Information Resources Council News

Minutes provided by Sue Ellen Richey, Recording Secretary

IRC Regular Voting Members: David Shrader, College of Music (Chair); Douglas Allen, Student Association; Walter Bowen, Academic Administration; Bill Buntain, Communications Program Group; Cengiz Capan, College of Business; Carolyn Cunningham, Student Affairs; Paul Dworak, College of Music; Brian Forsman, UNT Health Science Center; Chuck Fuller, Fiscal Affairs; Don Grose, Libraries; Joneel Harris, Administrative Program Group; David Hartman, School of Community Services; Jenny Jopling, Instruction Program Group; Sam Magill, UNTHSC Director of Information Technology Services; Sharon Marek, Graduate Student Council; Steve Miller, Human Resources; Dennis Mueller, Research Program Group; Russ Pensyl, School of Visual Arts; Paul Schlieve, College of Education; Kathleen Swigger, College of Arts and Sciences; John Todd, Faculty Senate; Virginia Wheeless, Chancellor; IRC Ex-officio Nonvoting Members: Jim Curry, Microcomputer Maintenance Shop; Richard Harris, Computing Center; Coy Hoggard, Computing Center; Maurice Leatherbury, Computing Center.

September 19, 1995

Dr. Blaine Brownell, Provost, introduced Dr. David Shrader, Dean of the College of Music as the new Chair of the IRC. Brownell expressed his desire to focus as much of his attention as possible this year on technology at UNT, because of the many opportunities presenting themselves to this campus. The Provost invited IRC members to bring their concerns to him, and stated that he will attend as many IRC meetings as possible this year.

Bill Buntain reported that there has been progress made in the implementation of GroupWise. The delays that have been experienced have been due to problems with NetWare 4. Installation of GroupWise is scheduled for the Administration Building in the week of October 16th, and in the Business Building in the week of October 9th. Due to the mission-critical nature of this project Paul Dworak has been selected as Project Manager to oversee it, with the assistance of Technical Project Manager, Bill Buntain.

Program Group Reports

• Administration Program Group: Joneel Harris reported that the installation of the new mainframe went very smoothly; however, problems with response time were experienced during freshman orientation. During Fall registration, more serious problems were encountered. She reported, however, that IBM has been very supportive, investigating the problems from every angle. Preliminary results seem to point to an increase in the overall workload on the machine since last fall s registration period; however, it has not been determined if there is a problem with fine tuning the multiple processor machine. The Computing Center is attempting to acquire and use a network simulator software product to see if it can be determined at what point in the workload increase the response-time slow down occurs.
• Communications Program Group: Bill Buntain reported that they will have their first meeting of the year on October 2, at which they will deal with Novell Site Licenses. Bill explained that in the initial site license agreement, Novell was going to allow copies of the software to be made available to students for $1.50, so that students could take home a copy to use on their home computers. In the process of working out details of the contract, Novell withdrew the student part of the license. A revised amendment to the agreement has been received which will allow on-campus use of the software by faculty, staff and students, but off-campus use only by faculty and staff. However, Novell will allow the purchase of copies of the software for use at home at a highly discounted price.
  With regard to the dial-up system, Bill reported that equipment has been evaluated, tested, and will be ordered. He estimates that the start-up time for the service to provide access to the Internet will be around the first of November. Expanded services allowing access to Novell networks will be later. He stated that in addition to what is available now, as of November 1, there will be 72 more local dial-in lines, 16 Dallas, and 16 Ft. Worth lines. The subscription service will cost $10.00/ month for local access and $15.00/ month for Dallas/Ft. Worth access. The same set of services will be available on both the free and the subscription lines; the advantage of the subscription lines being a guaranteed ratio of 7 users to 1 line.
• Instruction Program Group: Jenny Jopling reported that the group met and elected a co-Chair, Bob Bane, to serve with Jenny for the year. The group discussed the recommendations that were made to the IRC at the June meeting and requested a report from the IRC as to the status of those requests. In response, the Provost stated that $160,000 has been allocated to CIS to take care of everything on the Dead & Dying list of equipment. The other recommendations have not been acted upon, since limited funding requires that no other allocations be made until the final resolution is made on the cost of the campus-wide communication project, including platform upgrades and GroupWise implementation. He further explained that there might be enough money to address some of the issues that have been raised by the Instruction Program Group and the Research Program Group, but first it is essential to bring everyone up to a standard desktop platform so that the GroupWise system can be used, and that will be a major problem, budget-wise.
  Dr. Brownell expressed his hope that when the final allocations are made no disadvantage will be placed on anyone. He asked that the IRC set priorities, which he will abide by, and then theschools and colleges will know what they have to provide for with their own funds. A motion was passed to allocate $500,000 to be divided by academic unit, per head count, to upgrade faculty desk-top workstation computers to achieve a minimum standard platform across campus for communication purposes.
• Research Program Group: Dennis Mueller reported that the committee has not met, and that they need four members replaced. The committee requested to know the status of the UNIX system upgrades that have been approved. Richard Harris reported that funding will be available to do the upgrade. Mueller also asked for the status of the Innovative Projects Program. The Provost responded that there are no funds for that project at the present time. He explained that if any funds were left after taking care of basic and critical needs, they could be used for the Innovative Projects Program, possibly in a smaller amount that was originally requested. The Chair stated that this will be an agenda item at the October meeting.
• Standards & Cooperation Program Group: Paul Dworak reported that they are working on World Wide Web implementation; that Doug Bateman has put together some guidelines on the use of Web sites; and that the committee as a whole is working on a policy which will be brought to the IRC in a couple of months. They are working through the issues of managing information as well as trying to form a working group of Web managers.

