ACO Meeting Minutes April 11, 2019

Minutes of the Arts Computing Department meeting held on April 11, 2019

Present:  S. Hartung, B. Baer, R. Park, H. Balagtas, S. Speers, N. Bromley, S. Paterson, J. Schildroth, T. Marshall-Taylor

Co-ops:   D. Zia, K. Fraser, W. Kwan

Regrets:  W. Lewis (on parental leave), M. Byerley, C. Wallace

Attendees:

  • Sherry
    • Thank you to everyone who had their agenda items ready to go when I got in J
    • 2019 UW Staff Conference was held April 8th and 9th (Next year’s is April 6th & 7th, 2020).
      • Overall theme was communication, empathy towards others (unconscious bias) and awareness of how technological change affects people.
      • The keynote speakers were excellent, especially Celeste Headlee's talk about "We Need to Talk: Having Better Conversations", and Ilana Ben-Ari's "Empathy is the #1 Job Skill: The Future of Work & Learning" (Empathy Toy $499 CDN)). The other keynote speakers were, Robin Esrock, Canada’s Bucket List, and Laura Vanderkam, 168 Hours: Succeeding at Work and Life, 24/7.
      •  Workshops I attended:
        • "Beyond Technology: The importance of people and process during system implementation", was presented by HR, and provided a better understanding of what went on behind implementing Workday. It was a two year process, and there was a lot going on behind the scenes we didn’t know about. Tools to track the project were discussed as well as the communication done to prepare everyone of Workday coming. Much was done to minimize the impact this technological change was going to have on everyone affected across campus.
        • "Leading Change: Planning for Organizational Change" workshop outlined Change Management tools from ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement) model.
        • "Huddle Boards" workshop showed how it can help a department understand what everyone is working on and balance workloads. It's similar to a Kanban board, but different, but the two can be combined for use. The huddle board process is held on a regular basis for no more than 15 minutes with everyone standing. It is meant to just outline what everyone is doing and any resulting issues are taken off line to address.
        • "Let's Chat About Unconscious Bias!" discussed various unconscious biases people have, based on race, identity, dress, position, education, etc., and tips to curb it. The biggest one is getting to know the person BEFORE placing judgement.
    • Paper course evaluations have been received. Drop boxes have been closed for the term. Will be getting the paper evaluations ready for scanning today.
      • Action: Sherry to provide Bob with a list of paper envelopes not received that we were expecting.
  • Bill B.
    • CTSC updates:
      • Guest access to WiFi
        • CANARIE is working on another type of Eduroam guest WiFi access service.
        • Testing of Aruba’s guest WiFi was delayed due to cascade of technical issues.
        • NetID still maybe required since IST not sure either or both new guest access have all requirements.
      • GitHub
        • Finally being updated and will have dedicated staff to maintain and keep up to date.
      • Grouper
        • ENV has discovered some data issues with Quest feeds and investigating data accuracy.
      • WIN7 to WIN10 updates
        • All faculties are working on; e.g. ENG has 95++ WIN7, Arts in good shape with only about 41 left.
      • WIN10
        • Library HAS indicated some issues with WIN10 OS (CPU theft & memory issues).
      • IST IDM security
        • Will be piloting a new service to test strength of password (new) e.g. has it already been hacked.
        • Copy Shaw-hash DB on site and wrap with API.
        • Similar to Royal Roads.
      • New Math 4 building will be built on the final parking lot (Lot L) inside Ring Road.
      • Marco Dumancic, Director of ENV IST group retires July 1st, 2019. Donald Duff-McCracken will be acting Director.
    • Team Develpment exercise is planned to happen in the next couple of weeks. An email will be coming from The Human Factor with more details requiring your participation.
  • Bob
    • UCIST meeting to be held on Friday, April 12th. One of topics will be data and software storage, and file retention of departed faculty members.
  • David
    • Continuing to work through the list of Windows 10 upgrades for faculty and staff.
    • Added reminder emails and the menu page for the Event App project.
    • Hot spare deployed.
  • Kayle
    • Finished putting together the Spring 2019 Newsletter which will be published April 22nd.
    • Continuing to record Scinage tutorial videos.
    • Job shadow day with Jackie today!
  • Wesley
    • Continued working through machines needing to be updated from Windows 7 to 10
    • The Event App has been updated with the following
      • Home page view for users added with acceptance/decline features added.
      • Print view made.
      • Other small features added to event/orders form.
    • Will provide WatIAM support for Renison for their Spring English orientation today and tomorrow.
