Committee meeting - August 4, 2016

Darren Bondy
Secretary to the Committee
August 12, 2016

Present: 

Bruce Campbell (Chair), Darren Bondy (Secretary), Trevor Bain, Colin Bell, Steven Bourque, Dave Gawley, Bob Hicks, Dawn Keenan, Robyn Landers, Sati Singh

Guests:

Don Duff-McCracken, Andrew McAlorum, Shawn Winnington-Ball

Regrets:

Andrea Chappell, Marko Dumancic, Erick Engelke, Dave Kibble, Paul Miskovsky, Carl Nagel, Jason Testart

Agenda

  1. WCMS Prioritization (Andrew McAlorum) [25 min.]
  2. Cloud storage investigation update (Shawn Winnington-Ball) [20 min.]
  3. Chair’s remarks [5 min.]
  4. Approval of the minutes of the meeting of June 23, 2016 [5 min.]
  5. ID cards update (Steven Bourque) [10 min.]
  6. Other Business [5 min.]
  7. Roundtable discussion – all [20 min.]
  8. Next CTSC meeting:

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

WCMS Prioritization (Andrew McAlorum)

Andrew McAlorum presented on the WCMS prioritization. Topics included:

  • Executive summary
  • Features released in 2015/2016
  • Projects in 2015/2016
  • Responsive themes
  • Work-in progress: projects currently scheduled
  • WCMS backlog
  • “Projects” from WCMS backlog
  • Service changes effective immediately
  • Escalated priorities
  • RT cleanup
  • Development options

View the full presentation on WCMS prioritization (PDF).

Comments & discussion

  • Math and Environment are beginning pilots for OpenScholar now.
  • We are asking people to only submit business critical tickets understanding that it would also delay the other work that we have prioritized.
  • Who will decide what is considered to be business critical?
    • The Web Steering Committee will discuss and make recommendations.
  • Given all of the work outlined to be completed over the next 4 months, will you be able to complete all of that or will it flow into 2017?
    • There is a good chance some of it gets pushed into 2017; we track everything we do and know how long work takes to complete on average. There are always compromises that need to be made and priorities can also be adjusted.
  • The root of the problem seems to be resources to complete backlog of work.
    • It is not out of the question to hire more contract people for the development team, but some judgement will need to be made about what work is being done  
  • If areas decided to hire a co-op or contract person to work on the WCMS, how long would it take them to learn Drupal without specific Drupal experience?
    • If they had PHP experience, maybe 2 weeks or 30 days (varies with everyone).
    • If Andrew was included in the hiring process we could pick someone who is set up for success.
  • How would training work?
    • All of our documentation on how to get started is available at collaborate.uwaterloo.ca; it wouldn’t necessarily be a sit down and teach them process but we would provide them with the documentation and if they have coding experience it should be a quick learning curve.
  • If someone wanted to do some coding on their own and submit it for us to use, how would they go about doing that? How would they know what types of features you are looking for and are caught in the backlog?
    • We try to be as transparent as possible; the top 50 feature requests (as prioritized by WAC) can be found on the web resources site.
    • They can always submit an RT asking this information as well, or contact Andrew McAlorum directly.

File Sharing Investigation update (Shawn Winnington-Ball)

Shawn Winnington-Ball presented an update on the file sharing investigation. Topics included:

  • Introduction
  • Summary of recent IST discussions
  • CSI register
  • Library research data management
  • OwnCloud feedback
  • Next steps

View the full presentation on the file sharing investigation (PDF).

Comments & discussion

  • There is lots of interest campus-wide for file sharing services
  • Some faculty are using DropBox, others have large amounts of data on Compute Canada.
  • Faculty want to be able to share data with people whether they are on WatIAM or not.
  • CTSC members are interested in being kept up to date regarding this topic since there is widespread interest in services like this.
  • Will departments/faculties be providing access to OneDrive in labs when students are given their 1TB?
    • Not for this fall but potentially Fall of 2018; to be discussed more in-depth at a later date.

Chair’s Remarks

None

Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted as distributed.

ID Cards and alarm systems update (Steven Bourque)

  • IST is currently implementing the use of WatCards as ID cards/FOBS.
  • Technology Integrated Services started using them as a pilot; the rest of IST will be starting shortly.
  • Dawn Keenan has a specific request from Arts in East Campus Hall to have a new entrance with the newer technology; will discuss with Steve Bourque offline regarding this request.
  • The other issue that has been brought up at a meeting was the dial-up alarm systems coming to end of life soon; will be moving from analog to digital.
    • Early stages right now, still investigating.

Other business

Online Academic Tools (OAT)

  • OAT (that Math has developed) is being used in multiple areas on campus; it provides functionality that the Quest environment cannot.
    • All of the stakeholders involved realize that this is a great tool to have.
    • Bruce Campbell has had some discussions with Ray Darling and Marek Stastna and think it is time for IST to provide some support that could help offset the cost that Math is bearing from the campus; still in the discussion stage at this point and currently do not have details about what that support will entail.
  • OAT currently provides an API that is used by the Portal; it was fundamental to helping Portal get off the ground.
    • The use of the Portal has increased and we have decided to provide a native API within IST to feed specific information that the Portal needs.
    • Bruce Campbell, IST and the Portal team specifically thanks OAT for everything they have done for the Portal to date.

Mailservices

  • Is there a shelf life for all of the accounts on Mailservices?
    • We will stop creating user accounts in the Fall but we have no current plans for the existing accounts yet.
    • Will continue investigating and discussing plans for existing Mailservices accounts throughout the year.

Roundtable Report

Environment (Don Duff-McCracken for Marko Dumancic)

  • Have all of our lab computers running on Solid State Drives (SSDs) now; very pleased to see start up times drop to 1/3 of what they used to be.

Arts (Dawn Keenan)

  • Received our formal audit report; no big surprises.
    • One issue we have already dealt with is that some servers in Psychology were in people’s offices instead of our machine room.
  • Had a Power Distribution Unit (PDU) failure that lasted longer than usual; had to have Plant Operations to get the electrical back up and we will begin looking at finally replacing the PDU.
  • The use of Office 2016 in Arts is currently on a volunteer basis until September; hoping to get an increase in volunteers since we sent out another announcement today.

Math (Robyn Landers)

  • Moving away from using our own Active Directory to Nexus; hoping to have it done by the end of the month.
    • Met with Jason Testart and others to see if they could give us a hand with it.

Next meeting

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