November 14, 1995

Paul Dworak reported on the progress of E-mail implementation. Since the last IRC meeting, a SWAT team has been sent to UNT to deal with some specific issues. It was the intention that the three groups that formed out of the initial meeting with Novell (Project Mgmt. team, the User Consultant team, and Technical Support team) meet actively. He believes that can happen now since answers have been received from Novell. In response to a question about the timeline for completion of this project, Richard answered that the decision needs to be made within the Project Team and by the groups that remain to be set up.

Virginia Wheeless asked if departments whose conversion to GroupWise is imminent should be told how to upgrade their computers so that they ll be prepared for the conversion? Richard replied that there is an Administration Building project team that will be scheduling meetings with people in that building so that any questions can be answered and a convenient schedule can be set for the conversion. It has been well known and advertised by the vice presidents that people need to upgrade their computers, and Prop II money has been allocated for that.

Discussion continued regarding the direction of future software and hardware configurations. Dworak pointed out that a strategic decision was made at UNT to strive to be at the forefront in the use of technology. It was stressed that it is important for everyone at UNT to be able to use the campus-wide system, not only for electronic mail, but for the applications that are planned for the future, such as electronic forms transfer.

Network Manager Group Concerns Outlined

Cathy Cobb distributed a document outlining concerns of the UNT Network Manager Group regarding the GroupWise Project. Cathy reviewed the history of the E-mail decision, which ranged over the period of January 1991 through the present time. She reported that Bill Buntain had met with the LAN managers at their last meeting and addressed their concerns and questions. There were some questions relating to administrative accountability for the project that could not be answered; therefore, the remaining concerns are being presented to this council. She requested these concerns be addressed by the council in the December meeting. The Chair requested that the LAN Managers meet with Paul Dworak and his committee, then Paul will bring the results of that meeting to the IRC.

Cengiz Capan asked if UNT is committed to go with Netware 4.1; if that is definite then the LAN managers could at least know that and could go forward in getting ready for that conversion. Bill Buntain answered that it was Novell s recommendation that the conversion to Netware 4.1 be done prior to installing GroupWise. The campus is committed to go with Netware 4.1 in the long run, but there is a question as to the timing of that conversion. recommendation to install 4.1 first.

