University Standards Committee

March 15, 1995

Meeting Minutes

Committee members in attendance:

Bill Willis, Associate Provost for Academic Computing, co-chair

Sam Averitt, Computing Center

Bill Ballenger, Education & Psychology

Jay Bragg, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences

Leo Buckmaster, Administrative Computing Services

Michael Fox, Management Information Resource Center

Charles Kneifel, College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences

Carl Malstrom, Computing Center

Ron Melbourne, Administrative Computing Services

Tom Miller, College of Engineering

Bill Padgett, Computing Center

Dan Steen, College of Management

John Ulmschneider, University Libraries

Andy Wasilewski, College of Veterinary Medicine

Absent:

Steve Keto, Assistant to the VC for Finance and Business, co-chair

Joe Flowers, College of Humanities & Social Sciences

Wayne Godwin, School of Design

Siamak Khorram, Computer Graphics Center/Forest Resources

Samuel Moore, College of Textiles

Overview:

February minutes were approved with one change. The E-mail committee made three recommendations, the first two of which were accepted; additional information was requested on the third. University Libraries presented an overview of their computing structure. It was reported that the WWW Implementation Committee has the latest front page in place and the second pages are being adjusted to accommodate. The Data & Data Access Standards Committee discussed University IDs and what would need to be done to put such a system in place. The Data Communication Protocols committee said that plans are moving forward to establish a hub at Poe. Also, the communication forum was a big success. The User Authentication/DCE committee was restructured some to be primarily the Computing Center and BAS/ACS. The Technology Standards committee had no report. Bill Willis reported that UNC-GA still hasn't met, and reviewed the latest IRMC initiatives. Next meeting is Wednesday, April 19.

Discussion Detail:

1. The February, 1995 minutes were amended to note that the User Substitution procedure was not a result of the Data committee, and then approved.
2. Presentations: John Ulmschneider provided an overview of the computing system in University Libraries, including the Libraries' mission statement, public services, information systems, equipment and architecture, and staffing (handout). Siamak Khorram's was not present to review Forest Resources.
3. WWW Implementation Committee: Bill Willis reported that the latest University home page was now in place, and the second level pages were being adjusted as appropriate. The need was stressed to have all parts in place before switching over. It was suggested that there be a link to the "old" home page at the bottom of the new one to help people make the transition. The need for better searching tools was commented upon again, as well as the need to broadcast the guidelines so that all levels comply.
4. Data and Data Access Standards: Ron Melbourne discussed setting up a Sybase database "dictionary" (will be referred to in the future as "data repository"), starting with high level appearance. More importantly, University IDs were discussed and the efficacy of sending a letter to all colleges/units to collect information about how each of them is using unique identifiers. Bill Willis said that they will need to move quickly, since there is already a campus ID card committee that's on a fast track. Ron and Charley Kneifel said that speed was something which wouldn't be easily accomplished. Clarification was also requested: are unique IDs a proposal or are they definite? Bill will check with Steve and make them definite; the committee should assume for the moment that it's a done deal.
5. Data Communication Protocols: Sam Averitt said that they're moving forward to establish a major new hub at Poe hall; the facility should be complete by the end of the fiscal year, and fully operational by the Fall semester. They expect the Computing Center, MIRC and Education to use. Also, they're running the internet over the MCNC connection on an experimental basis and will evaluate for about two weeks.

   Carl asked for feedback on the Communication Forum held in February. Attendance was strong, there was high interest and a repeat was requested for those who couldn't attend the first forum.

   Last, they said they'd met with some local dial-up providers to consider outsiding this service to faculty, staff and students.

6. Electronic Mail: Charles Kneifel presented three recommendations:
   • The Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) should be adopted as the standard for mail exchange between campus mail systems.
   • Any non-ASCII text sent as a mail message should be encoded according to the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension (MIME) encoding standards. The University will publish the MIME encoding standard via the World Wide Web.
   • Any campus mail system which acts as a mail distribution site should register with the official University e-mail Postmaster in order to facilitate problem solution and ensure proper compliance with these standards.

   The University Standards committee felt the E-mail committee needs to define who the official NCSU "postmaster" is and what this person's responsibilities are. Also, the Standards committee felt that aliases are a valuable service but some changes are necessary: ensure scalability, integrity of data, and make things simpler for those who run gateways. There was a question of resources. The first two recommendations were ultimately accepted but the E-mail committee was asked to draft a list of the postmaster's duties for the third.

7. User Authentication/DCE: It was clarified that Charley Kneifel didn't really need to be involved in this -- it's more an issue for the Computing Center and BAS/Administrative Computing Services. Carl Malstrom and Leo Buckmaster have met on it; the Computing Center is getting some DCE software and Administrative Computing already has some on an RS6000.
8. Technology (hardware and software) Standards: No report.
9. IRMC and UNC-GA: The latter still hasn't met. The former has spent significant time with state agencies. With respect to networking and costs, NCSU is still independent of the state network and it's probably still cheaper that way although some of their offerings have a good pricetag. The price will continue to fall as more sites come on line and the overhead has greater distribution. Their goal is a low cost entry level for libraries and some schools, in particular. They'd also discussed unique IDs and decided it wouldn't hurt privacy (and may even help).
10. Finally, Leo Buckmaster raised the issue of whether software written by NCSU employees belongs to the employee who wrote it or to the University. The State says the author "owns" it unless that person signs it over; is anybody requiring this of their programmers? The committee determined that the issue should be examined further.

Next meeting is Wednesday, April 19.

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