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EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY
COMMITTEE
10/05/2005, 12:30-2:00 pm
ATTENDEES:
Diana Cohn, Tom Dolen, Jamie Doll, Linda Elvin, David Gillett, Scott Heffner,
Chuck Lindauer, Willie Pritchard, Jefferson Shirley, John Swensson
GUESTS: Sharon Luciw
Convened: 12:34 pm
1. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE LAST MEETING
· Will stand approved as posted
2. INTRODUCTIONS
· New committee member - Diana Cohn
· David Gillett – will be representing CS Classified
Senate instead of the DA classified senate
3. ESTABLISH REGULAR MEETING TIME AND LOCATIONS
· After the first initial one or two meetings, most
meetings will be via videoconferencing
· There was no time conflict with those members who attended
this meeting, so our meetings will be scheduled for the first and third Wednesdays
of each month
4. EXPECTATIONS/GROUP NORMS
· Membership is made up of two representatives from each of
the employee groups; as well as one employee each from CS and FA, and one
student from each campus
It is expected that each member will be communicating with their constituency
group to solicit input and to keep them up to speed on what ETAC is discussing
as well as any action steps that the committee is taking
· Decisions and recommendations from committee members should
be based upon what is best for the district as a whole and not necessarily
what is best for an individual constituency group
· The committee rarely votes on an issue, it usually reaches
a consensus and that is what we will always try to get
· Prior minutes and the agenda for the upcoming meeting are posted
on the ETAC website (http://ets.fhda.edu/etac), at least 24 hours before a meeting
The assumption is that all committee members have reviewed the minutes
and the agenda before coming to the meeting
· All agenda item recommendations, from the committee, are
welcome
Please let Willie or Pam know, by e-mail, at least 24 hours in advance
of a meeting
· As a rule, all handouts are distributed electronically
Prior to a meeting, each committee member receives an email with all necessary
attachments and links to the prior meetings minutes and the current meetings
agenda
In general, the location and time listed in the email will be more accurate
than the Meeting Maker proposal
· The normal process of a meeting is to approve the minutes
from the previous meeting; go into any subcommittee reports, general news
updates; any current issues and any other items from the committee
5. SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS – HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE STANDARDS COMMITTEE
· The committee met yesterday, October 4th
Usually meet once a month, on the first Tuesday of the month
Reviewed the hardware and software standards to see if there were any changes
The first meeting of every academic year is generally very comprehensive
Tried to look at everything because it has been 3 to 4 months since the
last meeting
· The only substantive change to the standards was to the Dell
desktop, which has been discontinued
Try to keep the new configuration as close to the previous model as possible
The price of the new model has gone up slightly
· Will talk about peripheral standards at the next meeting
· There was some discussion about
the email client
There has been some dissatisfaction expressed
about Eudora
At this time there has been no decision made
to change the email client
There was a suggestion to change to Mozilla
Thunderbird – an open source application
6. GENERAL NEWS UPDATES – STATEGIC
PLAN, SECURITY ISSUES, PORTAL POJECT, ID MANAGEMNET, WIRELESS, MEASURE E,
SPAM DATA
· Strategic Plan - not able to get through the whole process
before the end of the academic year
Still on the agenda for the CAC to discuss and take action
It is not on the October 28th agenda, but will be on the agenda for November
4th
The accreditation teams will have it as a document in process rather than
completed
Has already been taken to each college governance group: The Round Table
at FH & The College Council at DA – both groups have already provided
input
Willie thanked everyone on the committee for their hard work last year in
completing the document
· Security Issues
Security has become a growing concern for several reasons and therefore
there has been formed, within ETS, a specific security taskforce to look
at specific security matters in the District:
The Taskforce has been divided into two groups:
One group focuses on finding technology solutions to help improve security
in the District
One group focuses on user education – what can we do to help users
understand how critical it is to maintain the security of our system as
well as our data? The group is looking into ways of educating our general
population about what an individual user can do to protect their systems
and their data
There has been increasing activity by outside agents, snooping around in
