 University Technology Committee Minutes
February 11, 1999
Attendance: Perry Moore, Barbara
Denison, Paul Hernandez, Bonnie Mathies, Vicki Montavon,
Donna Hamilton, Terri Klaus, Katherine Myers, John
Hawley, Chuck Taylor, Dave Sauter, George Frey, Dan
DeStephen, Jan Belcher, David Grossie, and Cheryl Meyer.
I. Faculty Computer Initiative
The Deans have been notified of the amount of money being
distributed to their respective colleges for the Faculty
Computer Initiative. The total amount of approximately
$103,000 was contributed by the Provost. The distribution
of funds for the computers based on requests made by the
colleges was $1,000 for each MacIntosh and $875 for
Intel-based machines.
II. College Technology Plan Status Report
Barbara informed the committee that due to the
cancellation of the January UTC meeting, the Provost has
given the colleges an extension for the completion of
their college plans until mid-February. Upon completion,
all colleges need to submit copies to Perry Moore and
Barbara Denison. At the next UTC meeting the Colleges of
Education and Liberal Arts will present their plans. In
the near future, all the college technology plans will be
published on the University web page.
Vicki Montavon distributed copies of the completed
University Technology Plan, 1998-2003.
III. Y2K Update
Paul Hernandez - The compliance of
centrally-supported applications in the VMS and Unix
arenas used by the academic community is 99% complete.
CaTS-supported systems are 80% complete. CaTS has hired
two contract programmers and two graduate students to
work full time on Y2K. September is the target date for
100% compliance of all applications.
Vicki Montavon - Distributed Year
2000 Task Force Status Report dated January 29, 1999. Y2K
Inventory: The Task Force started out with 2,719
categories to be reviewed. At this point, there are less
than 175 items to be addressed with no major problems
anticipated. Business Partner Y2K Readiness Survey: The
Task Force has received approximately 80% of the
responses from all areas of the University identifying
the business partners/organizations whose Y2K compliance
is crucial to their operation. The Task Force will send a
letter to all those companies who have not submitted
compliance statements. Contingency Plans: The Task Force
is in process of identifying areas where contingency
plans may be required.
IV. House Bill Update
The rankings should be ready by Monday, February 15 and
reviewed by two committees. There will be $1.3 million
available and should be dispensed in March.
V. Distance Learning Update
Dan DeStephen - The Task Force is in the
process of reviewing, prioritizing and implementing the
61 recommendations made by the original Distance Learning
Committee. The Task Force has started by dividing these
recommendations into two groups, policies and procedures,
and are in the process of developing time lines for
implementation. The policy recommendations should be
completed by early March and the procedural
recommendations by the end of March.
George Frey - Updated the committee
on Center For Teaching & Learning=s progress with
regard to video distance learning. 1) CTL has recently
become attached to a state-wide network consisting of 128
sites, which will give the University video-conferencing
capabilities to all the state universities within Ohio.
2) At the present time, three College of Nursing classes
are being transmitted to Lake Campus. 3) A
video-conferencing unit called ATeam Station@ has been
ordered and should be available for a demonstration by
the next UTC meeting.
Terri Klaus - A web course
development software package called ATop Class@ has been
used by CTL for the last 2 l/2 years and have recently
begun running the software on a newly-purchased Unix
server with great success. Anyone interested in more
information on the capabilities of ATop Class@ can access
the web site at www.wbtsystems.com. Twenty-one faculty
members have been trained on ATop Class@ and are
developing courses at the present time. Training classes
are tentatively scheduled for March 18 for technical
support staff and March 19 & 20 for faculty members.
Anyone interested should contact Terri Klaus or George
Frey.
VI. Teaching Learning Technology Roundtable
There are several items being discussed at the present
time. 1) An attempt is being made to recruit student
representation on the committee. 2) More information
regarding the TLTR will be put out on a university web
site, including the college technology plans and the UTC
minutes.
Donna Hamilton reported:
- College Net, an outside provider which will
enable on-line undergraduate and graduate
registration, is ready to go live.
- Work is being done to have several student
services on-line by Fall Quarter, 1999 with
additional services ready by Fall Quarter, 2000.
- The CWIS Advisory Committee is discussing a plan
to move towards a centralized design system for
the university web site.
VII. New Business
Paul Hernandez -
- After the last round of Faculty Computer
Initiatives, all faculty should now have nothing
less than Pentiums. However, there are many staff
and graduate teaching assistants still using
sub-standard equipment. In the near future, there
will be a number of lab computers available for
distribution. How this distribution will take
place will be discussed further at the next UTC
meeting.
- In a continuing effort to tighten security with
regard to computer technology and the protection
of resources from unauthorized access and
destruction, the RHost capability is being
discontinued. This is the ability of a Unix
system client to log in to his computer and then
go in to the university system without logging
in. This provides a security risk enabling anyone
to hack into an individual's computer and access
all university systems. This will be disabled
beginning Spring Quarter, 1999. The number of
people affected by this change include 11 CaTS
staff, 2 other staff on campus, 33 faculty, 95
students and 6 researchers. These people will be
individually notified of this change.
- Paul distributed a ASecurity Implementation -
Overview@ document explaining the many possible
security breaches on organization networks.
Therefore, firewalls were implemented to combat
this problem. Paul noted, however, these
firewalls are used as an Aaudit trail@ only. Due
to some faculty concerns, Paul met with a Faculty
Affairs Sub-committee to give written and verbal
assurances that this information is only used to
track down criminals such as people making bomb
threats, death threats, sending hate mail and
hackers. Paul requested the Faculty Affairs
Committee develop a due process by which these
records would be obtained.
Vicki Montavon - The 1976 copyright
law was recently updated to include a Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. By registering as an on-line service
provider, this act limits the University and Library=s
copyright infringement liability with regard to
information which crosses our infrastructure. This
information will be posted on the university web site. A
committee will be formed to create this document and
decide how to distribute the information.
The next scheduled University Technology Committee
meeting will be Thursday, March 11, 1999 in E157 Student
Union from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
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