OXFORD UNIVERSITY COLLEGES' IT GROUP & UNIVERSITY IT USERS' GROUP

A joint meeting of the Colleges' IT Group and University IT Users' Group was held on Tuesday 19th October 1999. Robert Taylor, the Colleges' IT Group Chairman, chaired the meeting and the following people attended the meeting:

989 MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING

The minutes of the meeting held on 11th May 1999 for the Colleges' IT Group and on 20th April for the University IT Users' Group were accepted as correct.

990 MATTERS ARISING

990.1 Colleges' IT Group - Minute 201.3 - Administrative Information Services - Interface between University Offices System & College System; report on progress.

Bill Platts reported that there had been no progress on this issue as yet. He agreed that there is a need for communication between the University and College database systems for student records but the main difficulty was deciding where authority for decisions lay. There are major plans next year to look at the relationship between the two systems as reports on student numbers and financial details were becoming more important.

990.2 Colleges' IT Group - Minute 203 - Computing Services Report - Central Email server; Global University policy recommended for IMAP use.

Alex Reid had raised this issue with the IT Committee and they agreed that IMAP should be the standard protocol within the University but they did not want to prohibit other systems, for example POP mailers, as yet.

990.3 University IT Users' Group - Minute 982 - Chairman's Report - IT Strategy Review.

Kit Bailey, who chaired the IT Strategy Review meeting on 3rd June 1999, commented that the statement given for the IT Strategy was one of structure and not a review. Alex Reid added that the comments made at the meeting and by other Groups had been taken on board by the IT Committee. A new statement was being re-drafted by Jenny Nix and this would be called an IT Strategic Framework. The new statement will be put out for comments soon, after the new IT Committee chairman, Prof. Roger Cowley, has had a chance to look at it.

991 CHAIRMAN'S REPORT

The Chairman, Robert Taylor, had produced a short report that was placed on-line with the agenda and further discussion took place on the related subjects.

Campus Agreement - This was thought to be a very good thing and it was expected to have a lot of use.

Registration System on Herald - A request was made by Robert Taylor to have the envelopes with the new student names for registering on Herald delivered in alphabetical order as this would save a lot of time. Sue Brooks replied that this had been an administrative error and would be remedied next year, she apologised for any inconvenience.

College IT Provision - Robin McCleery said that the comments in the report concerning College IT Provision were a simplification of events. Robin saw the role of College IT Support as similar to that of a College Library, and if the College was willing to provide software for out of hours use then it should be encouraged to do so. However, there were also the problems of licensing, and support for the software packages which may become a burden on College IT Support Staff. It was thought that thin client technology may help solve the problem but other solutions or ideas would be useful. Robert Taylor reported that in Queen's College 37% of students have their own machine.

992 COMPUTING SERVICES REPORT

Alex Reid had produced a written report which was placed on-line with the agenda. He went through the statistics from the Computing Services Annual Report and then added further details about some of the other items.

Annual Report - One question was asked regarding the Micro Maintenance scheme and what the quality of service was like from the company used. Alex replied that he had mostly received very good reports on the quality of service and only very few bad ones. OUCS was keen to follow up all cases of poor service, so it was essential to report any be emailing the OUCS maintenance service (or Advisory). Alex also reported that the new annual charge for the Maintenance scheme is expected to be lower.

Backbone Network Replacement - The equipment for the backbone network replacement had been ordered. The transfer of users over to the new network should take about one year.

Charges for Janet - The charge for Oxford's Janet traffic is the largest in the country. Edinburgh University have a cache and their charge is £60k, compared to Oxford's £140k. A cache last year would have saved Oxford £5k per month. JISC has implied that Oxford may not be as responsible as some in controlling traffic by not having a cache, so there are financial and political reasons to have one implemented.

Dave Price was concerned that the Libraries Information Services should not be impacted by any cache restrictions that will be introduced. Alex replied that if the databases are all registered then the cache can ignore them; Alan Gay added that moving the cache to its final resting place would solve the problems encountered so far. Alex assured that any further problems or concerns would be looked into and resolved.

Oxford Firewall - The Firewall had been ordered and would be installed soon, initially it would be an 'open door' until policies are determined.

Email Services - Increasing numbers of students are arriving with Hotmail accounts and OUCS does not support Hotmail. The phenomenon is expected to increase in the future. It is understood that in order to read Hotmail emails it is necessary to connect to a site in the US, this increases the traffic entering Oxford although it is not chargeable because a private line is used.

IT Support Staff Register - The register has been well populated by the web form and it is increasingly being used to ensure that IT Support Staff get the help required and priority access where possible.

Central Software Server - The pilot thin-client software server is now running in public areas of OUCS. It is hoped that this type of setup will solve the problem of providing software to students in College if it can be extended in a straightforward fashion.