There was a question raised as to the appropriate committee to bring recommendations to the IRC, since the Electronically Enabled Communication Commission (EECC) is no longer in existence. Paul Dworak explained that when the IRC approved the pilot project that the EECC recommended, responsibility and authority to carry out that recommendation was given to the Computing Center. Further, the group Paul is working with is dealing with operational issues, working with the people who can make this project work. It was agreed that this implementation group would be the appropriate source for future recommendations regarding the GroupWise project.

Program Group Reports

• Administrative Program Group: Joneel Harris reported that the group met on November 9th, at which time they talked about the year 2000 and the implications for administrative applications running at UNT. She explained that the SIMS system is the one that will be the most significantly impacted, while some applications have been structured to handle the 4 digit year. They also discussed the new version of COBOL that the FAMS system will begin running under as of February 1996; mainframe versus client server, and graphical user interface issues; and COM-PLETE as their teleprocessing monitor, which is an ongoing issue. They also dealt with the ADABAS product performance issue. Performance of the new mainframe was also discussed. Although no conclusive decision has been made at this time, it would appear that an upgrade to the mainframe will be a viable option at 12-18 months, as originally proposed.
• Communication Program Group: Bill Buntain reported that they have not met, but he reported that the Novell Site License was signed on October 27th. The license will require that users coordinate purchases and installations of Netware with the Computing Center in order to be accountable to Novell on the number of copies deployed. In addition, Bill stated that Novell announced that it is attempting to sell its Perfect Office Suite of products. The site license includes those applications and Novell has assured that they will honor the license agreement.
  Bill also reported that the Premium Remote Access Service is now in place for Denton; they are waiting for phone service to be installed in Dallas and Ft. Worth, but everything should be ready in a few days. There will be two ways to obtain the service: 1) for on-campus use, departments will submit an IDO; and 2) individual subscriptions will be paid for through the University Book store, on a semester by semester basis.
• Instruction Program Group: Jenny Jopling reported for the that they have met to discuss the formulation of a questionnaire to send to departments to find out how much they are spending on classroom equipment and maintenance of that equipment. Mark Withers reported that the Provost has allocated money to renovate 140 classrooms to a minimum standard. Changes will include zoned lighting, relocating electrical outlets, and window coverings. The Chair asked that people send suggestions and comments to him or Jenny and they will make sure they are discussed with Mark Withers before any changes are made.
• Standards & Cooperation Program Group: Paul Dworak reported that the group has developed a World Wide Web Publishing Policy, a draft of which he distributed. IRC approval of this policy will be requested at the December meeting. Paul explained that the emphases of the policy are: 1) what kinds of information will be served; 2) who is responsible for making sure it is accurate; 3) what is the role of the Campus Wide Information System administrator; and 4) what is official information and how it will be dealt with by the university under state and federal law.

Other Business

Susan Pierce presented the Biennial Operating Plan that she prepared and distributed copies of her overhead presentation as well as the Plan itself. Susan explained how she arrived at the figures in the Plan spreadsheet, and explained that the report format is determined by the Department of Information Resources. DIR asks agencies to report Baseline Operations, purchases of hardware and software, and acquisitions of over one million dollars.

Dennis Mueller recommended that the Research Program Group s proposal for an Innovative Projects allocation be revisited at the December IRC meeting. Kathy Swigger seconded that recommendation and voiced her support for that proposal, stating that since UNT is pushing technological advances, it will be important to invest in some research projects that will highlight UNT. The Chair agreed to put that item on the December meeting agenda and call for a vote at that time.

Richard Harris reported that a policy decision needs to be considered regarding Everyone E-mail. The Human Resources department, PAIS and the Police Department want a way to send an emergency message, so it is important that all employees be members of the Everyone group. Who will be allowed to send out Everyone messages is yet to be decided. Richard asked for the IRC s blessing to bring this up at the next IRC Steering Committee meeting, since that s where the policy decision needs to be made. The Chair stated that Richard could bring that issue to the Steering Committee.

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