Committee Meeting - February 4, 2016

Darren Bondy
Secretary to the Committee
February 9, 2016

Present: 

Bruce Campbell (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Trevor Bain, Steven Bourque, Andrea Chappell, Marko Dumancic, Erick Engelke, Dave Gawley, Bob Hicks, Dawn Keenan, Robyn Landers, Paul Miskovsky, Carl Nagel

Regrets:

David Kibble, Sati Singh, Jason Testart

Agenda

  1. Apple Management update (Manfred Grisebach) [20 min.]
  2. Software licensing discussion (Sandra Laughlin) [20 min.]
  3. Chair’s remarks [5 min.]
  4. Approval of the minutes of the meeting of January 21, 2016 [5 min.]
  5. Other Business [5 min.]
  6. Roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  1. Next CTSC Meeting

[Will be held Thursday, February 18, 2016, at 1:30 p.m., in EC2 111.]

Apple Management update (Manfred Grisebach)

Manfred Grisebach presented an update on Apple management. Topics included:

  • Mac management
  • Options currently on campus
  • Disclaimer
  • First things first
  • Managing Macs
  • Infrastructure and expertise
  • Mac management options
    • Casper
    • Parallels Mac management
  • Final comments

View the full presentation on Apple Management (PDF).

Comments & discussion

  • What are you looking for from this committee?
    • Proposal is on the table for 3 groups (AHS, ENV and IST) to split the bill and go ahead with the Parallels Mac management solution.
    • Bruce Campbell proposed that IST attempt to fund the entirety of the bill for the current project.
  • Will not rule out that this may be something we pay for to be used centrally but also do not want to put those that do not want to use it at a disadvantage.
  • Timeline?
    • It is ready to go now; as soon as John Mayall returns we will begin implementing.
  • Other faculties will need to investigate it more thoroughly to determine if it would meet their needs for Mac management.
    • Math is currently using Casper and are happy with it at this time.
    • Computer Science is investigating solutions.
  • Next steps are to go ahead with AHS and Environment using it and observe how that is working.
    • Can discuss at a later time whether to subsidize it.

Software licensing discussion (Sandra Laughlin)

Sandra Laughlin attended the meeting to answer questions regarding software licensing.

  • Students do not have access to the webstore; we continue to process them through the service desks for the small amounts of software they need from us.
  • Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) will continue to be free this year for student labs however will have a fee next year.
    • Will definitely be looking at a reduced rate for SPSS for student labs.
  • Will Lewis is building a list of people who need access to make purchases for faculties; we did not want to open it to everyone.
    • Please contact Will Lewis if you have staff that you would like added to the list.
  • Webstore keeps a very accurate record of all purchases.
  • All forms previously signed for software purchases are stored in a database.
  • When investigating purchasing new software, you are welcome to contact Sandra at any point in the process and she can help investigate pricing etc.
  • What would the cost be to offer Microsoft Office on a Windows terminal server?
    • They license it by user or device; contact Sandra for an accurate quote of what you need.

Chair’s remarks

  • An email was distributed by Bruce Campbell regarding an update on ERP system renewals.
  • There have been some inquiries regarding coordinating donations of used computing equipment to refugees.
    • It is essentially not possible to make this happen; please refer to Policy 74 on the Secretariat’s website for further information.

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted as distributed.

Other business

None.

Roundtable Reporting

Applied Health Sciences (Trevor Bain)

  • Working on a lot of A/V things right now; our projectors are old and need to be replaced soon.
    • Beginning to create a rollover plan.

Technology Integrated Services (Steve Bourque)

  • Regarding the power failure from last week:
    • Some UPS’s failed during the power outage.
      • In DC 1 of 3 has already been replaced, 2 are being prepared for replacement.
    • Not all UPS’s are monitored and replacing them in a distributed TR design is not scale able/manageable.
    • In the next 4 years or so we will be looking at a switch refresh across campus. This may include aggregating/consolidating TRs and providing better UPS support.
    • IST installs monitoring cards in all newly deployed UPSs.

Instructional Technology and Multimedia Services (Andrea Chappell)

  • The Teaching and Learning Spaces committee has met for the first time; Beth Jewkes is chairing the committee.
    • Will be looking at everything to do with learning spaces on campus.
    • More to come on this after the committee meets again.
  • Wilfrid Laurier is looking at using the Respondus browser lockdown tool; they are trying to find out who else is interested in it.
    • Please let Andrea know if there is any interest.

Environment (Marko Dumancic)

  • Have been testing the lab safety inspection software that Science developed; very impressive, highly recommend having a look at it if you need to inspect labs often.

Computer Science (Dave Gawley)

  • Still investigating Mac management solutions; have been talking with other groups about what they are using.
    • Our staff who evaluated the Casper suite were very pleased with the tool.

Client Services, IST (Bob Hicks)

  • The PDAG seminars for the next couple of months will be updates from the various groups in IST; they will be webcast and recorded for future reference.
  • Staff and faculty now have access to the Student Portal.
  • OUCC is at Wilfrid Laurier this year and Canheit is at the University of Alberta.

Arts (Dawn Keenan)

  • We are quite happy with eValuate so far; wish more faculty would volunteer to use it.
    • Some faculty would like to use it but are unable to because they have cross-institutional courses and the system does not allow for outside students at this time.
  • A lot of time over the next two months will be dedicated to the IT audit that we are undergoing.

Math (Robyn Landers)

  • We are helping Science move along with their development of Scinage by providing virtual machines to host it.

Science (Paul Miskovsky)

  • Have been working on some widgets and layers for Scinage; opted to go with function over form – it’s nice to have it look good, but function is more important.
    • Have not started using it in production yet; trying not to overcommit resources to it at this time.
    • If anyone would like to dedicate some funding for a coop student, we have someone ready and waiting.
  • Will be working with Giles Malet (IST) tomorrow to get the production environment for eValuate loaded into the IST environment.
  • There have been lots of inquiries about using eValuate as a general survey tool; at this time the tool is dedicated to this specific use, we do not have enough resources to make it more general.

Library (Carl Nagel)

  • Paul Miskovsky met with our digital signage group in the Library this week; will be meeting our minimum requirements for signage so we are very pleased.
  • Will likely see news this week about the Library revitalization project that is happening; will be kicking off soon. 
  • Working with IST to get the A/V equipment in one of our rooms in the DC building updated.

Next meeting

The next meeting will be held on February 18, 2016 at 1:30pm, in EC2 111.