AITAP Meeting Minutes - Thursday, April 15, 2004
Attendance:JBarry Reidiger, Walter Froese, Brian Dohe, Varga Fox,
Michael Quiner, Brian Miner, Sarah Jones, Jed Schwendiman, Kevin Kelly,
Sherrie Kamara
Agenda Summary
- Campus Network:Kevin Kelly was invited to the meeting to talk and answer questions about the campus network. He explained the 2 types of networks, Lan-Local Area Network and Wide Are Network. The Main campus is supported by a T1 line which is basically a phone line that would allow 24 phones on it. This is not a lot of bandwidth considering there are approximately 1,000 administrative computers on it. Kevin uses a bandwidth shaper to control what those 1,000 computers do with the network. ResLife has two T1s.
This summer we plan to add another two T1 lines for the main campus and use our current T1 source for back up. ResLife has an additional T1 planned for a total 3 T1 lines for students. Even with these improvements there still will not be enough bandwidth. The plan is to offer this option to all dorm students who want to pay the extra fee next fall.
A pilot project for students this semester is an option for students to buy a dedicated connection with Pocket INet. 14 students are currently using Pocket INet. (These 14 students are using more bandwidth than the total campus combined right now.)
Jed asked if removing the labs from the campus network would help. Kevin said no because most of the come from students in the dorms, and moving the labs to the ResLife network would affect lab access speed significantly.
Kevin explained that you can often tell what a computer is doing by how much space it uses on the network. He controls that by shaping the space. One person listening to the radio on line at a high setting sucks up a lot of bandwidth.
Varga suggested educating the community about what they can and cannot do on the network. Kevin said our practice right now is to not do anything unless there is a problem. Most of the time people are not aware there activities cause problems. And most of the time it is students. We try to educate users as the need arises.
- Coordinating Datatel Information: There was a short discussion on Datatel and how it affects other offices. The committee felt it would be helpful to establish core/or similar meetings more regularly to address standards, codes, and linkage to other resources such as the online directory. The committee agreed to meet for a project based session starting with the Online directory. The committee members should email Varga with times that work for them.
- Web budget:
Walter said the web budget is working. He is meeting with budget officers to establish who should see what budget.
Varga said FA is using the web more and more and mailing less saving the department money.
- IT Survey:Michael is planning to do an IT survey to establish how we know we have been successful with Datatel by contacting specific people. He will also do a brief on line survey about campus issues: network, helpdesk, future needs include in a 5 year planning document for WCTS.
- AIS Status:Michael reviewed on going and upcoming projects: web registration, 1st year student web registration this summer, admission and FA information availability on the web, web time entry, and library charges.
- Other:Walter asked about Release 18, Michael said we would not expect to see it for another 1-2 years. While the processes and reporting won't be different the data and application base would be on separate servers and will be very different.
- Staff@whitman.edu:Jed asked if we could give more people access to sending staff related messages. There was a fair amount of discussion on the topic. Jed moved and it was seconded to give a group of people representing a variety of offices access to staff@whitman.edu posting. he posting would use a modified interface so that the from address reflects who the message is coming from not the person sending it. Also, guidelines will be provided to those authorized to send messages (with the help of HR) to help assure they are appropriate for the staff posting. Jed suggested having an admin assistant in each department authorized to send staff messages. Michael said he would talk with Keiko about it she would be the next step in the process to move forward. He also stated WCTS does not want to be the police.
Items for action:
Committee members contact Varga for Datatel core meeting availability
Michael talk to Keiko about Staff@whitman.edu authorization
Next meeting: May ?