Council on Academic Computing

April 22, 2004

Meeting Summary

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HPNAI REPORT

Louise Comfort used her High Performance Network Applications Initiative award to enhance collaboration among scholars from Colombia, Ecuador, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. These scholars collectively participate in the Interactive, Intelligent, Spatial Information System project (IISIS). The goals of IISIS are twofold: to develop and demonstrate an innovative decision-support system for risk mitigation and emergency management and to improve the capacity of communities to assess, mitigate, and manage their own risk. She used the funds to develop a bilingual web site (www.iisis.pitt.edu/html/hrrmr_entrance.html) for the Hazard Reduction and Response in Metropolitan Regions model and to maintain a continuing dialogue among colleagues and city administrators. Project participants used the website as a network to coordinate grant development and workshop preparation.

REPORT FROM COMPUTING SERVICES AND SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT

Jinx Walton, Director of Computing Services and Systems Development (CSSD), and members of her staff discussed Postini, a spam and virus filtering system that soon will be installed on the University’s servers. CSSD staff recommended that all University staff, students, and faculty members be required to use the virus detection component of the software but not the spam filtering component. Members of the CAC agreed with this recommendation. Postini software permits the user to vary the restrictiveness of the spam filter. CSSD staff and committee members also discussed educating the University community about the new software.

MISCELLANEOUS

Several other issues were mentioned:

• A retreat at which CAC members will discuss future projects
• A May 19 event that will highlight computer applications to biology and chemistry