IT Support Staff Trainees and Training - No funds were available for the IT trainee or IT support staff training schemes. The IT Support Staff Training programme has been assigned the time of one of the Computing Services training staff (Dr Jane Littlehales) to focus on IT training matters. This will mean that some courses provided by OUCS will be cut down, for example the programming languages. A review will take place after six months and if it works well then a bid will be placed for new funds next year.

993 LIBRARIES REPORT

Everard Robinson and Dave Price had produced a written report that was placed on-line with the agenda. Everard Robinson was unable to attend the meeting but Dave Price added the following points:-

Novell/NT Network - This network has been fraught with difficulty and support from Novell has not been forthcoming. The problem where the server is stopping intermittently may be due to more clients and lack of memory, more memory will be added to see if that solves the problem.

Athens Scheme - The Beilstein CrossFire and EDINA databases under the Athens scheme have been using individual user names instead of group names and this has caused problems. OUCS is named as the administrator for the scheme and so users should be directed to OUCS Registration for support on this.

Tony Brett also mentioned that the file and print services for Netware stops when connecting to the network and the server isn't there. Dave Price replied that the problem is difficult to reproduce as they have an NT site but it is a similar problem to when a server is accessing a site and the server isn't there.

994 AISU REPORT

Bill Platts had produced a report that was placed on-line with the agenda. Bill Platts added the following points:-

Student Records - A feasibility study is currently being carried out on extending the ADMIT system to provide a student database. In November an outline proposal from Charles Wroth will be circulated to the Colleges to gauge interest and get some feedback on requirements.

University Card System - There is a group of interested parties who are currently looking at where the University card system needs to go in the future. There is the possibility of using smart card technology but this would be a huge advance on the current system and the cost may be prohibitive.

There was a discussion about the requirements for a University card system and central student/staff database, the following points were raised:-

• Michael Stevens asked about using the University Card database to set up a security system but Bill Platts thought the Student Record section of the University Offices would provide better data.
• Robin McCleery said that it is difficult at present to find out which students are registered for which course, and Bill replied that timeliness of data is also a problem for the Student Records Section because it is reliant for definitive information on such traditional documentation as, for example, completed Matriculation Forms. Sometime next year the central administration is to look into the possibility of introducing a form of registration procedure in an attempt to break away from these constraints.
• Robin McCleery also asked about a staff database to provide accurate information to departments. A version of the payroll/personnel system, which has been heavily customised with departments in mind, is currently being piloted. However, at present performance and stability problems were being encountered, particularly with the GUI facility, and a number of issues were being followed up with the software supplier. A later stage would involve front-ending this application with the proposed Unique Identifier system.
• John MacAllister asked if there could be an automatic system for replacing University Cards when they expire. This is done where possible for certain major groups/issue anniversaries (for example, the Members of Congregation) and consideration would be given to the possibility of extending the automatic procedure.
• Jonathan Marks said that the ADMIT system had been successful because one person had carefully determined what the Colleges needed and taken action to achieve it. Bill replied that it wasn't that easy; there was a major difference between a relatively simple application with basically common user needs which had been written in-house under AISU control, and a very complex out-sourced package representing a wide spectrum of different - and sometimes opposing - user requirements.

995 REPORTS FROM OTHER COMMITTEES AND GROUPS

995.1 IT Support Staff Group

Jonathan Marks and Pete Biggs had produced a report that was placed on-line with the agenda. Jonathan Marks added the following points:-

Conference - The conference in July was thought by IT Support Staff to be a useful and successful day. A report on the conference will be produced for the web in due course. The theme for the conference was Professional Development. The debate on Professionalism was a difficult subject and needs to be dealt with at University level.

ITSS Training - This was covered in the OUCS report.

Suppliers Exhibition - An IT suppliers exhibition is to be held in the Examination Schools on 7th December. This will be open to IT Support Staff and other members of the University.

995.2 South East Region JANET Users' Group

Bob Wells had produced a report that was placed on-line with the agenda. Bob Wells added the following points:-

Janet Users - There is a large community that are unaware of the charging made during normal hours for transatlantic traffic, is this one of the reasons for the traffic being so high? When a user gets a page that is held in a cache and not from the original site, that user is not aware of where the page comes from so does not know whether it will be charged for.

995.3 South East Region Computer Users' Committee

Peter Grout had produced a report that was placed on-line with the agenda. There were no comments.

995.4 Network Advisory Group

Alan Gay reported that the main item discussed was the backbone network replacement which was covered in minute 212.

996 ANY OTHER BUSINESS

No other business to report.

997 DATES OF NEXT MEETINGS

University IT Users' Group Tuesday 11th January at 14:00 hrs in the Computing Laboratory.

Colleges' IT Group Tuesday 1st February at 14:15 hrs in the Beit Room, Rhodes House.

Jane Brown OUCS

5th November 1999