  • Herbert
    • Assisting Mac users with configuring printers (Communication Arts, ECON, Political Science).
    • Awaiting reply from Joel Blit (ECON) regarding his inquiry about hosting a patent database on campus.
    • Checked Nicolas Hebbinckuys' (Communication Arts) iMac. It was indeed slow and it's likely he needs a much faster machine for video editing.
    • Re-imaged desktop for Shana MacDonald.
    • Provided assistance to Communication Arts for their job hiring.
    • Finalizing minor features for OFAS3 (reports).
  • Sean
    • CAF (Course Approval Form) updates for upcoming Fall selections.
    • Cleaned out Keith's old office. Wiped and surplussed machines. Several spare hard drives have been wiped and put in the shred box in PAS 1084. The could be used for temporary storage or replace broken drives on out of warranty machines, by putting in toaster.
    • Removed Keith from various security groups and mailing lists.
    • Assisted Frank Tompa with fixing the Campsey search CGI that was vulnerable to XSS. Issue should be fixed and the program is back in place on Watarts.
    • Put newer version of munkireports in place and pushed out to production. Has more information than previous version such as failing fans, security information, find my Mac details. Herbert also has access.
    • Replaced Arts recruitment's failing MacBook Pro with spare MacBook Air. Was able to recover Camtasia key from failed old(>5 years) MacBook Pro.
    • Fixed issue with SAF Drupal web form. Javascript bug caused by nested labels.
    • Fixed issue with Cantus JSON downloads. New server needed missing PHP module.
    • Processed online evaluations, Mirko made some slight changes to JSON download so had to update my code. Printed red sheets so ready to process paper evaluations.
  • Nevil
    • Set permissions of artsprint SAF printers so Colin Wallace can modify settings / drivers for SAF printers remotely manage.
    • Updated Managed By property on security groups that Keith was in charge of.
    • Discovered St. Paul’s Windows 10 machines didn't pick up 1803 upgrade. Fixed it with 1809 upgrade.
  • Scott
    • Added Psych printer.
    • Skype 7 was deployed to a collection based on a security group. Testing Skype for Desktop 8 deployment. Skype 7 no longer supported and users get a popup to upgrade. If they click on the upgrade, the get Skype For Business instead of Skype 8.
    • SAS license signed. IST to upgrade number of CPU's available based on expanded license of 500 users, so it should cover anybody in Arts Faculty. More interest since SWORDC put on the SAS Workshop. Stéphanie wants to use it in ECON, and SAF to use it for 20 people.
    • Quotes for MS Server 2016 license (end of life July 2019) for St. Paul's. Waiting to hear from St. Paul's for a StarRez contact to make sure StarRez (end of life Jan 2020) works on Server 2016. Need to determine if the free version of MS SQL works or if a new licensing is required (license for that is $3,780).
    • SAF systems upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 (16 at once). Colin said that Windows 7 was removed but no Windows 10 was installed after for 11 of those systems. He was hand installing those systems with some flavour of Windows 10.
    • Job Shadow Days upcoming.
    • Windows 1809 upgrade to Arts Offices, Psych Production, St. Paul's, available April 10th, required May 1st.
  • Jameson
    • Provided exam Support for AFM 433 on April 10th in PAS 1237.
    • Provided PHD Defense support on April 3rd for English in HH 373.
    • SWORDC:
      • Pat reported issues with users not able to log into workstations on March 29th. Issues turned out to be a province wide outage with Stats Canada.
      • Prepped new computer for deployment.
    • Working on PAS 2464 Meeting Room Project.
    • Games Institute:
      • Pushed out Windows 10 - 1809 to all computers.
  • Todd
    • Attended the Workday refresher, “Casual/Student Hiring and Time Entry”.
    • Has received a quote but needs approval to reopen the RT for the sound processors for ML 117/ML 101.
      • Meeting Discussion: Bill advised that the quote has been sent to the budget committee to review and approve for inclusion in 2020 (May 1st 2019 to April 3th 2020) fiscal budget.
    • One exam in ML 117 held April 10th.
    • One lab assistant hired for Spring Term in ML 110.
    • SPAN 101 SPAN 102 lab TA (Juan Francisco Arias) is not an undergrad, but not being paid by the lab.
    • SPAN 101 SPAN 102 interest in switching to ML 109 to be more collaborative.
    • Following up with users after update to Windows 10.
    • 'Vintage' Sessional Workstation in ML 217 (ACO 10253) for Germanic & Slavic Studies needs upgrading.
    • Nearly all key fobs have been returned for ML 117. The Chair of Communication Arts will have a key fob ongoing. That provides someone with a key fob as back up if necessary.
    • Received a Fedex bill meant for Mechanical and Mechatronics Eng. This has been redirected to them for payment.