Melissa Conrad
Secretary to the Committee
February 5, 2013
Present:
Dave Wallace (Chair), Melissa Conrad (Secretary), Bill Baer, Bruce Campbell, Marko Dumancic, Erick Engelke, Bob Hicks, Bill Ince, Dawn Keenan, Dave Kibble, Robyn Landers, Paul Miskovsky, Terry Stewart, Jason Testart, Martin Timmerman
Regrets:
Pascal Calarco, Andrea Chappell
Agenda
- Chair’s remarks (1:30pm-1:40pm)
- Approval of the minutes of the meeting of January 10, 2013 and business arising (1:40pm-1:55pm)
- Tools for Email (Martin Timmerman)
- Multiple entries in Waterloo Identity Access Management (WatIAM) (Dave Kibble)
- New Co-operative Education & Career Action (CECA) system update (1:55-2:10pm, Dave Kibble)
- Student Printing update (2:10-2:25pm, Bill Baer)
- IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and Organize for Success update (2:25-2:40pm; Andrea Chappell, Dave Wallace, Bob Hicks)
- Updates (2:40-2:55pm; Various)
- Email (Martin Timmerman)
- Active Directory (Martin Timmerman)
- Green IT (Marko Dumancic)
- IT Security (Jason Testart)
- Campus Firewall Project (Bruce Campbell)
- Other business (2:55-3:00pm)
- Next Computing Technology and Services Committee (CTSC) meeting
[Will be held Thursday, February 7, 2013, at 1:30 p.m., in Mathematics & Computer building (MC) 2018A.]
Chair's remarks
Dr. Keller steps down as Provost. Geoff McBoyle will serve as Interim Provost. McBoyle has been serving on University Committee on Information Systems & Technology (UCIST); therefore, he has been working directly with us on the IT Strategic Plan and is up to date on the next steps.
Approval of the minutes of the meeting of January 10, 2013 and business arising
The minutes of the meeting of January 10, 2013 were approved as distributed.
Tools for email (Martin Timmerman)
The Campus Email Services Committee (CESC) has discussed the challenges of supporting email in a mixed environment.
Engelke expressed desire for a single tool that listed the forwarding rules in places across the various email platforms, and not simply one tool to connect and a different tool for mailservices.
Testart expanded that to suggest a tool to tell a variety of information about a user or individual, including not just email, but also security group membership, file storage location, accounts on other platforms, etc. Helpdesk staff might be in the best position to be aware of the variety of requests regarding information.
Multiple entries in WatIAM (Dave Kibble)
Some reasons include:
- An admin has created a second entry, on purpose
- Employed in the HR system by both an affiliated college and by the University they have two company records which could cause a second entry
- There is sometimes difficulty resolving that one person who is a registered student and an employee is not two different people
Kibble will ask Sean Mason to prepare a detailed report for submission to CTSC.
New CECA system update (Dave Kibble)
PDF resumes were introduced in JobMine last fall. From now on, only small regulatory enhancements and patches are planned for this system.
Major energy can now be devoted to the new system. As the result of an Request For Proposal (RFP), Orbis Communications was chosen to provide the replacement for JobMine. They have a product that is used at a number of institutions across Canada. They realize the importance of what we are doing here – this is a marquee project for the company.
An organization and governance model is being created. There is a steering committee and University Committee on Information Systems & Technology (UCIST) and CTSC will also be involved.
CTSC members have expressed interest in seeing a demonstration of the system.
Student printing update (Bill Baer)
From the Retail Services aspect of the project, team membership will include May Yan (Director), Randy Dauphin (Operations Administrator), Lauri Macleod (IT Specialist), Michael Jack (Watcard Technical Specialist) and John Jaray (CampusTech & Fleet Copier Manager).
All background information from Don Duff-McCracken and Bill Baer was shared with the team.
Information for CTSC
- Watcard Office has paid the $10,000 license fee to Heartland for the Gateway license. The free trial run from Heartland for testing between Watcard and Go Print was limited to 6 months. Faculty of Environment testing started June 2012.
- Go Print has extended their free software trial run until Feb 28, 2013. The trial run had been set to expire in December 2012.
- Retail Services to check with references from Go Print (other institutions) in the next few weeks.
- Retail Services to check with references from Go Print (other institutions) in the next few weeks.
- Heartland - to discuss what is included or not included in customization
- Go Print - to discuss configuration and management tools with Watcard.
- Although Go Print is licensed with Heartland, this is the first integration between Heartland systems and Go Print.
- Although Go Print is licensed with Heartland, this is the first integration between Heartland systems and Go Print.
