Committee meeting - January 10, 2019

Carol Lu
Secretary to the Committee
January 10, 2019

Present: Steven Bourque (Chair), Paul Miskovsky, Trevor Bain, Marko Dumancic, Andrea Chappell, Andrew McAlorum, Robyn Landers, Bill Baer, Jason Testart, Carol Lu (Secretary)

Regrets: Daryl Dore, Greg Smith, Omar Nafees, Adam Savage, Erick Engelke, Dave Kibble

Agenda

  1. Chair’s remarks [5 min.]
  2. Approval of the minutes of the meetings of Thursday November 29, 2018 [5 min.]
  3. Overview: Computing Technology and Services Committee (PDF) (Steven Bourque) [20 min.]
  4. Other Business [10 min.]
  5. Roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  6. Next CTSC Meeting [Will be held Thursday January 24, 2019 at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 1021.]
     

Chair’s Remarks (Steven Bourque)

  • No remarks
     

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

  • The previous meeting’s minutes were accepted as distributed.

Comments:

  • Some clarification points in regards to Andrew McAlorum’s ‘Email in the Cloud’ presentation from the November 29 meeting:
    • Graduate students with no previous affiliation to the University of Waterloo will receive a Connect email account
    • Graduates students with previous affiliation to the University of Waterloo will continue to have an Office 365 account as they are considered alumni
      • A Connect account is also created for these students
    • Retirees email accounts are not disabled at the end of employment, a request must be sent by the retirees’ department in order to have the email account disabled
    • The updated ‘Email in the Cloud’ PowerPoint has been redistributed to the committee today via Andrew’s email
       

Overview: Computing Technology and Services Committee (Steven Bourque)

  • Committee members are encouraged to provide feedback or suggestions for any changes in committee procedures and goals they would like to see

Comments & Discussion

  • Members would like to see more CTSC suggestions implemented into campus-wide IT solutions
  • CTSC would like to initiate the project to create more clear-cut, succinct messaging regarding campus-wide communications
    • Currently there is mixed messaging with IST telling people not to click on links to avoid phishing scams and other departments sending out campus-wide external links to surveys
  • May be beneficial for CTSC to send a discussion recap with suggestions to UCIST occasionally
  • There have been some pain points that have previously been addressed were never followed up on
  • CTSC should update and review the committee’s long-term agenda topics
    • Suggestion to review long-term agenda items once a term
       

Other Business

Looking for a status update on guest visitor Wi-Fi (Trevor)

  • Heard the original implementation timeline was Fall 2018

Comments & Discussion

  • A working group has been created to currently further the project along
     

Mandatory cyber security training (Trevor)

  • Having mandatory cyber security training might reduce the number of people falling victim to phishing scams
  • There are courses currently listed on LEARN, but in the future these courses could be relocated to be more accessible]

Comments & Discussion

  • The committee supports the idea of mandatory cyber security training as online security is relevant to everyone on campus
  • A report to illustrate the trend of wasted time and resources as the result of people falling for phishing scams may help support the argument for mandatory training
  • CTSC may wish to review the current content of the Information Security courses currently offered on LEARN
  • Staff and faculty need to be more aware and diligent about handling phishing scams
    • There are some employees interacting and responding to these malicious senders’ emails
    • Employees are giving out their personal information (ie. Phone numbers) and asking these senders to call them
       

Looking for an update on RFI storage (Robyn)

  • Has heard that IST may be getting rid of NetApps, wondering if IST is looking at another tiered storage option

Comments & Discussion

  • IST is currently looking for other storage solutions and looking to create a new storage strategy
    • NetApps may or may not be eliminated, this project is currently still in progress
    • There may or may not be tiered storage
    • RFI is currently closed, IST still needs to review the business case for this specific domain
       

Faculty email access after an instructor’s teaching term has ended (Bill)

  • Some faculty members are not able to access their student evaluations beyond a given deadline while others maintain access

Comments & Discussion

  • Future follow up to be provided
     

Roundtable

Client Services, IST (Andrew)

  • The IST annual report launched earlier this week and has been published in the Daily Bulletin
     

Science (Paul)

  • Department is currently reviewing the code for the Verification of Illness (VIF) system to minimize modules and libraries
  • Did not have satisfactory results with development co-ops
     

Arts (Bill Baer)

  • Had satisfactory results with development co-ops
     

Technology Integrated Services, IST (Steven)

  • There have been some organizational changes within Technology Integrated Services as mentioned in an email sent out last month

Information Security Services, IST (Jason)

  • In regards to electronic commerce environments, there is a new patching requirement
    • Critical security vulnerabilities must be patched within 30 days
  • There is currently one year left for Windows 7 support
    • There will be no additional patches after one year has passed

Environment (Marko)

  • Looking for suggestions and feedback regarding virtual reality (VR) solutions for the classroom

Comments & Discussion

  • Instructional Technologies and Media Services (ITMS) is currently speaking with Cisco regarding possible VR classrooms solutions
     

Instructional Technologies and Media Services (Andrea)

  • ITMS has added a new hire
  • Equipment loan hours are currently being updated
    • Will be during busiest traffic hours only
  • Presentation services can present at a CTSC meeting if there is interest
  • Currently looking for suggestions regarding lecture video capture
    • May look at using web conferencing in the future rather than having an IST rep film the lectures

Math (Robyn)

  • Department hires co-ops for the help center but not for development/coding