Council on Academic Computing

February 16, 2006

Meeting Summary

Interdisciplinary Modeling and Simulation Project

Thirteen faculty members from the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Information Sciences, and Medicine attended a meeting to discuss interdisciplinary collaboration in the area of modeling and simulation.  Attendees expressed a broad array of concerns regarding research and collaboration, proposal development, computer facilities, and student preparation.  Meeting participants identified several potential solutions, including sponsoring an internal research seminar, creating a University marketing program, and enhancing University computing facilities.

CAC Seminar Series

The most recent CAC seminar was held on February 1.  Kirk Jordan, Deep Computing and Emerging Solutions Executive at IBM, discussed IBM’s Blue Gene project.  Charlie Catlett, Executive Director of the NSF Teragrid Project, will speak at the next seminar.  This seminar will be held on March 24.

Report from Computing Services and Systems Development

Jinx Walton, Director of Computing Services and Systems Development (CSSD), discussed “Love Your Computer” Week, which will take place during the week of February 20.  This event will consist of a series of informational sessions at which students will be taught about computer security, software packages, PittNett, virtual private networks, and my.pitt.edu.

CSSD soon will install Enterprise Exchange, which will be available without cost to all University departments.  Forty-eight departments currently possess their own exchange servers and pay the hardware, software, and personnel costs associated with the servers.  Enterprise Exchange is centrally managed, so system-wide changes can more easily be implemented and the server can be monitored by CSSD’s network center.

Ms. Walton also addressed several other issues:

  • The University’s voicemail upgrade has been completed.
  • The University’s listserv software will be replaced.
  • CSSD is implementing the campus-wide wireless plan.