ACO Meeting Minutes March 28, 2019

Minutes of the Arts Computing Department meeting held on March 28th, 2019

Present:  S. Hartung, B. Baer, R. Park, K. McGowan, 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
    • ACO base budget and special requests for all of Arts has been presented.
    • Unless product has a guaranteed arrival in ACO before April 30th, there will be no more ordering for this current fiscal.
    • Winter 2019 Course Evaluations are underway. Of the 840 evaluations (including CEL) being done, 136 do not have any responses yet, so the majority already have responses.
    • Catching up on tasks put on hold due to budget work.
  • Bill B.
    • CTSC meeting cancelled as no agenda items, so nothing to report.
    • Have now gone through the budget process and all that is involved. Going to work on providing better scope and streamlining information presented for future budget presentations.
    • There was much interest in our budget presentation of switching to VOIP and the potential cost savings. There is a $100 cost up front but $10 per month savings. Arts buildings require POE (power over internet) so that 911 still works before the switch can be made.
  • Bob
    • Nothing to report.
  • David
    • Continue to going through the Windows 7 to 10 upgrade list. Average of 4 to 6 machines upgraded a week.
    • Hot Spare laptops loaned to the Student Engagement Event were returned this past Tuesday.
    • Worked on the ACO Event app:
      • added ability to add users to events
      • added ability for individual to choose their own meals.
  • Kayle
    • History department asked to have nine more slides created for their Fall 2019 courses. Has also looking for help to update their Youtube channel.
      • Meeting Discussion: This could be a new opportunity to help other departments. Do we have the capacity to do it? Scott advised this is not a regular duty of the ACO Technical Writer, but the responsibility of the department. The Technical Writer could create a pdf or PowerPoint and give to the department for them to create the slides.
    • Continuing to create Scinage tutorial videos.
    • Updating ACO website. Will need to make further changes with Keith’s retirement.
  • Wesley
    • Have been upgrading the Windows 7 machines to Windows 10.
    • Update on Event App:
      • File (e.g. pdf of menus) uploading and deletion has been added.
      • Location editing, deletion, and creation has been finalized
      • Currently working on adding a home page that displays events for users.
    • Have had a number of people in to the Help Desk requiring assistance moving to artsprint server documentation sent by Nevil. Understanding of the documentation is split that it is pretty clear or not understood.
  • Keith
    • Updated the firmware on the environmental monitors. Documentation updated under Hardware in OneNote.
    • Machine room has been cleaned up.
      • Action: Sherry to arrange surplussing of the blue magnetic tape cabinet.
    • Updated the firmware on three UPSs in PAS 1099A. Documentation updated under Hardware in OneNote.
  • Herbert
    • Update on OFAS:
    • Configured for production server
    • There's still one job that is live for Communication Arts with a submission deadline of April 18th. Made the old server internal until Committee is done reviewing applicants. Referee submission deadline is April 26th. I'll talk with Sylvia about removing the referee submission option and have applicant referees send the files to her, so she will still be able to attach the files to the applicant records.
  • Sean
    • Migrated French-Exercises, Agora, Abbot to EC2 VPS.
    • Drupal core security updates applied.
    • Older 2008 HP driver caused printer spooler crash on artsprint. Restarting spooler fixed issue.
    • nhebbinc slow iMac traced back to Dropbox client. Dropbox + thousands of files + APFS + spinning HD = performance death.
    • Setup publicgermanstudies.org Wordpress hosting on Agora for James Skidmore.
    • Migrated cantus.uwaterloo.ca from 14.04 to new 18.04 machine hosted in EC2 VPS.
    • Office 2016, Flash, Dropbox, Chrome, Thunderbird updated for managed Macs.
    • Created generic acommuni account to be used by Arts Communications co-op next term. I will also prepare a loaner iMac/MacBook for them.
