FACULTY SENATE UNIVERSITY COMPUTER AND ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DRAFT MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF Feb 7, 2000, Room 174-176, Campus Center
Approved with corrections: April 10
Present: S. Brewer, E. Cutting, J. Dubach, C. Jacelon, J. Kunkel (Chair), R. Sailer, N. Sims
Joe Kunkel called the meeting to order at 12:30 p.m.
I. The minutes of the Dec. 5, 2000 meeting were approved.
II. Announcements
III. Old Business
1. Concerns were expressed about a belief that the library was moving to UMAccess-based use restrictions for patron use in the library. Apparently, this is not true: UMAccess is used as part of a proxy-server based approach to permit those who use non-OIT ISPs (and thus do not have the 128.119... IP address) to access UMass-only resources such as LEXUS.
2. Concerns were expressed about students who do not have OIT accounts. One possible reason mentioned was the belief that students are migrating away from OIT due to service concerns -- and thus would object having to pay for OIT services in addition to their outside ISP services.
3. Several professors mentioned finding OIT services helpful for teaching, stating that students on non-OIT services can't do the things that OIT clients can, such as "shuffling files." It was mentioned that "an alarming number of students can't do things because of their internet services."
4. The question was raised that since there are lots of other mandatory fees, why not simply add one more for OIT. It was also mentioned that there was a Board of Trustee moratorium on fee increases and that should include all fees, as other constituencies could also justify new fees as well. At this point it was announced that the Board of Trustee's Admin & Finance subcommittee had rejected a UMass proposal to create a mandatory OIT fee.
5. Discussions ensued about the possibility of billing for different levels of service. Possibly billing students in networked dormitories more. Possibly having cheaper accounts with fewer options.
6. One discussion involved the possibility of giving every UMass student a UMAccess authorization account free of charge, but continuing to charge for any other computer service.
7. Concerns about member Brewer's motion were discussed, specifically that it does not talk about a mandatory fee -- only about getting rid of the optional one. Some felt that it needed to be explicitly stated that a mandatory fee was needed, others felt that it was implied (or should be left up to the administration, while others opposed a mandatory fee in general.
8. VOTE: Motion of S. Brewer passed with one vote against and one abstention.
B. Mandated Laptops:
1. Concerns were expressed about the impact of Financial Aid. The students targeted by this proposal (those who don't already have a laptop) are lower income. They can not get any additional financial aid because it doesn't exist, they could only get a loan and this would create repayment obligations.
2. A survey of UMass Dartmouth will soon commence. Objective is to see if the reason students don't have computers is cost or lack of a need for them.
3. It was speculated that the laptop issue was an annual $2M problem, based on 20% of the incoming class not having one, that being 800 students with a $2000/machine cost.
4. It was suggested that since the laptop proposal is coming from businessmen with visions, perhaps they could help fund this.
5. It was suggested that first every faculty member should have a laptop, or access to one, and know how to use it.
6. Carlin of BHE came to UMass, was surprised to see that 85% of students have a computer and found that good. It was mentioned that having a diversity of operating systems was good, and that the fact that faculty have older machines than students is problematic.
7. A proposal was made to approach corporate sponsorship for scholarships to fund machines for poor students.
8. It was also mentioned that computer training was another big expense. Students who can't afford to bring a computer to campus aren't going to be able to afford training on how to use it. This could easily double the per-unit costs.
9. RESOLVED: The committee needs to think about this, will do so, and then will bring motion to senate. Committee will discuss this via email.
C. IT Clearinghouse
1. J. Kunkel has posted information to the website on IT Clearinghouse.
2. UMass On-Line was kicked off today. It essentially is UMass-Lowell and UMass-Amherst courses with a new label. More stuff will appear at a future date when the new Distance Learning Director arrives on campus.
3. The Chair of the FSUC&ECC is to be appointed a member of Norm Aitken's Teaching, Learning & Technology council. S. Brewer was appointed to represent the Chair to that council.
IV. NEW BUSINESS
A. Student problems connecting to OIT email during intersession was discussed.
1. Two issues were discussed: Students who telnet to an OIT host and students who use the new web-based mail. OIT bans telnets from certain sites but SSH will permit student access from these banned sites. Email is also available via the web. This currently doesn't work for a Mac platform running WinME, but that will soon change.
2. Helpdesk failure to support WinME was discussed. OIT does not support WinME and encourages faculty currently to not purchase it. Three letters were published in the Campus Chronicle about this. But students have been buying pre-packaged computers at places like WalMart and Staples. Mention was made that Circuit City would special order computers with Win-98 in them instead, if asked.
3. Win2000 does not like to run in a heterogenous environment. It does not share well with other machines and tries to take over the network. OIT often has long conversations with Microsoft about the problems that new operating systems give academic environments.
4. Businesses tend to run homogeneous networks, and tend to upgrade all the machines at the same time, thus having every machine running the exact same software and the exact same version of the same operating system. Academia is different and thus the problem.
5. The HelpDesk will most likey eventually deal with WinME.
6. It was mentioned that it was nice that OIT is increasing offering LINUX support. This unix-based PC operating system is increasingly being used as web servers in business and industry.
B. Student Concerns regarding an OIT/Housing decision not to network the Family Housing apartments were raised.
1. The Family Housing units are required to participate in the on-campus Ericsson telephone system and to pay the ATT-ACUS surcharges on long distance telephones. An OIT website listed these units "to be networked." This website has now been changed. John Dubach stated that, despite the error on the website, Family Housing residents had been sent a letter with a correct description about OIT computer connection plans last summer.
Respectfully Submitted
Ed Cutting