Thursday, Feb 17, 12:00 - 13:30 OGCA Meeting Room, 70 Butterfield Terrace
Directions to OGCA:  http://www.umass.edu/research/ora/map.pdf
                               Draft Minutes
Attendance: Avrunin, Brewer (Chair), Canavan, Eisenberg, Hood,
Kunkel(Sec.),
            Kelly, Lee-Bradley, McCandless, Misra, Sailer, Stoia,
Woodcock
I. Minutes
    A. Minutes of Dec. 16, 2004 posted at URL:
           http://people.umass.edu/fsucecc/    were accepted as read.

II. Announcements and Question period.
    A. FSUCECC Chair (Steve Brewer).
       Steve announced our intention to draft recommendations to the
       Faculty Senate on improving the SPIRE system and welcomed
       audience suggestions:
       1. That the log-on be repaired to allow lower case id and
          passwords.
       2. Eliminate system crashes at the beginning of the term.
       3. Allow jumping to another course in the same semester rather
          than forcing restart.
       4. Eliminate processing between students when entering grades.
    B. OIT (Randy Sailer).
       1. Question from Bill McCoy (Geology). Why was Internet Explorer
          recommended as the only reliable browser for use on PCs
          with SPIRE in an Email to returning students? (The "10 Things
          You Need to Know ..." memo was provided the committee).
       2. Randy agreed that the recommendation to use IE was not the
          best advice and took comments in advisement.
         a. We need to put pressure on providers (PeopleSoft/Oracle) to
            write to standards rather than to a product (e.g. IE).
         b. We need to warn University computer users to avoid IE.
         c. The Dean's Office sets up computers for Deans to use. They
            should not use the default IE and recommend its use by
            new Deans.
            effort that results from multiple databases. He wonders
            where this goal was subverted.
       2. Chris Misra attended from OIT to answer any questions
          regarding security issues.
         a. There is a need for authentication services.
         b. The solution for GAMS may not be scalable from options
            under consideration.
         c. OIT will work with Grants and Contracts to provide the
            needed authentication.  It is hoped that it can be done in a
           way that does not make it a special case; but that might not
            be possible given the short timeline to go live.

V. The meeting adjourned at 1:30 PM

Respectfully submitted,
Joe Kunkel