January 17, 2008 Minutes
ITAC minutes
January 17, 2008
Start: 4:02
Attendees: John Board, Bill Cannon, Shailesh Chandrasekharan, Tammy Closs, Ken Hirsh for Dick Danner, Tracy Futhey, Gene Galin, Susan Gerbeth-Jones, Michael Goodman, Billy Herndon, Rick Hoyle, Edward Gomes for Deborah Jakubs, Alvin Lebeck, Julian Lombardi, Andy Keck for Roger Loyd, Robert Nau, Terrance Oas, Lynne O’Brien, Jim Roberts, Molly Tamarkin, Trey Turner III, Robert Wolpert
Guests: Tania Daugharty of ASIST, Christina Dulude of Student Affairs, Evan Levine of OIT, Mohammed Jamal Tayab – graduate student, Kevin Witte of OIT, Bob Johnson of OIT, Klara Jelinkova of OIT, Bob Nevlin, Ned Neeley of ASM, Todd Orr of ASM, Bob Price of OIT, Debbie DeYulia of OIT.
Announcements
Klara Jelinkova announced that Duke OIT is deactivating 15,000 Net IDs that have no Duke affiliations. John Board added that there is a procedure in place if any of these want back in.
Molly Tamarkin introduced her interim replacement – Tania Daugherty.
Employee Self Service
Presented by Billy Herndon, Todd Orr
Billy Herndon introduced Ned Neely. Billy noted that the employee self-service is in pilot mode. This is scheduled to go live in mid-February.
Todd Orr did a PowerPoint presentation – Employee Self Service is a follow-on project to iForms for web-based HR and payroll transactions. The project is the highest priority of Duke HR group. Our major goals are to provide better service and cost savings.
If an employee has direct deposit, they can choose not to get a paper receipt.
Phase I – initial rollout to all employees in February 2008
Phase II – will support open enrollment in November 2008
Phase III – date to be determined. This phase should include monthly staff time off tracking and yet to be determined functions.
Phase I functionality includes
View my data – pay statements, employee data sheet, bank information
Change my data –home address, bank account, W-4/NC-4
Links to other employee sites – WageWorks, Retirement Manager
ESS Website
There was a naming contest on Duke Today. The name changed from iForms to Duke@Work. The URL changes from iforms.oit.duke.edu to work.duke.edu. Other SAP web functions will be added over time
Every Duke employee gets self-service. Ten percent of the Duke population does not have email addresses. Examples are temps and housekeeping.
The ESS pilot began on November 5 with over 6,000 employees, Participants included – Financial Services, Student Affairs, Duke Health Raleigh Hospital, Public Policy, Law School, Heart Center, Pediatrics, OIT, Library, DHTS, HR, Cell Biolody and Labco.
Use of ESS is entirely optional.
Billy Herndon explained that OIT did not cut off anyone from receiving paper pay statements.
Robert mentioned that he had to do two log-ins. Todd said that the front end is authorized through Net ID and a password. There is a second log-in screen for those who are not already in the pilot program.
Those with additional security roles will see more on screen than a typical user.
The ESS presents an opportunity to improve the quality of the system. Todd mentioned the example of a coworker that found her veteran status was incorrect and fixed the problem.
Pay statements are in PDF format and information is available a day before payday. Users can change bank account information and make changes to state and federal government withdrawals.
Question – How much does this represent of the stuff you get now? Todd responded that most of this is new as far as for the employee being able to access and use this information.
Question – Any notion of how many users will utilize ESS? Todd responded that an email went out to 6,200 people. 153 of those shut off their paper pay statements. 87% found ESS to be a useful service.
Robert asked is we are getting closer to reducing the number of address changes you need to make. Tracy said that SAP is the definitive source.
Robert joked that the alumni office knows about your new address before you even move.
Biggest ESS feedback is “When can you add other functions?” There have been over 150 W4 changes, about 100 account changes, and numerous address changes.
