COUNCIL ON ACADEMIC COMPUTING
DR. GEORGE E. KLINZING, CHAIR
MEETING SUMMARY --
FEBRUARY 5, 2001


The meeting was called to order at 2:40 p.m.

Minutes/Announcements

No changes were requested to the minutes of the January 11, 2001 meeting.

  • The High Performance Network Applications Initiative flyers have been distributed.
  • CSSD will offer a seminar on high performance network applications sometime this month.
  • A subcommittee will be formed to address wireless connections. (Karimi and Jordan offered assistance in this area and Walton will identify CSSD personnel to participate.)

Laptop Program

Cohn suggested that a program might be useful in the School of Pharmacy. Klinzing will contact Dean Juhl.

Subcommittees

Security
Draus reported that the group identified two areas of concern. They first want to survey what other schools are doing in security. They are also concerned about transmission of grades over the network without encryption. Could these grades be held on a more secure section of the network? Walton suggested that AAU schools be surveyed. The subcommittee was asked to assemble the necessary questions and submit to Klinzing.

Bandwidth
Hoelzeman invited other Council members to attend the next meeting of this subcommittee scheduled for Friday, February 9 at
10:00 AM in 330 Benedum Hall. The group will be discussing the status and limitations of what can and cannot be done.

Systems Failure
Cohn reported that this group will be interviewing contacts from the units to document the effects of previous failures. An alert should be placed on CourseInfo to warn users of potential problems.

Report of the Director

Walton reported that the residence halls and labs have been equipped with DS3 line. With this change, the performance issues seem to be solved.

Blackboard 5 implementation is still underway. The equipment is being configured to support high availability. CSSD is also working on improved software distribution.

The modem pool does not permit concurrent logins and the peak usage limit is at 2 hours. Council members expressed concern that faculty are reporting that they are being kicked off prior to reaching the 2-hour limit.

Six hubs have been upgraded as part of the gigabit upgrade. Buildings in these hubs are being scheduled for upgrade. There will be budget implications due to additional ports, card replacements, and elimination of thin wire.

New Business

Sereika suggested that Council look at the possibilities of using Educart for instruction. Klinzing will contact Diane Davis to arrange a demonstration.

A concern was voiced concerning the difficulty of reporting grades within CourseInfo.

The meeting adjourned at 3:30 p.m.