IRC News Minutes provided by Sue Ellen Richey, Recording Secretary

IRC Regular Voting Members: Ginny Anderson, Fiscal Affairs; Walter Bowen, Academic Administration; Bill Buntain, Communications Program Group; Carolyn Cunningham, Student Affairs; Paul Dworak, College of Music; Steve Grant, UNT Health Science Center; Don Grose, Libraries; Jenny Jopling, Instruction Program Group; Joneel Harris, Administrative Program Group; Mike Kozak, Faculty Senate; Allen Livingston, Student Association; Steve Miller, Human Resources; Dennis Mueller, Research Program Group; Ramu Muthiah, School of Community Services; Robert Nimocks, Director, Information Technology,UNTHSC; Jim Poirot, College of Education; Don Schol, School of Visual Arts; Kathleen Swigger, College of Arts and Sciences; Neal Tate, University Planning Council; Philip Turner, Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs for Distance Education and Dean of the School of Library and Information Resources (Chair, IRC); Chair)Virginia Wheeless, Chancellor; John Windsor, College of Business;. IRC Ex-officio Nonvoting Members: Jim Curry, Microcomputer Maintenance Shop; Richard Harris, Computing Center; Coy Hoggard, Computing Center; Maurice Leatherbury, Computing Center; Sue Ellen Richey, Computing Center (Recording Secretary); Rondel Stevens, Telecommunications.

January 20, 1998

Minutes Approved

A motion was passed to approve the minutes of the December 16, 1997 meeting.

Distributed Learning Team Representation

Richard Harris met with the IR Steering Committee and informed them that the distributed learning team would have representation on the council.

Desktop Application Software Guidelines

Maurice Leatherbury distributed a new draft of the Desktop Application Software Guidelines stating that the new draft has been reviewed and approved by the committee members via e-mail. Maurice expressed his hope that this new draft would be more acceptable, as he had tried to word it in more politically correct terms. At the last meeting, he brought up the question of the relationship of the General Access Computer Labs' infrastructure and management structure to the overall computing environment on campus. Cengiz Capan made a presentation in which he suggested that the General Access Lab Manager's Committee (GALMAC), which is the operational group of the actual Lab Managers, be placed under the Distributed Computing Support Management Team. Others in the group thought that the General Access Lab Committee, which is the policy-making group, has a purpose of representing the larger picture on campus of academic computing needs of students. That issue was then sent back to both committees to meet and discuss at the GALMAC meeting in February.

A presentation by Compaq Computer was also made at the recent meeting of the Distributed Computing Support Management Team, as part of the effort to establish a laptop computer standard and purchasing program. Proposals from vendors, to whom requests for offers were sent, are due before the end of January.

The Chair pointed out that a vote will be taken by the council on the Desktop Application Software Guidelines at the February meeting. Dr. Turner said he would take the new draft to a Dean's retreat that is coming up soon.

Communications Program Group

Bill Buntain reported for the Communications Program Group that they visited the GTE Technology Solution Center to look at a new technology called ADSL. This technology promises very high speed access from the home to the internet service provider. Bill requested that if any department is looking into using this new technology that they talk with Bill before putting it in place. ADSL provides 5.xMB downstream (to the user) and 640k upstream. The benefit of ADSL is that it runs over regular telephone lines so it doesn't require re-cabling. It uses unused spectrum frequency on the existing copper and the data and voice portions are split off. The Computing Center is investigating whether or not it can do the same thing in order to give this high-speed access to the dorms, using the existing phone lines.

Bill asked that if anyone on campus is looking into higher-speed bandwidth applications, or anything that will tax UNT's internet connection, they should contact Bill so that their plans can be included in the Computing Center's plans.

Bill also mentioned that he is looking at deploying switches that will support DHCP (dynamic host configuration protocol), which should resolve the tc/pip addressing issues that were discussed at the last IRC meeting.

Instruction Program Group

Jenny Jopling reported that the Instruction Program Group met and is working with Jim Curry on classroom support services. The group is working on a classroom access policy, a draft of which she will he would bring to the February IRC meeting for approval. In response to a question from the Chair regarding Microcomputer Maintenance support of high-end classrooms, such as the video-conferencing classrooms, Jenny said that Jim Curry's immediate focus will be on regular classrooms and that the high-end classroom support has not yet been addressed.

CBT courseware

Bill Buntain reported that the Library has the CBT campus server up and running, which makes all of the new CBT courseware available campuswide. Instructions have been sent out to Network Managers for setting up the client on their servers in order to deploy the courseware out to their users.

February 17, 1998

Harris Chair, Minutes Approved

Richard Harris chaired the meeting in Philip Turner's absence.

A motion was passed to approve the minutes of the January 20, 1998.

