Friday, April 4, 2008
Agenda
- Introduction of any people that are substituting for committee members
- Approval of minutes from March 6, 2008 meeting
- "Wireless Technologies, Present and Future" (John Kingland)
- Educause Top 10 IT Issues article (Jim Davis)
- ITS "Levels of Service" document submitted to the Provost Academic Cabinet (Jim Davis)
- Status report on the Data Warehouse project (Maury Hope)
- Follow-up to the Horizon report - demonstration of a student developed web site and video (Jim Twetten)
- Good of the Order
- Adjourn
Attendance
- Committee attendees
- Phil Spike (chair), Jason Carroll, Floyd Davenport, Ian Guffy, Fred Gulden (substitute for Karen Lawson), Volker Hegelheimer (substitute for Lee Honeycutt), Steve Herrnstadt, Kathy Jones, Chris McCoy, Sree Nilakanta, Ann Thompson, Anthony Townsend, and Jim Davis
- Absent members
- James Alleman, Roger Baer, Pam Elliot Cain, Steven Jungst, and Eldon Uhlenhopp
- Non-committee members in attendance
- Michael Bowman, Angela Bradley, Maury Hope, John Kingland, David Popelka, and Jim Twetten
Minutes
Friday, April 4, 2008
Meeting convened at 3:10 p.m.
Minutes from March 6, 2008 meeting were approved.
-
Associate CIO John Kingland gave a talk titled "Wireless: Today and Tomorrow." The talk:
Reviewed IEEE standards. Mostly 802.11(b) and (g) are on campus. The (n) standard is still in draft form, but carries a lot of promise. Other standards for mobile broadband are under development.
Addressed the vision and goal of mobility for wireless on our campus.
Covered the trends being seen nationally and on campus, such as the decrease in use of wired voice and data; an increase in WiFi and cellular devices for data; decreases in city-wide WiFi projects, with corresponding increases in hotspot WiFi.
Gave more detail about 802.11(n). The standard promises lots of throughput. Some may wonder whether it will be the replacement for all wired connections, but Kingland thinks no.
Covered ITS's probable next steps, including implementing ubiquitous 802.11(n) in residence halls; developing a campus-wide implementation and funding plan; enhancing cellular coverage; and dealing with the challenge of integrated networking. Overall, the goal is to move to a seamless wireless communications network on campus.
Significant committee discussion ensued. Speculation on the future of computing was discussed, including the future of the desktop computer and intelligent hand held devices. The group expressed concern that funding wireless has not been an institutional priority the last 4-5 years.
Jim Davis shared the recently published Top Ten IT issues from EDUCAUSE, the international IT professional organization. Davis invited the committee to review the article and consider topics for discussion at future meetings. He mentioned that two of the top issues in CIO circles are security and identity management. The article can be found at www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0730.pdf.
Jim Davis also shared a document ITS recently submitted to the Provost's Academic Cabinet. The document carries descriptions of broad ITS services, along with their associated expenses (both allocated and self generated). The document will be posted on the ITSAC website at a future date.
-
Associate CIO Maury Hope gave a status report on the Data Warehouse (DWH) initiative. The report:
Reviewed the basics of the project. The DWH is collectively a complex set of institutional data, along with the tools to access that data rapidly and authoritatively.
Reviewed recent DWH project accomplishments, including the development of several "data marts" and the acquisition of Cognos business tools.
Covered the governance & support structure, which includes the DWH leadership group, the DWH collaborative, the operational group, and the consumer/client group. Hope reviewed the licensing architecture.
Included current issues such as the client learning curve, licensing issues, ironing out authentication quirks, developing screen layouts and reports, and the loss of Hyperion (related legacy financial data warehouse system) support staff.
Reviewed the next steps of rebuilding some data cubes, participating in a DWH conference with higher education peers, automating data mart and cube building, and developing new data marts reflecting the tuition allocation for Fall 2008.
Horizon Report follow-up; postponed to another meeting due to time constraints.
Good of the Order: Jim Davis brought up the possibility of removing the need to "log in" to the ITSAC web site since we are not posting sensitive documents. The committee agreed this would be fine, particularly if it is possible to keep those pages from being viewed by automated search engines.
The meeting was adjourned at 4:56 p.m.
