Faculty Senate University Computer Committee 1997-98 Year End Report Table of Contents: I. Summary of activities II. Issues for 1998-99 III. Membership list Respectfully Submitted by: Bruce MacDougal for the FSUC&ECC I. Summary of 1997-98 activities A. A WWW page containing the agendas, minutes and reports to the committee was established at URL http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/fsucecc/ B. The Committee heard the monthly reports of the Director of OIT and his staff and directed questions to him as it was appropriate. Among others, the subjects of the Directors monthly briefings included: Computer System Performance. Student Information System implementation. Software agreements. Internet II developments. draft OIT policy statements. C. The committee received the oral report of the Subcommittee on Unmet Needs which concluded that the University needed to undertake long term critical planning in order to identify unmet needs before they became crises. (URL http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/fsucecc/unmet_needs_97.txt) D. The committee received the written and oral report of the Subcommittee on Student Access. This Subcommittee argued for identification of IT needs for the students of each college so that we could adequately plan to fill them. (URL http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/fsucecc/sar.html) E. The committee received the oral report of the Subcommittee on Emergency Measures. The reporting chairman indicated that the Emergency Measures subcommittee had carried out its duties successfully in the eyes of our 1996-97 Report to the Faculty Senate. But he commented further that he did not view these Emergency Measures as the proper role of the FSUC&ECC but, perhaps in conjunction with the prior two subcommittee reports, that some conclusion about critical planning was warranted. F. Spurred by items C, D and E above, the Committee spent a good deal of discussion and efforts to explore the establishment of a Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable (TLTR) according to American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) specifications. The efforts to forward this concept are detailed in the years minutes. G. The committee reviewed issues of OIT compliance with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA). The Associate Chancellor for OIT discussed the then-current status of a civil rights complaint (filed with the Dept of Education) which alleged that OIT's computer labs were not in compliance with ADA requirements. Numerous steps which OIT had taken (as of November, 1997) were discussed at length, including mention of specific resources which OIT had dedicated to this endeviour. The committee was also advised of additional activities OIT planned to take to resolve issues raised by the OCR complaint. H. The committee received the Presentation of Margo Crist, the Director of University Libraries in which she presented the Library's mission as she viewed it (minutes Dec 11, 1997). I. The committee reacted to the Faculty Senate requests for comment on four items. Subcommittees were assigned to review the following papers: Item UIS- FY97 Annual Report and FY98 Tactical Plan LIB 546 (report at URL http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/fsucecc/library_white.txt) LIB 547 Carlin Proposals J. The committee discussed concerns regarding possible legal issues incidental to a campus email "list-serve" that restricted membership on the basis of gender. The matter was referred to university counsel for an advisory opinion, the committee was subsequently advised that OIT would not permit a single-gender mailing list, that it was the sponsor's responsiblity to ensure that mailing lists comply with all relevant laws (including Title IX), and that OIT would suspend the specific list until such time that compliance with the law could be arranged. (minutes Dec. 11, 1997; Feb. 17, 1998; Mar. 24, 1998) K. The need for a virus alert policy was discussed. Concerns were also expressed about false alerts about non-existant virus scares, including the so-called "good times" virus. Mention was made of various virus web pages, including that of the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), (minutes Mar 24, 1998) L. The telecommunication concerns of Family Housing residents were discussed on numerous occasions. This committee has discussed these issues in the past and this item was reported in our report of last year as: -----------> Insert Gene Fisher's Quote Here <----------------- During this year, the committee heard concerns about perceived poor service, service which is inferior in quality to that provided to the residence halls (eg. no computer network access), and policies which may be in violation of the telecommunications act of 1997. The committee also heard concerns expressed that there was not a clear sense of which administrative agency was responsible for addressing the concerns of the residents, and that it wasn't clear which issues were the responsiblity of Housing Services' Telecommunications Office, and which were the responsiblity of OIT's Telecommunications Division. The committee came to the conclusion that this issue of the Family Housing telecommunications is an important one, but one which is beyond the ability of the committee to resolve. The committee thus suggests that other authorities address what the committee has consistently found, over time, to be an on-going concern of these residents. II. Issues for 1998-99 A. Furthering the TLTR initiative. B. Making the FSUC&ECC membership list more functional. III. Membership list UNIVERSITY COMPUTER AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE (Bylaw 6-8-2) Fifteen Faculty Members (At Large) Larry Ambs, Mech Engr '98 Bruce MacDougall, (Ch) LARP '99 Emily Hurn, Library 2000 Norman Sims, Journalism '98 Gene Fisher, Sociology '98 James Kurose, Computer Science '98 Robert Griffin, HRTA '98 Joseph Kunkel, Biology '98 Hossein Kazemi, Management '98 Michael Fast, Spanish & Portugese '99 Ernest Anderson, Education '99 Steven Brewer, Biology '99 David Damery, Forestry & Wildlife '99 Kenneth Lou, HRTA '99 Members (ex-officio) VC Research/Dean of Grad School, Bruce McCandless Associate Chancellor for Information Technology, John Dubach Chair/Research Council or des. ? Director of Libraries, Margo Crist Director of Telecommunications, Randy Sailer Director, Engineering Computing Services, Mark Wingertsman Director, Computer Science Computing Facility, Steve Cook Director, University Information Systems, Peter Roberts (designee: Tad Jackson) Director, Network Systems & Services, Dan Blanchard Coordinating Director, OIT, Art Gaylord Graduate Student, Ed Cutting Undergraduate Student, Ben Delong