University Standards Committee

September 20, 1995

Meeting Minutes

Committee members in attendance:

Steve Keto, Assistant to the VC for Finance and Business, co-chair
Bill Willis, Associate Provost for Academic Computing, co-chair
Sam Averitt, Computing Center
Bill Ballenger, College of Education & Psychology
Leo Buckmaster, Administrative Computing Services
Ken Esbenshade, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Wayne Godwin, School of Design
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:

Joe Flowers, College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Michael Fox, Management Information Resource Center
Siamak Khorram, Computer Graphics Center/Forest Resources
Samuel Moore, College of Textiles

Overview:

August minutes were approved. The University's stand on personal web pages was debated. The Data Communications Protocols Subcommittee has received the first draft of the BellSouth contract and is currently reviewing it. The Campus Level Service Agreement draft was distributed for feedback. The User Authentication Subcommittee reported that DCE 1.1 is its preferred software. The Document Interoperability Standards Subcommittee stated that they are working on developing a PostScript transport and statement of constraints. The Desktop Standards Subcommittee indicated that CustomerQ and help desk is operational and has generated a lot of enthusiasm. Due to minimal legislative funding, the University Information Highway connectivity is being closely monitored so that we maintain our level of connectivity with growth.

Discussion Detail:

  1. August minutes were unanimously approved.
  2. World Wide Web Committee: Bill Willis reported that Harry Nicholos has a rudimentary search mechanism based on the Harvest system from Colorado which has not yet been publicized. Bill will see to it that the committee gets the URL. Concern over the proper use of state equipment and potential liability issues still cause the student and faculty personal web pages to be debatable. Draft guidelines were developed when the Prodigy suit surfaced, thereby prompting Bill to revisit the "gates of hell" as an entry mechanism. To support this stance, Bill emphasized that state use of equipment in publication and dissemination of ideas, work, and interest -- students, faculty and grad students need to have a mechanism to do this -- therefore allowing a personal page via the University would be considered appropriate user of state equipment. Obscenity and publication of copyright protected material would not be supported in any fashion. Leo Buckmaster thinks that from a taxpayer's viewpoint, the University needs to monitor and control information of a personal nature, that is, not academic related. It was again stressed that academic pursuit entails personal interest as well as personal motivation and is a broadly drawn circle with endless and open boundaries. Ron Melbourne pointed out that the legislature is now looking at how we spend our money and this issue could possibly "feed certain fires" if not appropriately monitored. The legal opinion is that if any monitoring at all is done then we must take full responsibility. The University's position should therefore be either no personal pages at all or the "gates of hell" approach with a leading disclaimer.
  3. Data and Data Access Standards: Data and Data Access Standards: Ron Melbourne stated that the University ID CQI team had its third meeting and is continuing to make progress. Ron anticipates that with the onset of the next meeting the pace of this committee should pick up.
  4. Data Communication Protocols: Sam Averitt said that they were proceeding with the outsourcing of dial-in services. UNC-CH and Duke have been faxed the first draft of the BellSouth contract for their review, they hope to have this service in by November 1. Once service has been installed there will be two options: $5 /month plus a penny a minute or a $30 /month flat rate. Different billing mechanisms will also be experimented with. The RFP called for both individual billing to users or billing to an account at the University (i.e., a department) -- telecommunications will do the billing. Including Chapel Hill and Duke, the early subscription base could reach as many as 5,000 accounts. Since RTP is the home location, toll-free dialing will be available from Wake, Orange and Durham counties. BellSouth will also fund a full-time position on each campus to help work on technical issues and applications and promote the use of the system. We will be the first site in what BellSouth has targeted as a service offering to some 20 cities in the southeast. The agreement will be announced at Comdex in November. Other commercial partners will likely be included by BellSouth in this venture. Students who don't subscribe to this service can always come to campus and use the computer labs. Initially accounts are for students, faculty and staff only. MCNC will be the physical facility housing the modem pool and we will use our normal pipe and hook in there.

    Sam distributed a draft of the Campus Level Service Agreement for Data Networking for review and feedback as to its general philosophical approach (i.e., is this agreement satisfactory to maintain the campus network?).

    Since there are a fair number of machines on the network who are not properly registered and sometimes two or more machines are sharing the same IP number, the need for a clear, concise policy statement from the Standards Committee was discussed. Bill Willis suggested that even though there is a documented procedure for this, an announcement should be made stating that everyone register within a specified time frame; after that time frame, they be disconnected if not registered. Sam will present a draft statement to the committee at the next meeting.

  5. Electronic Mail: Nothing to report. Charlie asked about the status of his recommendation that a subcommittee be established to look at the appropriate method of dissemination of information from all channels. A motion was made and carried that the Standards Committee recommend that the University look at total information dissemination.
  6. User Authentication: Carl Malstrom stated that no formal meeting had been held, however, information had been obtained which indicates that DCE 1.1 offers significant improvement over its predecessor. Based on this they have a proposal to deploy one DCE cell with the initial installation on a Solaris platform. Details will need to be worked out and a timetable would be dictated by the actual availability of the software. An estimated time frame may be available by the next meeting.
  7. Document Interoperability Standards: John Ulmschneider stated that they are working on putting together a PostScript transport and developing a statement of constraints (most transportable fonts, etc.). They would like to have this ready by the next meeting. Adobe is under consideration, the new version of Acrobat does not require the same platform and is interested in developing platforms for things like Linux.
  8. Desktop Standards: Little feedback has been received since the last meeting. Bill Padgett stated that the vacant position has created a time lapse.

    Participating colleges are enthusiastic about CustomerQ and help desk. Front-end personalized pages have been offered to some colleges. Presently, about 300 queries per day are being pulled. Response time to a typically asked question has been cut in half with this system. It was felt that all University personnel and colleges should be recruited to use the software. It was also pointed out that we can tie into information that other customers, universities are using to avoid reinventing the wheel.

  9. IRMC & UNC-GA: Bill Willis stated that the state contract information is now on-line and is fairly comprehensive in its scope of pricing, vendors and purchasing. Bill also stated that the IRMC- Information Highway has been minimally funded by the legislature and is currently the cause of much concern. Bill pointed out that due to funding issues, the Standards Committee may need to direct some attention to Internet data access, video access and supercomputing. It is felt that MCNC will be unable to accommodate the University in these areas as conceptually as they are presently. Bill cautioned the committee that Internet data access, video access and supercomputing must be addressed separately. Possible alternatives to this funding issue are: handling our own access independently, uniting as a university system and operating independently of MCNC with funding from the legislature or establishing a partnership with MCNC and seeking joint funding from the legislature. In any event, it was felt as though close attention should be paid to this area. Bill stated that John Harrison's group will get together and review all the issues and alternatives.

Next meeting will be Wednesday, October 18, 1995.

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