Minutes of October 5, 2012

Minutes of the AHS IT Committee          

Oct. 5, 2012

Present:  Jose Arocha, Tom Karakolis, , Katherine Marshall, Bill McIlroy, Steven Mock, Terry Stewart

1. Chair’s Remarks (Bill)

  • Mandate. The Chair handed out modifications to the mandate to be discussed later in the meeting.
  • Research data space. The Chair will be calling together all of the researchers with large data set needs for a discussion of this issue.
  • Email for grad students.  New grads automatically get an email account on mailservices but can move to the Exchange by requesting it to anyone on the IT group.
  • Grad students and VP Training; 2 people @ last event, receive update.
  • IT Newsletter. The Chair reminded the group about the recent AHS IT Newsletter.
  • AHSIT Committee minutes. Thanks to Shilpa for recording minutes.  Terry and Bill will ensure that meeting minutes are posted.

2. Report of IT Director (Terry)

  • The report of the IT Director will be available online. The following are supplementary notes.
  • IT Strategic plan
    • UCIST Steering Committee (Terry is a member);
    • CTSC is the implementation team (Terry is a member);
    • Ian McKillop is representing the Faculty of AHS at the Task Force –
      • Ian is a good candidate because he has an understanding of IT enterprise architectures and framework
  • IST Reorganization for Success
    • This is an IST initiative only
    • External consultant not announced yet
  • Nexus migration –
    • moving to one system for simplicity and consistency
    • Change in password rules – Nexus rules more strict and force updating password
    • No date for sharepoint migration yet
  • Campus Firewall Project – does not affect AHS
    • Timeline: to start December 2012
  • Migration of AHS web site to CMS
    • Kin will be done by December
    • Fitness units and MAREP are under way
    • Course brochure comes out every 2 months
    • Individuals who want their own site should put in a request to IST and attend the class offered by IST entitled: WCMS site maintainers
    • There are 6 co-ops available for Fall 2012 to assist migrating and setting up a new page
  • Request Tracking
    • Email/online forms are not used in AHS but other faculties have queue system
    • Should AHS?
      • Use as adjunct method – effective for those who may be off site (i.e. students)
      • Decision was made that we should wait until IST project complete before implementing any new system
  • Audit System
    • Terry will monitor this project and report back
  • Virtual Desktop
    • Initiated from Student Technology Advisement Committee
    • An campus-wide project
    • hardware has been ordered for a pilot study
    • Licensing is a large concern because  some companies won’t allow it or will want to charge for every student
    • Question of how much hardware to buy?
  • Research
    • Interraidata SAS appliance – updated
      • Virtual desktop – accessible to use with log in info with security measures in place
      • Licensing – paid for by research funds
    • Flowfinity
      • Send survey from server  out via smart phone device to nurses for example to fill out and send back
      • Automatically updates server
      • Expensive – paid for by research funds
    • HSPRN Project
      • Just starting up
      • Ian McKillop heading
    • Various Kin projects
    • Research Data space
      • Those collecting large amount data use NAS drives which are meant for home use, not research, but they are cost efficient
      • Security audit – NAS drives are a problem because they are insecure – therefore they are put on private network and researchers cannot get on them from home without the VIPN
        • Not a solution because they are not more secure, there is no backup if they break (or backed up with another NAS)
      • The proposal for a solution – AHS acquire a 25 tb server or work with IST to outsource space from them;
      • Chair will organize a meeting of NAS drive users to discuss this topic
        • How will they be funded?
        • The estimate is 15 people and 30 Tb
  • Other Projects
    • Zero Administration Network Implementation; AHS Computing wanst to ensure every network port is attached and connected when needed;
      • This will save time in connecting machines to the network;
      • Money is set aside for this
    • STEP – Scheduling Timetable Exam Project
      • Going live for Spring term 2013
    • WATITIS
      • – internal IT conference held each December
      • Chaired for the second year by Lowell Williamson

3. Access to software/centralized continuing discussion

  • Cornell – has an external desktop environment but using a different system
  • UW has a pilot system in place
  • Will be centrally would be funded
  • Steven available to serve if there is a Committee formed

4. Mandate

  • Representation from Research Centres
    • Two options: bring in as needed or standing member  on committee
    • Bill will discuss with Susan
  • Still waiting for undergraduate student representative;
    • Bill will ask AHSUM group
  • AHS  internal strategic planning process
    • Is one needed at this time
      • Faculty Strategic Plan and UW IT Strategic plan in progress
      • Decision was made to remove 2b from the Membership and Mandate and “revise to say assists priorities and is in line with the strategic plan”
      • Don’t need a full strategic planning with all that is coming on
  • Bill, Katherine and Terry will rewrite and bring to next meeting for review

5. Laptops

  • Encryption (security concern)
    • How to encourage encrypted files to avoid security issues
    • If human subjects is the concern – the Office of Research Ethics will be interested in this topic
    • Not just human subjects but also marks, emails with students, and more. These are all confidential
    • How to help facilitate to avoid future possible problems?
      • Remote access to network drives instead of USB ports?
      • Cultural aspect must change as well
        • Add to first year orientation?
      • Many use Dropbox which is a concern because they should be using encrypted files
    • Also a concern with NAS drive and  theft issues
    • The Office of Research Ethics addresses this with more arbitrary methods. It is now being mentioned by IT to grad students

Next Meeting – November 2, 2012