University Standards Committee
November 20, 1996
Meeting Minutes

Committee members in attendance:

Steve Keto, Associate Vice Chancellor, Finance and Information Systems, co-chair
Bill Willis, Associate Provost for Academic Computing, co-chair
Leo Buckmaster, Administrative Computing Services
Sandy Connolly, College of Textiles
Joe Flowers, College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Sherry Kappel, Administrative Computing Services
Brian Kemerait, Management Information Resource Center
Charles Kneifel, College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Ron Melbourne, Administrative Computing Services
Tom Miller, College of Engineering
Dan Steen, College of Management
Andy Wasilewski, College of Veterinary Medicine
Eric Wiebe, College of Education & Psychology
Dan Willits, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Michael Winkler, University Libraries

Absent:

Sam Averitt, Computing Center
Bill Bayley, School of Design
Siamak Khorram, Computer Graphics Center/Forest Resources
Carl Malstrom, Computing Center
Molly Munro, College of Education & Psychology
Bill Padgett, Computing Center
John Ulmschneider, University Libraries

Overview:

September minutes were accepted. The WWW Subcommittee shared a copy of the new home page and said it would be on-line soon. The Data & Data Access Standards Subcommittee had no report. The Data Communication Protocols Subcommittee had no report but the ATM backbone is moving along and the duct bank to the Vet School is in the bidding process. The E-mail Subcommittee had no report. Charley Kneifel is now director of Computing Services and Brian Kemerait is now director of NCS; Brian will be working more closely with Sam Averitt and they will update this group as requested. The User Authentication/DCE Subcommittee reported that the web authentication project is in testing and should be available shortly; a single signon report should be ready by end of January. Bill Willis will have the Target Delivery white paper out within the week, and said this is an issue many groups are working on. In particular, we will be starting an electronic thesis and dissertation project utilizing PDF; we're pursuing a site license with Adobe. The IRMC is currently looking at how to hire and retain technical personnel. The Committee expressed various opinions about it and Steve Keto and Bill Willis said they would invite Loretta Harper to the next meeting. Bids for the HR system are currently being evaluated. The MIME Type Subcommittee has notes on the web and Eric Wiebe will send the URL. Next meeting is Wednesday, January 15.

Discussion Detail:

1. September minutes were passed without change.
   
   
2. WWW Implementation: Sherry Kappel said that Louis Hunt was added to the committee to replace Stan North Martin, and Tommy Griffin was added to give Admissions representation. She also passed around a color copy of the new home page, along with the URL, and said it would be on-line soon. Various structural changes/additions included an Academic Departments page, international studies and the fellows program. A subcommittee has been set up to develop a "Prospective Students" page linked to the home page. Last, a search engine report and recommendation should be available shortly.
   
   
3. Data and Data Access Standards: No report.
   
   
4. Data Communication Protocols: No report. Bill Willis said they're turning up the ATM backbone and starting to put stuff across it, although it won't be production any time soon. Also, for pricing reasons, they recently switched from MCI to Sprint for our internet connection -- if there are any problems, call Sam Averitt.
   
   Steve Keto asked whether there was a schedule for the duct bank out to the Vet School, and Brian Kemerait said they were getting bids. It should be ready by January 1998 and cost about $1.2 million. Billy commented that Cemetery Hill was a weak spot with hard-to-fix problems.
   
   
5. Electronic Mail: Charley Kneifel said they'd have a report at the next meeting. Billy noted that Charley is now the director of Computing Services under the Provost's Office, which he felt was a great benefit to their office and what they hoped to accomplish. Steve added that Brian was now the director of Network & Communication Services (NCS). He requested that they have a regular update from Brian and Sam regarding the wiring project and infrastructure. Billy said that many of Sam's and Brian's services are really one set of operations, and suggested closer integration/continuity for better response to problems. Steve said they should at least provide a general update at the next meeting (January). Brian commented that he had already begun to meet regularly with Sam for these very reasons.
   