Teaching/Learning Center
Presented by Molly Tamarkin
Molly Tamarkin said that TLC is very important. It has a sizable budget and lots of faculty interest.
The center features a huge help desk area. The concept behind the space is to try new technologies in teaching before deploying to the main campus. The project is funded by the provost.
The OIT help desk will have a presence. This space should not be different from regular library space.
C1 is a dedicated class. All others are flexible. There are 25 computers in C1 with one laptop cart.
Bob Price will help in coordinating the Learning Center activities and Debbie DeYulia will be on the progress group.
Some classrooms will be scheduled through the regular process. Some classrooms will be set up for periodic and specific events.
John Board asked if with so many organizations involved, is there a clear path to who will pay for what on an ongoing basis?
Molly responded that she hoped that there will be a TLC budget that various organizations will contribute to.
The inspiration came from Bob Thompson. Seeking easy transition from standard classrooms to leading edge classrooms.
“Central campus” nomenclature changing to “new campus”.
Another important part of the TLC mission is doing information processing and analysis.
Alvin Lebeck asked if all the rooms have projectors.
Molly responded that all rooms have some sort of monitors.
George asked if there is a cost to reserve a space. Mollie answered that there is no cost system established yet. The ceilings have a grid system that allows you to easily reorganize a room. This allows Duke to easily modify the rooms for newer technologies.
John Board asked what the new help desk functions would be.
Debbie DeYulia said that the area has a big help desk with Arts and Science and OIT assistance with Lynn and Ed’s people nearby. There will be two full-time OIT staff members available. Hours will be extended to midnight. The OIT helpdesk folks at the library will replace the folks at the Bryant Center.
John Board remarked that this is a significant increase in hours over the Bryant Center.
Molly is requesting some additional classroom support staff.
Debbie remarked that it will take a coordinated effort and an on-site supervisor.
Molly is also requesting a higher-level position as well. She does not know if that all will be funded.
Lynn remarked that CIT will have different types of classes for faculty.
John Board asked if there is a sense that the learning Center is protected against a space crunch for rooms.
Patrick responded them that they have a more proactive approach to meeting the space crunch.
Alvin asked what the typical classroom size will be.
Molly said that most of the classes will accommodate from six to 24 people. One classroom is set up to accommodate 48 people.
Alvin Lebeck asked if there is a vision for student access to the TLC rooms.
Molly responded that she thought the rooms were to be left open.
Ed responded that the plan is to leave the rooms open. Rooms are designed to be used by groups of students. No scheduling is in place right now. A scheduling program will be implemented if necessary.
Tracy asked how many group study rooms there were.
Ed noted that they have about eight with more to open one renovation is completed.
Site License
Presented by Bob Price, Evan Levine
Bob Price started the discussion by mentioning that there was a desire to improve site license service. He mentioned that Duke is not leveraging the core competencies of Duke.
The licensing position has been reframed. The person in the position functions as a coordinator and outreach to the campus. One of the functions of the licensing is person is to look at site licensing versus individual licenses. Cross-functional team will help on campus.
Bob introduced the person that will fill the position - Evan Levine. Evan was a team lead at the help desk.
Evan mentioned that Matlab is a good example of a move to site licensing. It reduces administrative costs. You do not have to deal with individual activation.
Alvin said that there has been good feedback from statistics. All toolboxes are now available and make professors happy.
Terry mentioned that Mathematica is used. Is there a mechanism to use Mathematica? Is there a method to prioritize?
Evan said that in this case they would look at all costs and compare all components.
Bob Price plans to continue site license committee. The committee will be looking for more direct input from faculty.
Terry said that one way is to give faculty members information about what software they may be interested in and solicit input. And then to provide statistics as to the decision that is made.
Bob Price said that he is looking to provide information back to faculty members
Evan plans to revise and redo the website to allow downloads from the website versus using CDs.
Bob said there might be a way to provide virtual access to off-campus students and traveling faculty.
