Attending: Ed Anapol, John Board, Kevin Cheung, Dick Danner, Jim Coble for David Ferriero, Nevin Fouts, Pete Goswick, Alan Halachmi, Patrick Halpin, David Jamieson-Drake, Ken Knoerr, Betty Leydon, Roger Loyd, Melissa Mills, Caroline Nisbet, George Oberlander, Lynne O'Brien, Mike Pickett, Rafael Rodriguez, Clark Smith, Robert Wolpert.
Visitors: Rob Carter, Chris Cramer, Grady Powell, Charles Register
Review of Minutes and Announcements:
- The minutes were approved with a minor change to the attendance list.
- Ken Knoerr was introduced as a new ITAC member from the School of the Environment.
CIO IVY+ Report
- Columbia was putting in two new 24-hour labs since the clusters were overused.
- Princeton is installing Tivoli and the effort involved in the implementation was vastly underestimated.
- Princeton is using CourseInfo and has 177 courses implemented in some manner. Princeton's experience with CourseInfo is similar to Duke's experience.
- Princeton is doing a wireless pilot and they are amazed as to how well it works. Princeton loans the wireless cards (not the computers).
- Princeton started subsidizing computer purchases but sold 80 less units than the previous year.
- Princeton is implementing PeopleSoft.
- Princeton got rid of the IT research group-"Toys for Boys." However, the IT research work is still getting done.
- Penn is using CourseInfo and have about 20 to 40 courses implemented. The faculty like CourseInfo.
- Penn has announced that they will be closing out the modem pool by 2002.
- Penn is reviewing the IT organizational structure.
- MIT wants to do a prototypical plan for IT.
- MIT did a survey on customer satisfaction.
- Chicago outsourced its data network-no comments on how well it is going.
- Yale gives computer to all the faculty with a four year replacement cycle.
- Encryption is part of Yale's acceptable use policy and the users must use Yale's encryption software.
- Penn and University of Chicago are the only two universities in addition to Duke who are implementing broad banding. They reported that broad banding has made a big difference.
- Dartmouth has six people in the IT organization to provide training.
- Brown is experimenting with cell telephones.
- There was consensus that to support Instructional Technology hiring an individual is not enough.
- There is a need to set up the infrastructure and support.
- Planning is an issue-need to have faculty involvement.
- There is a need for policies related to copyrights.
- Funding is an issue for everyone.
- Most IVY+ institutions do not have mandatory courses for computer orientation.
- Brown relies on its library to help students.
- Chicago publishes a URL on getting started(link is external) that can be found at http://docuspace.uchicago.edu/rg/indes.html
- Penn is working on approaches to pique the curiosity of the students.
- Cornell offers a short course that students need to take to have their account activated.
- Dartmouth does lots of work with students.
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Betty Leydon gave a report on the CIO IVY+ meeting that she attended at the end of September. Betty mentioned that there were lots of material covered during the meeting.
John Board asked what Duke had to say.
Bettyanswered that in every one of these topics she presented what Duke University was doing and that she led the discussion on instructional technology.
Common Solutions Group Report
- To bring up a sample student portal use the following id:00000000 and Pin:000000.
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The Common Solutions Group (CSG) was officially established in 1994 and it has been operating unofficially since 1992. Duke University was asked to join this year.
Betty read the charter and the mission of CSG. There are a total of 30 members most of which are R1 institutions but there are some organizations. Information about the group(link is external) can be found at http://www.stonesoup.org.
The group meets about four times a year and it offers workshops on selected topics followed by a business meeting. The topics covered during the workshops at the recent meeting were on Teaching and Learning, and on Portals. Harvard's student portal(link is external) is found at http://my.harvard.edu.
The business meeting covered Internet2, middleware, digital certificates, and password guidelines. There was a brief conversation on the Netscape directory product that is now called the iPlanet directory. Pricing is a major issue.
Update on Authentication Software Deployment
Rob Carter gave an update on the implementation of Transarc's DCE product and of Snareworks.
These products are being used by OIT to implement a strong authentication and encryption system for the new enterprise applications and for the ACPUB systems. Rob stated that OIT is ready to broadly rollout the implementation of the new system. Rob demonstrated the product using a Windows NT client with the Snareworks client product installed. Snareworks is based on DCE and DCE uses Kerberos 5. Rob pointed out that the software improves security while providing greater usability to the users. Users do not need to log on and enter a new password for each application that is implemented under this security system.
Rob mentioned that the system is very flexible and comprehensive. It allows system administrators to set up list of connections that can be accepted and connections that will be denied with a very flexible set of rules. Authentication for web services is also provided and Rob gave a demonstration.
George Oberlander asked if the system could work with smart cards.
Rob answered that the software already supports some smart cards and that more are coming.
Patrick Halpin asked Rob how he envisioned the use of this product by departments who are trying to manage authentication-does it have to be implemented top down?
Rob replied that some delegation can be set up and that it will not be any different from the current ACPUB system. To provide encryption all a department has to do is to support Snareworks clients. More information(link is external) on Snareworks can be found at http://www.isoft.com.
Nevin Fouts said that the demonstration was very impressive and asked how many licenses Duke had obtained.
Rob replied that we have a site license for the clients and we purchased 300 server licenses. More server licenses can be obtained if needed at a discount.
Robert Wolpert asked what was happening with the cluster machines.
Rob stated that he would like to deploy Snareworks on all the cluster machines (UNIX and Windows).
Robert Wolpert expressed the concern that people who are using it now must be informed and educated on the use of the new systems.
Rob mentioned that he wants to use the upcoming Computer Carnival and other education sessions for getting the word out and for user training.
A question was asked about walk-up users, especially in the library.
Rob stated that the machines could be set up with guest authentication providing access to a limited set of applications, such as web access, without having to have a DCE account.
A question came up about the Mac machines.
Rob stated that there is a Kerberos 5 authentication for the Macs that will provide a user interface very similar to that of Snareworks and DCE.
David Jamieson-Drake asked if the system would work with Citrix Metaframe and PCAnywhere.
Rob stated that those products would work just as they work today.