Committee meeting - September 23, 2021

Carol Lu   
Secretary to the Committee   
September 23, 2021
   
Present: Adam Savage, Andrea Chappell, Andrew McAlorum, Don Duff-McCracken, Erick Engelke, Greg Parks, Lawrence Folland, Paul Miskovsky, Pratik Patel, Steven Bourque, Trevor Bain

Guest: Mathew Thijssen, Koorus Bookan

Regrets: Daryl Dore, Greg Smith, Bill Baer,Jason Testart, Robyn Landers
 
Agenda   

  1. Presentation: Sustainable IT (Mathew Thijssen, Andrew McAlorum) [20 min.]
  2. Web Conferencing (Koorus Bookan) [15 min.]
  3. Chair’s remarks (Steven Bourque) [5 min.]
  4. Approval of the minutes from Thursday August 26, 2021 [5 min.]
  5. Start of the term student percentages (Erick Engelke) [5 min.]
  6. Wireless network discussion (Erick Engelke, Don Duff-McCracken) [15 min.] 
  7. Duo 4.0.0 discussion (Erick Engelke) [5 min.]
  8. Other business and roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  9. Next CTSC Meeting [Will be held Thursday October 7 at 1:30 p.m.]

Presentation: Sustainable IT (Mathew Thijssen, Andrew McAlorum)

  • Mathew Thijssen and Andrew McAlorum gave a presentation on the Sustainable IT project.

Comments and discussion

  • CTSC members are in favour of the proposed suggestions to improve IT sustainability on campus

Web Conferencing (Koorus Bookan)

  • Configuration, training and other preparation to roll out Zoom on campus was done this past summer
  • ITMS plans to consolidate some of the existing instructional tech tools (Zoom, Teams, Webex, Adobe Connect) in the near future
  • This Fall term introduced additional complexity for web conferencing
    • New hardware has been introduced to accommodate hybrid environments
  • Engineering reported issues with getting a clear picture of blackboards and whiteboards on camera
    • This can be due to one or many factors including hardware, software, and network connections
  • Users are encouraged to report any web conferencing issues to ITMS
  • The migration of existing Zoom users to the campus license began in May
    • There are 2500 pro licenses and 1700 basic licenses
  • There were some complications this term with co-op students not having a Zoom license assigned at the start of the term
    • In most cases this was caused by a delay in the co-op hiring process (e.g. HR paperwork, user did not claim their Workday account, etc.)
  • Users are currently able to log in using ADFS or through the Zoom site
    • If a user goes to zoom.us and creates a new account with their @uwaterloo.ca email address, they will not be redirected to the UW ADFS log in page
  • Some Zoom users have reported issues with video resolution 
  • Some users have multiple zoom accounts (one with their @uwaterloo.ca email address and one with a Gmail email address)
    • Users may not realize they are logged in to one account while trying to access the other
  • No issues to report with Webex
  • Between Zoom and Webex usage, usage is approximately 60% Zoom and 40% Webex

Comments and discussion

  • Environment has been using Zoom Webinars; the tool has been working well so far
  • Regular Zoom meetings can be configured to mimic Zoom Webinar functionality; users who have less than 300 attendees can use this workaround instead of creating a Webinar

Chair's remarks

  • No remarks.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting 

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

Start of the term student percentages (Erick Engelke)

  • 80% of Engineering students are back on-campus; what does on-campus presence look like for other groups this term? 

Comments and discussion

  • IST staff that are required to be on-site to do their work are on-campus (e.g. Service Desk, TIS, IST Account Reps)
  • Library staff have been on-campus 1 day/week and will be transitioning to 3 days/week in November
    • A lot of student presence in both libraries
  • Science has a lot of staff on-campus but not a lot of students
    • IT staff are mostly doing hardware repairs for old equipment that is starting to fail
  • Health usually has 2/4 IT staff on-campus
    • A lot of support with printing
    • More graduate students on campus than undergraduate
  • Computer Science has a few staff on-campus throughout the week
    • No labs are in use for the Fall term so far; labs are not opened currently
    • Sparse student presence
    • Computer Science leadership is encouraging WFH for as long as possible
  • Environment
    • Labs are fully booked this year; labs are at 50% in-person capacity
  • WUSA
    • SLC has significant student presence
    • Staff are on-campus 50% of the time

Wireless network discussion (Erick Engelke, Don Duff-McCracken)

  • Are there any updates available regarding the recent wireless issues? 

Comments and discussion

  • IST performed an emergency software downgrade to fix the issue with ~300 offline access points
  • Network Services will be reloading to a previous software version to resolve an issue with some devices being sporadically blocked from joining the network
  • Most network bugs have been identified found and fixed
  • Please report any persisting issues to IST
  • Cisco is aware of these issues and is treating all issues as highest priority
    • Severity 1 support being provided; Cisco technicians are available for 24-hour support
  • Issues with Captive Portal have also been reported
  • More high-level information regarding network issues to be shared with CTSC in the future
  • There is a plan to start the dynamic DNS project in the near future, when budget and time allow
  • Campus check-in should be working properly now
    • Students in residence were receiving emails because their location was not being captured; this has now been fixed

Duo 4.0.0 discussion (Erick Engelke)

  • Are there any significant changes to functionality with Duo 4.0.0? 

Comments and discussion

Other Business/Roundtable 

  • Not conducted due to time constraints.