Year 2000

Richard Harris reported that at the last IR Steering Committee meeting, Coy Hoggard briefed the vice presidents on the Year 2000 efforts and asked for help in establishing a campus-wide committee representing all areas of the university. Each member of the committee will have a set of responsibilities for reporting and compliance.

Distributed Computing Support Management Team

Maurice Leatherbury reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that at the Jan. 16th meeting the General Access Lab Managers Committee Chair reported that they are working on the question of the labs' infrastructure and the General Access Lab Committee. They requested that they be allowed to bring the issue to the IRC at some future meeting, after they have had a chance to discuss the issues and formulate a procedure or recommendations about changing any structures.

Laptop Computers

Maurice distributed a new IDO form for ordering laptop computers from the Microcomputer Maintenance Shop. The result of much investigation and evaluation is that MMS will sell two Dell laptop models, which are shown on the IDO. Since the printing of the IDO form, the price on the Research Machine has been lowered by about $600.00, and it comes with 64 MB of memory rather than 32, as is currently shown. Jim Curry is now taking orders for these. Other benefits of this program are that UNT staff and faculty can buy these same models for personal use directly from Dell, at the same pricing, which appears to be about $1,100.00 lower than retail. In addition, Dell will allow trade-ins of old models of any brand of laptop that is in working condition. Maurice explained that the new Dell laptops will be loaded with Windows 95, R.2, but no application software. Jim Curry is committed to trying this sale and maintenance plan for one year and then will evaluate the program for cost-effectiveness.

Desktop Application Software Guidelines

Maurice distributed a final draft of the Desktop Application Software Guidelines which has been brought before the IRC at three previous meetings. By presentation of this document, the IRC is being asked to endorse the guidelines for campus-wide use. Paul Dworak moved that the IRC endorse the guidelines as distributed. John Jones requested that the date for these guidelines to become effective be changed to September 1, 1998 rather than July 1, 1998. This change was acceptable to Maurice Leatherbury and Paul Dworak, so Paul's original motion stands with this amendment. Carolyn Cunningham seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.

Administration Program Group

Joneel Harris reported for the Administration Program Group that they have met to discuss international addresses for students, and came to an agreeable solution for meeting EEOC requirements. She reported that the new Federally funded Hope Scholarship and Life-long Learning Credits Program will create some reporting difficulties for UNT. Coy Hoggard commented that the Year 2000 conversion effort is turning out to be a much larger task than was first thought.

Communications Program Group

Bill Buntain reported for the Communications Program Group that two custom CDs have been burned; one with internet access software and one for Microsoft Office. He said he would like to know if there is any interest in burning custom CDs for the Intranetware and Windows NT administration courses. The committee is actively investigating expansion of the bandwidth on UNT's internet connection. They have been monitoring bandwidth utilization and are surprised at the usage; so they are looking at alternatives to expand the bandwidth. They will be evaluating migration paths for the campus network and have been looking at XDSL digital subscriber line technology. The committee has scheduled a number of vendors to come in and show their equipment, particularly with regard to its applicability to getting communications into the dormitories. Bill believes that there is a strong potential for an economically viable way of providing relatively high-speed communications to the dorms without having to rewire. Another subject the program group will be discussing is the possibility of linking the UNT network with the City of Denton fiber optics network (which would also link UNT with FEMA, some county offices, Police department, DISD, etc.). Bill said he would welcome input from members on this subject.

Faculty Senate Resolution Discussed

Richard Harris called the council's attention to the Faculty Senate Resolution concerning decentralized computing on the UNT campus as it relates to the Desktop Application Software Guidelines. He asked what the Council members wanted to do in response to the resolution. Some discussion followed. Richard pointed out that the IRC is a place where users' needs can be heard and it is appropriate for issues of this kind to be discussed here. In turn, those issues will be carried forward to the IR Steering Committee. It was further pointed out that communication between technical support areas and computer users is a key issue; therefore, it was suggested that a response to the Faculty Senate resolution be made by the IRC. Paul Dworak volunteered to ask the Standards & Cooperation Program Group to draft a resolution in response to the Faculty Senate resolution. The Council agreed that would be appropriate.

Richard stated that he would report to the IR Steering Committee that the Council's response to the Faculty Senate Resolution was positive, and tell them that the S&C Program Group will formulate a resolution and take action on that at the next IRC meeting.

DHCP servers?

Allen Livingston asked if there is a roll-out planned for the DHCP servers? He stated that he was aware that they are being tested and the tests are creating problems. Bill Buntain responded that the Computing Center is working with the College of Arts & Sciences, but doesn't have a full-fledged test network, which is probably the cause of the problems. There is a plan and the intention is to roll it out as soon as possible. Allen asked if the incompatibility of Windows NT and DHCP has been taken into consideration. Bill said he would check into the problems, and stated that he is aware of the relationship between Windows 95/NT and DHCP. n