    • Bent vga pin on connector for projector in PAS 2438. Caused by inserting vga adpator upside down. Bent pin back in place. Second time it's happened so may break completely. I will install a VGA extender so fragile cable isn't exposed as much to re-connections.
  • Nevil
    • Updated Deep Freeze server in SWORDC.
    • Removed Google Chrome cache from roaming profiles after long logons reported in HH 280.
    • Started testing One Drive as N: drive replacement for Staff. Meeting with AHS and IST to collaborate on settings. It is possible the student tenant may be merged with the staff and faculty tenant to allow configuration for user to connect tenant ID instead of configured on per machine basis. AHA, SCI and ENV have done this. Not sure about ENG. Math interested, but not now.
    • A few people still reporting that printing is not working. They are being migrated to artsprint.
    • WNAG planning on starting to use Microsoft Teams.
  • Scott
    • Update of FACCUS meeting:
      • Grouper update and demo given by Sean M. Grouper is moving forward and away from active directory. Groups update automatically once a day, but can do an immediate update manually.
      • Exam Management System update by Andrew M. Need to look at a replacement for Scantron which is 12 years old and breaks down regularly. Looking at Crowdmark cloud based system. Whatever new system chosen will need to integrate all aspects of exam scanning, printing and marking, as well as processing paper course evaluations.
      • Office 365 Assessment and Planning project update by Andrew M. Investigating moving all email to Office 365. Different groups would be handled differently. Majority of other institutions have moved to the cloud already. To do so provides cost savings, security benefits and enhanced productivity. Potential implementation January 2020.
      • Guest wireless update by Matt H. It would provide access to web, mail and VPN, but all other systems would be blocked.
      • Adobe Acrobat Pro Licensing model update by Sandra L. Current v2017 licensing available on IST Webstore at $110 per copy as a perpetual model until end of use in June 2022. The next version will be subscription based model paid yearly, the same as Creative Suite at a cost of $15.00 US plus tax a month or $180 US yearly. An additional 250 copies have been ordered to take us to end of 2019. IST is working on a Knowledge Base article to help people determine if they need Acrobat Pro or if they can user alternative apps such as MS Office at a lower cost.
      • See Mar 27 2019 FACCUS meeting agenda for further details of meeting discussions.
    • W7-10 upgrades progressing nicely. Down to 71 as of yesterday. Some people are on sabbatical and requesting the upgrade wait until late August or early Sept.
    • St Paul's StarRez server upgrade. Server 2008 R2 end of life same as W7. SQL Server end of life July 9, 2019. Server 2016 quoted as waiting for SQL server.
    • Working with Dean of Arts Communication team for the ACO Technical Writer to help update the Faculty of Arts YouTube channel. Technical Writer job description should be updated to reflect the working relationship with the Dean of Arts Communications team for Scinage, YouTube, expertise database, etc.
  • Jameson
    • Looked for information from IT Telecom for purchasing an IP conference phone to be used for various meetings where Skype may not be used and a simple phone conference is needed. Will be programmed with an extension and can be used in any room there is an active network port.
      • Action: Sherry to follow up on ordering status.
    • Worked with Sean to get three URL's from the Games Institute DNS updated to reflect the new IP.
    • Met with ITMS and other key stakeholders regarding our Meeting Room project to spec out the AV technology requirements and get a quote. Have received quote but will need to revisit due to budget.
    • Found some issues with Vanguard site where it displays connection timeout errors. Still in the process of investigating/identifying the cause and implementing a fix.
  • Todd
    • Construction in ML 109 appears to be on hold so booking as normal for Spring term.
    • One lab assistant staying on.
    • RT submitted to get pricing for BSS sound processor in ML 101, which serves sound there and in ML 117.
    • Following up on returns of ML 117/ ML 101 keyfobs for redistribution for Spring term.
    • SPCOM co-op providing room access and assistance for grad students recording class presentations in ML 117. This is to allow the instructor to review in their absence.
    • System error light in ML 109, ML 101 and ML 117 has been resolved.