Committee Meeting - April 2, 2015

Darren Bondy
Secretary to the Committee
April 13, 2015

Present: 

Bruce Campbell (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Andrea Chappell, Erick Engelke, Bob Hicks, Bill Ince, Dawn Keenan, David Kibble, Robyn Landers, Paul Miskovsky, Carl Nagel, Terry Stewart, Jason Testart

Guests:

Connie van Oostveen

Regrets:

Marko Dumancic, Sati Singh

Agenda

7. Next CTSC Meeting

[Will be held Thursday, April 19, 2015, at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 111.]

Chair’s Remarks (Bruce Campbell)

• Campbell announced that he is happy to serve as your interim CIO; it will be business as usual during the interim period and we can continue to bring things forward.
• Members expressed their gratitude and appreciation of Dave Wallace for his hard work and dedication to this group.

Pain Points discussion

Dave Kibble distributed a list of pain points accompanied by analysis to the committee in advance of the meeting.

• Members were asked to review and ask questions or provide comment.
• Is there a way to measure the improvement in usability? Are we assuming that updating the software will improve usability?
  • Improvements to User Interfaces (UI) should improve usability for systems.
  • Adding additional hardware can also help with the speed of slow systems.
• All of our core application systems are 6-10 years old; upgrading the hardware is important to improve the performance of those systems.
• Has the cell service improved since the cell tower has gone live?
  • Yes. But it is currently only for Rogers customers; other carriers are allowed to negotiate with Rogers to add their antennas.
  • If some buildings are still experiencing issues we are still able to provide repeaters in buildings at a price.
  • A presentation at CANHEIT explained how carriers can come in and outfit an entire building.
  • This topic will require more investigation and thought.
• Should we promote a more broad use of RT on campus?
  • Using it for Plant Ops, as an example, would provide a better paper trail for us instead of the current process.
  • This requires more investigation.
• If members would like a larger discussion on a specific pain point we can add it to a future agenda.

IST Projects for 2015/16 summary list

Dave Kibble distributed the project list for 2015/2016 to members in advance of the meeting. Members were asked to review and ask questions or provide comment.

Cloud-based Student Email Services project

Trevor Bain distributed the draft charter for the Undergraduate Student Email in the Cloud project via email.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes from the meeting on March 19^th, were accepted as distributed.

Roundtable Reporting

Bruce Campbell

• In the past 6 months, UCIST has created a long term agenda (6 months); would like to do something similar for this committee.
  • We would follow up on items like the specific pain points (Cell service, RT for Plant Ops etc).
  • At the next CTSC meeting, as a committee we can discuss some of the bigger topics we would like to address at our meetings.

IT Security (Jason Testart)

• An email was sent to CTSC members regarding the license for Symantec end-point protection.
  • The quote we received was much higher than we thought it would be.
  • Undergraduates are not using it and the cost to provide it for them is high.
  • There are lots of options available for free that we can communicate to students.
  • Members agree that discontinuing the license for undergraduate students makes sense.
  • UCIST will be asked to provide their thoughts on this as well.
  • The students will be addressed regarding this potential change in strategic direction.

Science (Paul Miskovsky)

• Dean of Math contacted us regarding an issue with eValuate; we fixed it right away.
  • A student was able to manipulate the token displayed in the URL and was able to access other surveys.
  • We are confident that we have no further issues regarding that.

Computer Science (Bill Ince)

• We now have 1 CS subnet with “default deny” rules.
• The University of Windsor has been visiting campus recently because they are doing a re-org; visited CS this past week.
• The dry line fire suppression has finally been installed in the server room that had the flood a while ago.
• Regarding e-signage, Plant Ops had told us there was no governing policy in place for installing signs; this has been discussed with this committee in the past.

Library (Carl Nagel)

• Who should we contact regarding moving our AV equipment/cabling around in a teaching room?
  • Contact Marcel David.

Client Services, IST (Bob Hicks)

• Dell will be increasing their prices any day now because of how weak the Canadian dollar is.
• If anyone is going to OUCC and is interested in commuting with other members from campus, contact Lawrence Folland.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held on April 16, 2015 at 1:30pm, in EC2 111.