisa notes that the TouchNet Marketplace is coming online in two weeks. This will be a third-party Web site, coming online too early to conform to the new template. Shon asked Lisa to have someone from TouchNet contact him.
Lisa asked who from Administration & Finance is on a WAM Committee, and Yvette asked who from Academic Affairs is on a WAM committee. WAM rosters are posted at http://www.csudh.edu/wam/.
Four hundred people currently have FTP [upload] access to the campus Web server.

Outlook Recent Performance - Raoul Freeman

Raoul and others have recently noted problems using Outlook. Is it only College of Business Administration & Public Policy that is experiencing Outlook problems? No one else at the meeting expressed problems with Outlook.

However, Nathlyn said that about four times in the past few months there have been occasional problems with Outlook Web Access (OWA), used off-campus. A person can log in, see folders and menus, even see sender and subject of a message, but the body of the message is missing. She opened a case at Microsoft, but because it's an intermittent problem, MS has been unable to duplicate the problem or provide a solution. The problems started occurring when we launched a new Dell mail server.

Raoul also reports a long delay in having his most recent messages loaded into his inbox. Nathlyn says he probably has cache mode set, and when he first turns his computer on, it takes a while for Outlook to synchronize the mailbox and the cache. One solution is to not turn off your computer. Another solution is to turn off cache mode. This never comes up with OWA, because OWA doesn't offer a cache mode.

ETC Classrooms - Ron Bergmann

Most of the promised 18 new Enhanced Technology Classrooms (ETCs or smart classrooms) have been installed. Faculty are complimentary about the new installations (this includes TAC's Carole Casten), and the best thing is how much cheaper these installations were than earlier ones.

The meeting was adjourned.