- The Retail Services team, Bill Baer, and Don Duff-McCracken will meet with Procurement on January 31st to review the pre-selection process that was used to determine Go Print was the appropriate system to be piloted.
- Project charter will be drafted once feedback received from procurement.
Committee members are concerned that the implementation process has not been discussed yet.
They agree that we are seeking a better overall experience for the students, but before we go much further we need to discuss the business process. The concept needs to be defined. A terms of reference (e.g., what will be expected, what will be required, etc.) is needed.
Retail Services will be invited to an upcoming meeting to talk to CTSC about how it will work. They will also attend an upcoming UCIST meeting. The pilot can be carried on in parallel.
IT Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, and Organize for Success Initiative update (Andrea Chappell (email), Bob Hicks, Dave Wallace)
IT Strategic Plan
The project now brings together the work to date. The steering group, Univeristy Committee for Information Systems & Technology (UCIST), is identifying priority areas and initial activities. These activities will be a mix of the "things to do" (desired outcomes, gaps, new opportunities, in large part identified by the Task Force) and existing projects, all of which support the priorities. While measurement work has begun, it will not be ready for the draft, and will continue into mid-March.
Specific project activities include:
- Draft of the plan due at the end of the month, to the governance groups.
- Governance groups (Exec Advisory, UCIST, Task Force, Information Systems & Technology (IST) Management) meet on Feb. 13th for discussion of plan before release to Waterloo community.
- Some remaining input sessions are running in January.
- Task Force working on two activities: matching "things to do" to the Strategic Objectives of the Strategy Map, and work towards measurement.
- UCIST is finalizing the set of priority Strategic Objectives on which the first plan will focus, and will give input into the plan doc development by email, with a working session on Feb. 1st.
- The coordination/communications group is working on communications.
- Measurement work is guided by the consultant who worked with us on the Strategy Map, Sandy Richardson, and will continue into mid-March.
The audit of the IT Strategic plan undertaking will begin in March.
More information visit the IT Strategic plan website.
Enterprise Architecture
Mobile development platform/framework is being investigated as a possible solution for a student portal. We will need to conduct an architecture review of the mobile development platform/framework to see how it fits in with our various administrative applications and other open data.
Organize for Success
- Enhanced consultations are well underway
- 76 IST staff attended a “Fireside Chat” in Davis Center (DC) 1302
- A 2nd “Fireside Chat” will be held Monday, January 28th
- Update to Staff Relations Committee on February 8th
- In the next couple of weeks, the consultants will be completing consultations and providing options to optimize and enhance IST services (e.g., Project Management Office (PMO), risk management, enterprise architecture, etc.)
- In the next couple of weeks, the consultants will be completing consultations and providing options to optimize and enhance IST services (e.g., PMO, risk management, enterprise architecture, etc.)
- The process of populating groups will likely be a combination of appointments and expressions of interest
- Human Resources (HR) remains very involved in the process
- Investigating career paths that would benefit entire IT community
Updates
Email (Martin Timmerman)
The group discussed possibilities with respect to storing email. Within Exchange server there is archiving capability. Whether that is feature full enough is unclear. In the meantime, IST is ordering two new servers. Timmerman will review historical storage data and report back to the group.
Active Directory (AD) (Martin Timmerman)
AD Steering Committee met on January 23rd. Aiming for April with a full final transition by June. Colin Bell will provide an update to CTSC on February 7th.
Green IT (Marko Dumancic)
Dumancic reminded the group that a Hydro meeting will be held in February. An invitation was sent to the group.
IT Security (Jason Testart)
Testart reminded those who were interested in sending staff to a “Securing Windows” partnership System Administration, Networking, and Security (SANS) course to please contact him. If there is enough interest, Testart will prepare a business case and request central funding.
Campus Firewall Project (Bruce Campbell)
Progressing as planned; the core architecture is just about complete. An in-depth update will be provided at the next meeting.
Other business
XP support ends in 2014
We need to start planning for this now. It will be this upcoming budget year that people will have to buy software/hardware.
[Secretary’s note: Here is a list of operating systems for machines on Nexus]
CANHEIT
CANHEIT will be held from June 9-12, 2013, at the University of Ottawa. Anyone interested, can go to their website to submit a paper.
AODA requirements
Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) accessibility requirements for websites will come into effect on January 1, 2014. Regulations are found on the AODA website. Simply moving to the central site does not guarantee compliance; what is written and how it is written is important.
Next meeting
The next meeting will be held on February 7, 2013, at 1:30pm, in MC 2018A.