UNT IRC Meeting Minutes
June 19, 2007
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
INFORMATION RESOURCES COUNCIL
June 19, 2007
VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: PHILIP TURNER, CHAIR, PATRICK PLUSCHT, TIM CHRISTIAN, ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, STEVEN MCKAY (for JOHN HOOPER), LOU ANN BRADLEY, PAUL HONS (for JUDITH ADKISON), BRUCE HUNTER, BILL JONES (for ROBERT NIMOCKS), SCOTT WINDHAM, RAMU MUTHIAH, MARGARET AMBUEHL, CHRISTY CRUTSINGER, CENGIZ CAPAN, GUILLERMO OYARCE, GINNY ANDERSON, BEN BIGBY (for JON NELSON)
NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: MAURICE LEATHERBURY, CHARLES ANDREWS, PHILIP BACZEWSKI, SUE ELLEN RICHEY (Recording Secretary)
MEMBERS ABSENT: DON GROSE , UWE ROSSBACH, SARA WILSON MCKAY, JOHN PRICE, STEVEN KING, RAY BANKS, BOBBY CARTER, ABRAHAM JOHN
GUESTS PRESENT: JIM BYFORD, CHARLOTTE RUSSELL
The minutes of the May 15, 2007 meeting were approved as distributed.
Philip Baczewski reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that they met on May 18. At that meeting, Philip Baczewski gave a report on the Microsoft Migration project. Discussion ensued regarding the possible implementation of a new DNS system on the campus network in order to support the Active Directory implementation. DCSMT members requested a meeting with Datacomm staff to receive an overview of the DNS project. This request was satisfied by a general meeting on this topic held on May 25. Also at the May 18 meeting, Uwe Rossbach announced a meeting of the Outlook rollout working group to continue the planning for making the Outlook mail client available on desktop systems.
DCSMT did not meet on the scheduled June 1 meeting date and next met on June 15. Tom McElwee introduced the Micro Maintenance Shop staff that now report to him and provided an overview of ongoing MMS services. Tom asked that DCSMT form an ad hoc committee to recommend standard configurations for the Dell and Apple computers that will be supported by MMS. Also at that meeting, Philip Baczewski provided an update from the Microsoft e-mail migration task force and related updates regarding the pending DNS upgrade, the project schedule, and the updated project calendar. Rich Anderson announced that the CITC Security team will be reopening the security survey they recently conducted and urged additional participation in that survey. Chris Strauss reported that current IT asset data is now available in the production Remedy call tracking system thanks to assistance from EIS programming staff. DCSMT is next scheduled to meet on July 6, 2007.
Cengiz Capan asked if there is anything going on with security and establishment of a DMZ, related to the upcoming migration. Baczewski said that the Communications Planning Group is working on the campus firewall, and there will be multiple levels of security. To the extent of the recommendations made thus far, regarding security, they will continue to work on a more global implementation. Maurice Leatherbury stated that the Security Team is satisfied that UNT is secure enough now to roll out the Microsoft Exchange product.
Patrick Pluscht reported that the Learning Enhancement Planning Group met on June 7 and used Live Classroom to facilitate the discussion. The Faculty Senate has requested more information regarding the selection process for a new Learning Management System so the project coordinator provided a briefing document; Dr. Turner met with the Faculty Senate Executive Committee; and there is a meeting to update the entire Faculty Senate tomorrow. Patrick will share the briefing document with IRC members, as well. The Vista 3.0 to 4.0 migration utility has been released by Blackboard; it has been beta tested and is now on the market. A new version of Sakai is available and will be tested by their committee. Four major institutions are moving from Vista 3.0 to Vista 4.2 in the Fall semester and it is hoped that useful information will be gathered from their conversions. Dr. Turner announced that if IRC members have faculty contacts, they are urged to get the word out. The committee is looking for faculty representation on the evaluation teams, which are divided into seven teams, as follows: cost; end-user usability and accessibility including testing; integration; product feature criteria; product support services; systems; and user technical requirements. Each team has a leader and at least two members, but more participating members are needed. There was some discussion about the revision to the timeline to take into consideration the times during the summer when faculty members might be absent from campus. A final report will be made by each of the teams at the end of July. Testing will take place during early Fall 2007 and a recommendation will be made by late Fall semester 2007. There was discussion about the possibility of starting from scratch with an entirely new product, and an informal vote showed that there was an even split at this time between folks who preferred to start with a totally new product versus those who preferred migrating to the new Vista version.
The next meeting of the Learning Enhancement Planning Group will be June 21, 1:00 pm. The group is working on putting together a public site in an effort to let folks know what is going on with the LMS evaluation.
Lou Ann Bradley reported for the Communications Planning Group that the group met last week and discussed VPN. They have made arrangements for three vendors to come in and make presentations. The group would like to receive input from members on how the VPN will be used and how many users need to be provided for. Maurice Leatherbury added that Joe Adamo sent an inquiry to one large university who has had VPN in place for years. Initial use of the VPN is to provide administrative access to Windows servers on campus. CITC is considering the needs of the campus versus the cost of the system.
Steven McKay reported for the EIS Planning Group that the upgrade of the Learning Solutions module is going very well, and they are working on the refresh of equipment.
Tim Christian reported for the Standards & Policy Planning Committee that they are still working on the revisions to the Computer Use Policy.
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Student Computing Planning Committee has been working with Freshman Orientation to help establish a Student Tour of UNT website. They have ordered lanyards for all students with the website printed on them. E-campus will be a link on that website. She announced that people can view the Student Tour at www.helpdesk.unt.edu/studenttour.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:00 p.m.