our network and causing network problems
The development of the portal and distribution of confidential data throughout
our network is also requiring more security
· Portal Project
ETS did three presentations on the Portal on opening day
The first two were demos and the last one was a hands-on with dummy accounts
Currently we have a portal environment that is ready to go from a technical
point of view, but not a user interface point of view. It does not have
a robust enough set of portlets and still needs an ID Management
Willie will be meeting with senior management from both colleges to collect
from them their priorities on portlet development to make it more robust
This process will be starting next week
Our staff is now significantly proficient at creating portlets and eager
to get started
Hoping to start, by mid-December, testing with real users
Full implementation for all students and employees is being held back by
our ID Management bid document
Still need the user interface from each campus' marketing department
ETS is open to suggestions for portlets, from anyone, and is currently compiling
lists
John Swensson would like to see a La Voz portlet for De Anza
· ID management
We are in our third attempt to release a request for invitations to bid
– hoping it will go out next week allowing us to be able to go to
the Board, for approval, in the Dec-Jan time frame
Have already gone out twice and were unable to find responsible bidders
This will allow us to manage a huge number of accounts on a large number
of systems (ie. e-mail, Meeting Maker, FR, HR, SIS, etc)
Will help us bring our resources not only to our employees but also to our
students
Will allow us to go live with our portal for large numbers of students
Will allow for a single sign on
The initial, beginning cost will probably be around $150K - $250K and then
yearly license fees
The initial costs will also include the implementation
Will also be needed for our wireless project
· Wireless
Have issued an invitation to bid for ubiquitous wireless throughout both
campuses
The bid opening was held last week
Will go through about a month long process of reviewing bids and inviting
vendors to make demonstrations
Looking specifically for the hardware (the access points that will be distributed
through the campuses), as well as management software that will allow us
to manage the wireless network once it is up and going
Had a fairly good number of bidders – 6 in all. Hoping to have a good
selection to choose from
Targeting late November – early December to take to the Board for
approval
Will need to set up some designated areas on each campus for phase I, to
do testing
Already have some designated areas on the Foothill campus
Will probably take two years before there is pervasive wireless everywhere
Currently there are wireless hot spots on both campuses
· Measure E
There are two new buildings open on the DA campus – they are not
completely operational from a technology point of view – still in
the process of getting the bugs worked out
The effort of trying to get the new DA buildings on line; renovations on
the S quad along with the changes on the FH campus have heavily impacted
ETS (Networks & Tech Services)
There were many schedule changes in order to have buildings open for
the start of fall quarter
Managers form the campuses set the move priorities for ETS
After Measure E the priorities are: office shuffles; moving those who are
already here; replacing staff computers
John Swensson felt that his information should be in NewsBytes
Measure E mainly impacts Sharon's groups for desktops, the network and
telephones, not so much the Information group
· Spam Data
Data related to our spam filter was handed out to committee members
Approximately 2/3 – 3/4 of our e-mail is known spam
1/4 - 1/3 is legitimate mail
Known viruses that we don't let in and those marked [Bulk] are a relatively
small amount
thisISspam@fhda.edu
& thisisNOTspam@fhda.edu
are two legitimate e-mail addresses
If you get an e-mail that is not marked as [Bulk] and you think it is
spam, forward it to: <u
style='text-underline:#003565'>thisISspam@fhda.edu
If you get an e-mail that is marked [Bulk] and it is spam forward it
onto: <a
href="mailto:thisISspam@fhda.edu">thisISspam@fhda.edu
If you get an e-mail that is marked as [Bulk] and know that it is not
spam send it to: thisisNOTspam@fhda.edu
If using the District standard, Eudora, you can filter spam right to
the trash or a folder that you indicate
There are directions on our website that explain how to do this. Go
to: <a
href="http://ets.fhda.edu/call_center/email">http://ets.fhda.edu/call_center/email,
under the FAQs for the Eudora email client
7. CURRENT ISSUES AND GOALS FOR THE YEAR
– STRATEGIC PLAN APPPROVAL, SECURITY AWARENESS, PORTLET PRIORITIZATION
PROCESS, SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENTS, AND COMMUNICATION ASSISTANCE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT
AGENCIES (CALEA)
