Attending:     J. Cepull, W. Daehnick, T. Deliyannides, R. Gross,
               W. Harbert, N. Hummon, W.  Jamison,  A.  Moran,  T. Metzger,  
               R.  Miller,  T. Neufeld, P. Stieman, B. Tuchi

Stieman distributed a revised "Capital Acquisitions Plan FY1995-99", dated November 2, 1994. The plan was developed by a working group consisting of Stieman, Miller, Jamison, Hummon and Cepull, who provided reduced budgets with particular emphasis on projects scheduled for the remainder of FY95. This reduced budget still exceeded the anticipated revenue stream for FY95.

Stieman and other members of the working group summarized the modifications made to the proposed budget:

Goal 1: A cap of $900,000 was set for Goal 1 (network infrastructure), and the line items within were scaled accordingly.

Goal 2: Goal 2.1(b), "Departmental/Faculty Computing was reduced to $700,000.

                Funding  for  Regional Campus labs (2.2(a)) was
                reduced to $223,000 and separated from Regional  
                Campus classrooms (2.3(a)).

                Goal 2.2(e) was reduced to $50,000 for FY95 and to
                $150,000 per year thereafter.

                The budget for Goal 2.5 (electronic bulletin boards,  
                and conferencing applications) was eliminated,
                with the intention that this project should be
                addressed by Goal 2.3.

Goal 4: The budget for Goal 4 was reduced by $357,000. Projects retained for FY95 include retrospective conversion of library holdings, hardware and network infrastructure for library and information services, and storage for electronic information services. The migration to a new library management system (Goal 4.1) was postponed until FY97.

Goal 5: Goal 5.1 was reduced to 0 for FY95.

There were no changes to goals 6,7,8, or 9.

Stieman distributed a proposal for balancing the FY95 budget to fall within the current revenue stream. For each of the Committee's nine goals for FY95-99, the document showed the budget requests from the October 5 Capital Acquisitions Plan and the percentage of the total requests represented by that goal. Stieman presented four possible budget scenarios. The first scenario (Column S-1) presented a pro-rated budget reduction based on the relative budget requests for the goals. Column S-2 presented the reduced budget from the November 2 Capital Acquisitions Plan, which still exceeded the anticipated revenue stream by $1,922,000. Column S-3 showed a further budget reduction of $1,425,000, achieved by eliminating capital acquisitions associated with the Information Architecture Project. Finally, a pro-rated adjustment totalling $497,000 was applied to each goal to reduce the total budget to fall within the revenue stream ($6.2 million). This balanced budget was presented in Column S-4.

Tuchi supported the exclusion of costs associated with the Information Architecture Project, stating that if the University of Pittsburgh is truly committed to the Project, it must re-order resources within the entire institution to support it. Miller strongly agreed, adding that it will never be possible to meet the capital needs for the Project with the ITSC budget alone. Hummon added that if capital acquisitions for Information Architecture projects are funded through the ITSC Capital Plan, many new programs planned by Academic Computing and by the Libraries will be eliminated.

Members discussed the merits of the balanced budget in Column S- 4. Hummon called for clarification on the pro-rated reduction of budgets for the nine goals, asking if capital acquisitions for each goal would be held to the approved budget for that goal. Stieman replied that the units with budgetary oversight would be able to reorganize the allocation of funding among all the goals and line items under their purview. Hummon stated that the budget for Goal 8 should be increased to $100,000, and the budget for Goal 2 should be reduced to $3.15 million.

Miller moved that the fourth budget scenario presented in Column S-4 of the "Capital Acquisitions Plan, FY1995-2000" be endorsed by the Committee. Daehnick seconded. The motion was unanimously approved, yielding the following budget for FY95:

      Goal 1             833,000
      Goal 2             3,150,000
      Goal 3             942,000
      Goal 4             722,000
      Goal 5             0
      Goal 6             176,000
      Goal 7             278,000
      Goal 8             100,000
      Goal 9             0
                         ___________
      TOTAL:             $6,200,000

Stieman distributed a copy of a news article from the November 4, 1994 Pittsburgh Post Gazette, entitled "CMU handcuffing cyberspace sex". According to the article, Carnegie- Mellon University had announced that in order to comply with State obscenity laws, it would "block access on its campus computer system to certain sexually explicit material on campus computer bulletin boards." Tuchi stated that he had received calls from two University of Pittsburgh Trustees concerned about Pitt's stance on this issue.

Members discussed the feasibility of implementing a similar policy at the University of Pittsburgh. Daehnick suggested that while there is no way to control Internet access to Usenet newsgroups stored at remote sites, we could control which newsgroups are loaded on central servers maintained at Pitt.

Miller commented that restricting access to information raises issues of censorship. Harbert asked if the library has a model for restricting access to sexually explicit material. Miller responded that libraries actively collect all materials that support the University's research and teaching goals, without any regard to whether that material may be offensive to a segment of the University community. The decision to screen certain types of information from the University community cannot be a purely administrative decision, but must take academic concerns into consideration.

Stieman proposed, and members agreed, that a public statement be prepared on the issue, showing support for CMU's stance and indicating that the University of Pittsburgh is in the process of examining its current policies and will respond to all complaints involving offensive materials. Hummon agreed that the Executive Committee for Academic Computing would review these issues and propose a policy on access to all electronic information.

Future Meetings:

     Thursday, December 1, 1994    10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, January 5, 1995     10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, February 2, 1995    10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, March 2, 1995       10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, April 6, 1995       10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, May 4, 1995         10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, June 1, 1995        10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, July 6, 1995        10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, August 3, 1995      10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, September 7, 1995   10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, October 5, 1995     10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, November 2, 1995    10-12          124 CL
     Thursday, December 7, 1995    10-12          124 CL

                                             Deliyannides 11/28/94