Wright State University University Technology Committee

UNIVERSITY TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE MINUTES
April 9, 1998

I. Status Reports

A. Distance Education Task Force
In February, 1998, the Provost appointed the Distributed Learning Committee as called for by the Distance Learning Task Force. The Committee consisted of representatives from each college, as well as from the Center for Teaching and Learning, CaTS, the University Library, CWIS and Disability Services. The Charge to the Committee was discussed. Dan DeStephen explained the Committee was broken down into sub-committees to address the different issues and policy recommendations will be presented to the Provost by May 15, 1998.

B. Funding for Phase 3 Turnpike
In Paul Hernandez' absence, Barb Denison gave a brief update. At the recent Cabinet meeting, a decision was made to give another $500,000 to continue with Phase 3 of Turnpike. According to Janet Achterman, this money came from unspent funds from other capital projects. This brings the total funds allocated to this project of $1 million at the present time.

C. Financial Systems Assessment
Scott Rife gave an update on the FSA project. On March 16, 1998, the Blackwell Consulting Group began its assessment process on campus. They met with all the Vice Presidents to get a better understanding of the strategic drivers for the University operations. They were provided with the Strategic Plan, the Vision 2020 Statement, the ITPC Report, and the Information Access Needs Assessments. They will complete this assessment process by July 10, 1998. A three-tier project structure had been proposed consisting of an Executive Steering Committee, a Project Steering Committee and a Project Team. However, the Project Steering Committee has been eliminated, leaving a two-tiered structure. Surveys will be sent out April 13 to the campus community for analysis of individual financial systems needs. By the end of April, the Best Practices research will begin with the results being discussed at a Best Practices workshop. The last phases of this project will be the development of alternative approaches to addressing the University needs with regard to financial systems and, finally, a transition readiness phase. Scott will continue to give the Committee updates on the progress of this project.

D. Faculty Handbook on the Web
Paul Simmons indicated that no progress has been made to put this information on the University Web site. Work on this will begin within the next week or so.

II. Policy for Responsible Use of Information Technology Update
Vicki Montavon distributed revised copies of the draft policy which was discussed and endorsed at the last UTC meeting. This revised draft was reviewed by Lynnette Heard, who will distribute the policy for review by others in the University, i.e. the Executive Committee of the Faculty Senate, Legal Counsel, Counsel of Deans and the Cabinet. The policy may or may not be presented to the WSU Board of Trustees
since it is a revision of the existing Wright Way Policy 3002. Noel Nussbaum discussed the ambiguity of the phrase "personal activities" in the current policy and whether this should remain in the revised policy (paragraph 2, page 2). Many of the committee members agreed this would be a judgement call for each particular situation. NOTE: In Guideline #2, Page 2 a correction should be made. Instead of "public research" this should read "public service". In Guideline #7, Page 3, "by Wright State University" should be added to the end of the first sentence.

III. Year 2000 Workshop Update - Kitty Friedman
After a third workshop was held in mid-March by Computer Technology Solutions, Inc., a final report was completed and distributed to the Committee. This report lists the applications which will cause the most problems. However, these applications only represent the 30 departments who attended the workshops. Computer Technology Solutions, Inc. also made recommendations to resolve these problems. A request was made to the University Technology Committee to assist in identifying the departments not represented at the workshops and insure these departments are made aware of the importance of becoming Y2K compliant. CaTS is in the process of developing a document to clarify to the campus community what CaTS will be responsible for and what each department will be responsible to address. CaTS will also publish a document listing the Y2K compliant versions of common software used on campus, both supported and unsupported by CaTS.

IV. Mail Server Project - Patricia Vendt
Patricia Vendt discussed problems with current e-mail services; multiple account names on different platforms; the new e-mail services; mail spool quota policy; and mail spool retention policy. The new mail server will allow all messages to be retained on the server and, therefore, will be retrievable from any location. It will have many additional services. Current e-mail addresses will continue to work on the new server. It will provide the ability to look up current e-mail addresses on a directory. Users will have the opportunity to use standardized e-mail addresses and account names. The account name format would consist of w(representing Wright State University), a three-digit number to provide uniqueness, and first-middle-last initial of user's name (w001pav). This will be for faculty, staff and students of the University. The faculty/staff e-mail addresses will be in the format of: first name.last name@wright.edu (patricia.vendt@wright.edu). Student addresses will be: last name.unique number@wright.edu (smith.25@wright.edu). These changes to the new server will begin September 1, 1998 for all new accounts; January 1, 1999 for current client conversions; and by June 15, 1999 all VMS accounts will be retired.

Mail Spool Policy:
E-mail messages will be purged after 60 days from the Mail Spool (queuing area for unread messages). Exceptions to this can be arranged through the Help Desk. A message will be sent to a client who has used 90% of disk space and any e-mail messages sent to a client who is over the disk quota will be returned to the sender with an informational message. Initial disk quotas will be: Faculty/Staff - 20Megabytes; Students - 10Megabytes.

V. Desktop Operating Systems
At the last UTC meeting, Paul Hernandez distributed information regarding the level of support of desktop operating systems provided by CaTS beginning Fall, 1998. John Gabriel, from CaTS, attended today's meeting in order to answer any questions from members of the Committee and to distribute information regarding CaTS support of Apple Macintosh in the future. Gordon Welty introduced a suggestion that if this policy is to be endorsed by the UTC, another letter to the Provost should be included with this policy regarding possible funding for faculty upgrades when CaTS no longer supports the current systems. Further discussion of this subject will take place at the next UTC meeting.

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The agenda for next month will include a discussion of funding sources for computers. Barbara Denison will check if the Provost can meet with the committee to discuss the status of House Bill Funding, another faculty computer initiative, and the technology fee. The committee will also receive updates on the Financial Systems Assessment, the Distributed Learning Committee, and the Policy for Responsible Use of Information Technology.