· The Strategic Plan – needs to be approved by the CAC
· Security Awareness – need to promote among our users
Will be doing things in each issue of NewsBytes regarding security
Currently in the process of putting together special training for the managers
so they can understand and articulate it to their staff
Targeting one of the monthly Administrators/Supervisors Meetings to do
a training on security
Need to make sure users are aware, as we move to more mobile technology,
that if they store confidential information on their computer or any removable
media they are a security risk
· Portlet Prioritization Process – We will be getting
more detail on what we need to develop, and in what priority order, from the
colleges', CS's management and the governance process
· Service Level Agreements – ETS has been working behind
the scenes to put together what our service levels for specific kinds of activities
are, so we can share them with the general population to inform them what
we will do and under what conditions
Hope to have the document complete by this fall
Will bring to ETAC for input and approval
· CALEA – This is a new Federal regulation relating to
our networks
A year or two ago a federal regulation - SEVIS –came out pertaining
to our international students, which came out of the Patriot Act and the
9/11 incident
ETS had to make a lot of adjustments to our student information system
for international students
We have to do a lot of reporting to the Fed's related to our international
students, such as what grades they get, what courses they take, if they
are full time students – which they must be, etc
When the FCC (Federal Communication Commission) issues the statement –
we will have 18 months to comply with this new regulation
We have to have our network in a condition so that law enforcement agencies,
with a legitimate warrant can do surveillance on our network
This is a Federal law that higher Ed institutions have been fighting for
a while
Still waiting to see what it will mean for us but it has the potential
for a great deal of expense in a very short time frame
8. OTHER ITEMS FROM THE COMMITTEE
· A question was raised about what our standard browser is
Firefox is currently our standard browser on both Windows & Mac
However, since many websites are written specifically to IE, ETS will continue
to install it on machines
For security reasons ETS is encouraging users to use Firefox as much as
they can and move away from IE
ETS installs Safari on the Mac's, but there are some compatibility problems
with it on some websites
· Staff can now remotely access their pay stub online, both
from on campus and off campus
· Tiger OS is not yet a standard for the Mac; ETS staff are
doing testing
· The next bond issue that is being discussed will have a direct
impact on technology
The state does not currently fund us adequately for technology
The state started funding us in the late nineties through 2000 with "Instructional
Equipment Money" which they said would be ongoing, but took away
when the state started having budgetary problems
The district does not have much money to refresh or buy new technology
except under other funding sources
Under the proposed bond issue, the funds would be pulled down at periodic
intervals to refresh technology throughout the District (desktops; network
equipment; phone switch; servers in the data center & a new information
system to replace our SI, FR & HR systems)
This bond issue will not help with funding for new staff; however, a year
after any new buildings come on line, the state does allocate more money
for the maintenance of those buildings
Because of the DA Science center, there will be new staff for custodial,
building maintenance & one new position for ETS (Network Engineer)
A year form know, when this year's new buildings are a year old, there
will be additional funding to hire new staff
The bond issue will go to the voters in June or November of 2006 or November
of 2007 – The Board of Trustees must approve the issuance of a bond
and decide when it will happen
· Starting with winter registration (in November) we will be
implementing an alternate ID for our students
All the information, for the alternate ID, will be available when the student
goes to register
We will still need the students SS# for some things but their alternate
ID will be what will be what we primarily use (for such uses as faculty
class roster, grade sheets, etc.)
· Willie handed out a document, that he put together, about
the use of open source software in our district
A copy will be e-mailed to committee members and posted to the ETAC web
site
· Normally the committee meets the first and third Wednesdays
of the month but Willie will be out of town on October 19th so
the committee will not meet again until November 2nd
Adjourned: 2:03 pm
Next Meeting: Wednesday, November 2, 12:30 – 2:00 PM via videoconferencing
– DA LCW 26 & FH ISC Conference Rm
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