Office of Information Technology

Technology Advisory Board (TAB)
Minutes of Meeting of February 16, 2005

Attendance:

Bill Britten, Barbara Dewey, Steve Dolgner, Stephen Esposito, Jessica Hodge, Judy Huddleston, Julie Little, Mike McNeil, Chaz Molder, Faye Muly, Robert Osborne, Rita Smith, Robin McNeil, Stan Pinkleton, Gretchen Whitney, Gena Wilson, Jenny Wright.

Alumni E-mail Update

Bruce Downsbrough, Assistant Vice President for Advancement Services, reported that Advancement Services is conducting a poll of university alumni associations to gather information about alumni e-mail projects at peer institutions. There are many issues to consider when providing accounts for 300,000 plus alumni, including the assignment of addresses, aliases, policing for inappropriate content, duplicate entries, etc. There is considerable interest in pursuing this service. The alumni e-mail addresses will be synchronized in the printed alumni directory and the online version. Mr. Downsbrough will provide a further update at the March 16 TAB meeting.

E-mail Survey and Review

Mike McNeil presented an update of the E-mail evaluation. Six vendors were reviewed, however four were eliminated, based on a lack of functionality, no track record, non-response to inquiries, or other reasons. IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook were selected as viable candidates. Microsoft Outlook is the most prevalent e-mail client on campus and is the industry leader. It was judged to have an intuitive user interface and has the advantage of being bundled with the Microsoft Windows operating system and Office application. The e-mail review has been presented to the Executive Vice President for discussion with the President’s staff. When a final decision has been made on the product, a schedule will be developed for migration from current e-mail packages to the selected product. Purchasing options are being clarified depending on the product selected. There was discussion about the ability to import address books, availability of a client for UNIX and Apple, and the conversion process for students from Webmail.

VolPrint Report

Stan Pinkleton discussed the status of the VolPrint project. Currently, the pay for print system is installed in the University Libraries and Office of Information Technology computing labs. In addition, VolPrint is utilized in the Honors Lab, International House, English Writing Center, College of Education, Health & Human Sciences, College of Law, College of Business, College of Communications and Information Sciences, and Career Services.

As a result of the VolPrint project, there has been a substantial decrease in the amount of pages printed. Between August 2004 and February 2005, 1,429,600 images have been printed in the OIT Labs, 1,402,755 in University Libraries, and 181,167 in the Colleges and Departments. Comparison figures for the OIT Labs show an approximately 70% decrease in printing from the 4,725,334 images during the same period last year. Thus the environmental effect of saving paper and toner, as well as the cost savings, is significant. The program has been well received by students and faculty and the cost model is on track.

An extended outage of the system due to a malfunction of the database hardware was reported in early January; however because the policy is to bypass the pay for print system during such outages, there was no disruption in service. Intermittent short outages have been reported and are being investigated. New DART machines, for cash payment to the VolCard, have been installed at the Veterinary Medicine Library and in the Hodges Library to service VolPrint users. There was a question about the usage by faculty and staff and this will be reported at the March TAB meeting.

February Security Awareness Month

Julie Little discussed the ongoing Security Awareness campaign, February 14-25. The campaign will be for ten days, with ten daily videos, ten prizes, and one authoritative web site – http://security.utk.edu. Each day, a brief email is posted to Knoxville faculty, staff, and students announcing the topic of the day. Video topics include: Passwords, Desktop Security, Storing Sensitive Data, Virus Protection, Spyware, Email Hoaxes, Filesharing and Copyright, Phishing, and Firewalls. The videos are available in a variety of formats, including closed captioned. At the end of the ten day campaign, there will be an optional short survey allowing students to register for prizes. The goal is a cultural change in the attitude to information security, thus the campaign will be repeated in September 2005 to include new students and faculty.

Password Change Policy

The password change policy announced on January 26 was discussed. This policy requires that all NetID, central UNIX, and central Active Directory account passwords be changed by March 1, 2005, and every 180 days after that. This is necessary because of increasing security issues with access to the Internet. Among issues discussed were the procedures for organizational e-mail accounts and effect on newly admitted students for fall. Also the effect on the university policy of using e-mail as an official means of communication was discussed.

ECAR Survey – Evaluating Information Technology on Campus

Julie Little announced UTK has been invited to participate in the second round of a survey by ECAR, a unit of Educause, the primary professional organization for information technology in higher education. The survey is a student evaluation of information technology on campus. Because of the success of the first study, ECAR is expanding participation to additional institutions. The survey will be open to freshman and seniors. An email will be sent to these groups to solicit participation, with the hope that 500 or more in each group will respond. The survey is conducted with participants remaining anonymous, however student participants will have an opportunity to separately register for the one hundred $50 gift certificates. The resulting data will be available for individual universities and for the aggregate of all institutions. The outcome will be useful in driving information technology programs in the future.

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting of the Technology Advisory Board will be Wednesday, March 16, 2005, at 2:30 PM, in the 4th Floor Conference Room, Andy Holt Tower.

Minutes by: Karen Tadlock