Molly volunteered to ask her mailing list people which licenses they were using and were interested in using.
Ed Gomes said that the lists he uses reaches IT managers and can be used to solicit information about what software they are using.
Terry said that there is a danger and relying totally on IT support. He suggested that a list be provided on the website to get information.
John Board asked if there is a danger that Duke will use “too much” of Matlab and the cost to Duke will go up a lot.
Bob Price responded that Duke has acquired unlimited use for Matlab.
Shailesh Chandrasekharen asked what a site license is.
Evan stated that site licenses mean different things to different companies. Some are all encompassing while others are fairly restrictive.
Andrew Tut asked how this all affects student use.
Evans responded that the Matlab license covers faculty, staff, and labs.
Shailesh volunteered that students will use it if it is free.
Bob said that Duke had the ability to use it infinitely on campus.
Andrew asked if work-study students are part of the staff.
Tracy asked if there is a benefit for Duke and Matlab to provide better deals to students.
Bob Price noted that offering it virtually would make it available to all.
Andrew mentioned that currently the program locks up when 18 or more people use a program on a virtual machine at a time.
Tracy remarked that Duke OIT would fix that.
Wireless Update
Presented by Bob Johnson
Bob Johnson announced that Duke OIT received support and funding to upgrade the entire campus to 811n wireless. Duke will be the first to do so in the country.
Terry asked if this covers the Medical Center. Bob responded that it covers everything that the OIT network touches.
Molly asked what the timeframe was for this conversion to 811n.
Bob responded that the changeover of 1700 access points will take nine months. He stated that he hopes to have a major part done by the end of the summer.
Bob said they are close to moving to an outdoor alert system. He expects real action and results within nine months. There will be Verizon, Alltel and Cingular upgrades. Sprint will be in the next round of carrier upgrades. Bob said that it takes about $35,000 per carrier for hardware.
John Board asked about the possibility of wireless buildings.
Bob Johnson said that Duke OIT can move about 5,000 simultaneous connections a day. As this number increases the need for wired goes away.
Bob mentioned that he believes Duke can handle that traffic. There are ten channels per access point.
John Board asked if the wireless network can handle a large collection of TV options.
Bob Johnson said that typically people watch seven channels from a 72-channel selection.
Steve asked about cell phone coverage and dead spots.
Bob Johnson said that there is about 95% cell phone coverage.
Steve asked if there are spots where we really, really need cell phone coverage.
Bob Johnson said that 5% no coverage is basically in basements and machine rooms. He added that that there needs to be a feedback mechanism to get dead space information from students and faculty and staff.
John Board mentioned that graduate students had provided a list of cold spots.
Terry mentioned that these cold spots tend to concentrate in buildings based upon their structure. Terry added that he is excited by building based repeaters.
Bob Johnson noted that Duke will continue to do in building cell phone upgrades.
CSG Report
Presented by John Board
John Board attended the CSG event. It is a meeting of CIOs from top research universities. Meetings are organized in workshops.
One workshop was about RAII concerning infringing copyright material
Some of the vendors advocated detection and suppression. Some look for peer-to-peer traffic. One vendor has an application that can monitor content and report info to copyright owners. Another vendor will sniff out and destroy all peer-to-peer traffic. These companies have the ear of Congress.
John heard about a University of Michigan system that flags and sends e-mails to offending parties.
Robert Nau mentioned that as a policy he does not like Duke looking into content.
Day 2 concentrated around emergency communications. It was held at Virginia Tech. John Board mentioned that the discussion about how to manage personnel was very useful. They talked about how to support additional EMS personnel and reporters. Cell providers brought in extra resources. It was a very useful story to hear.
Klara a mentioned multiple mode communications. How you word the message is very important. Everything is under severe scrutiny.
John Board added that giving the media good wireless access and feeding the media is important.
Tracy adjourned the meeting with the announcement that tomorrow is Molly's last day and that there is a reception for Molly in Old Trinity.
Meeting adjourned at 5:00