   Billy said they also needed to meet with Physical Plant regarding the ability to get into buildings/places during off hours. Brian said that if his group causes a problem while pulling wires, they have people in both Telecommunications and MIRC oncall. Billy said Sharon Byrd is drafting a procedure message.
   
   
6. User Authentication/DCE: Regarding the WWW authentication project, Ron Melbourne said they were starting systems acceptance testing that week, and meeting December 9 to ensure that everything's ready. Career Planning & Placement will probably start using it then, and it will be available soon thereafter to others. After that, they will start documentation. There were still a few small questions to be answered.
   
   He also said they'd met to discuss single signon, and should have a report by January 30. Billy said this item should now be listed as Ron's on the agenda.
   
   
7. Desktop Standards: This item needs to be removed from the agenda.
   
   
8. Target Delivery: Bill Willis said he'd hoped to have the white paper for this ready by then, but it wasn't finished -- it would be out that week, though, and lay out a direction. In the past few weeks he said they'd received notices from IBM and other major entities that they're putting their stuff into a java-type delivery framework, and that's what this is about: making our stuff available in broad enough formats to leave as many choices as possible to the users. He said he'd sent out a charge message since the last meeting regarding content, and started a signon committee; the Libraries are working on a massive delivery project. This -- the Target Delivery Subcommittee -- is the committee to provide vision and structure. They can't take user groups and control their environments any longer -- it now includes all the students and the group is simply too broad.
   
   On a related note, the Associate Dean of the Graduate School and John Ulmschneider drove to Virginia Tech to see their electronic thesis and dissertation project for electronic submission (from author to publication). He said NC State would be implementing this, starting with a target group of students and advisors this spring. VPI currently accepts three formats: PDF (Adobe Acrobat), DVI (which they just convert to PDF) and SGML. He said we will just do PDF at this point -- Adobe provides free readers. We won't do PostScript because it isn't always consistent. VPI does DVI simply because they're not set up as well as we are.
   
   Billy said Bill Padgett is pursuing a site license with Adobe giving us ubiquitous access to Acrobat tools. The State, Department of Revenue, and Feds are already using this to distribute documents. We will also need Exchange -- the editor -- to annotate. He suspects that this will become a prevalent document type on campus, and others such as Brian may want to look into distribution of the tools and work it into our culture. He said it's a really good way to distribute things like manuals and can be used with Netscape. Charley added that you can also send hyperlinks with it.
   
   
9. IRMC and UNC-GA: As just mentioned, the State is also working on delivery issues, and it's probably come down to PDF and MIME. IRMC passed a resolution supporting and making it policy for employees to be able to take advantage of their computing services for personal use as long as it doesn't interfere with their work and isn't illegal. Having a state-wide policy should help support the University's own policy on the issue.
   
   Hiring and retaining technical personnel is a big priority with the IRMC at this point, and Bill Padgett is on a state-wide committee. We told them that pay is an issue but there's also too much work for too few people. The IRMC will discuss this at the upcoming meeting and has requested a report from OSP; it is a bipartisan issue. Other opinions expressed were:

• that HR people don't understand the positions and try to cubbyhole them;
• our campus HR personnel aren't always advocates for our areas -- more often they tell us what we can't do rather than telling OSP what we need to do;
• we need to express our dissatisfaction more;
• perhaps the solution is to ask for constant justification at all levels till they get the message;
• secretaries help out with technical problems but can't get their jobs upgraded; and
• the in-range revisions okayed in July focus more on years of service than the best skills set.

Steve and Billy agreed to invite Loretta to the January meeting, and ask for further discussion if the answers aren't satisfactory.

As a non-agenda item, Steve asked Leo Buckmaster for an update on the HR system. Leo said the project team has finished the RFP and received bids, and is currently evaluating them. We will either buy/install/support a new system or outsource it, although he believed it would stay in-house. Billy asked if we will be doing this for the financial system and Steve said probably, but they'll have to fight it out with General Administration, first.

Last, Eric Wiebe said that the MIME type subcommittee met last week and has notes on the web -- he'll send the URL.

Next meeting will be Wednesday, January 15.

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